I am asking because I know people from both sides:
- People who discourage it: usually talk about how the beggars might spend their money on, how they might be lying, How donating to them will encourage them to keep begging and how they should be looking for a job instead (My commentary: finding a job is impossible for them this days, matter of fact there is literally hundreds, if not thousands of articles online talking about how hard and impossible it had become).
- People who encourage it: to be honest here, they usually talk only about religious reasons.
(Note: I know that the overview about both sides are highly unbalanced, but I preferred to keep it limited to my personal experiences rather than expanding it from myself, as I intentionally not looking for theories and objective logic, rather I am looking at people reasons and opinions as this is highly subjective matter.)
Anyone got any thoughts about this?
What world do you live in that a fiver can buy someone a substantive quantity of hard, addictive drugs? You’re being completely disengenious here and asserting more moral policing. The absolute worst case scenario is that they use my fiver to get just enough of a hit to stave off withdrawal symptoms, and even if that’s the only relief I give them, it’s still better than offering more food to someone who isn’t hungry.
The solutions you are suggesting are turning away the addicts, the ones who need help the most. I’ll happily put it directly in their hands over giving it to a church with an ulterior motive to push their religious views onto the most vulnerable class of people, thanks.
Offering food is fine, if they are hungry and they want it. But if they decline food when that is not the type of help they need is not some admission of guilt, as it is so often portrayed to be. Often, they’re rightly skeptical of food from a stranger. Some will accept it to be polite but throw it out for their own safety. It only takes me and ~9 or so other people offering them that fiver to pay for a night’s stay in a cheap motel. Offering supplies if they refuse your food is also great to help them with urban camping, but too many supplies is also a liability where they now need to be concerned about theft. Packing light is just as much a survival tactic.
So yes, let’s be real here and help people with what they need not what you think they need. If that’s relief from withdrawal for a night, so be it. If it’s saving for a motel, even better. But services contingent on passing drug tests is not helping any drug addicts, it’s just putting them back onto the street.
Nobody has ever gotten a home from food and supplies, but they sure as hell do with money.
I never claimed this. The accumulation of multiple fivers from different people can eventually get you drugs. You’re also neglecting cheaper substances like alcohol. Basically the money you accumulate from asking for money will get you alcohol/drugs faster than it will get you shelter.
Where have I inserted my morals here? I do not think people don’t deserve help because they are addicts. I merely acknowledge that they need a different kind of assistance than my pocket change will provide.
What a tangent dude. Everything I offer is always based on what they request. I do not ever give them anything they didn’t ask for. If they got something that’s a burden to them, it’s because they asked for it. I’m not shoving food down their throat or forcing socks on their feet.
Show me the story of the homeless person who accumulated enough fivers to afford rent.
My philosophy only acknowledges my help in passing as what it is: a short term relief for a complicated issue. If they use it for food, it will only last them a few meals at best. The food, however will not harm them. If they use it for socks, they will eventually wear out. Again, the socks will not harm them. If they use it for drugs/alcohol, sure it might give them relief for a while, but it might also just allow their addiction to persist. I just choose not to gamble on the last point by sending my money to nonprofits instead of leaving it up to people who are probably not in the right headspace for responsible decisions. If you want to give them money, fine. But don’t chastise me having conversations with people and need and trying to help them in a way I’m comfortable with.
And that’s fine. A severe drug dependence is a need, not a bad habit. You can’t expect someone to stop a drug they have a physiological dependance on overnight, because you don’t want to ‘enable’ them. Yes, that includes alcohol. Severe alcohol withdrawal can kill someone.
A drug addict chasing a fix without the means becomes a violent threat to society, and themselves. This is not the ‘harm reduction’ you are claiming.
I’m sorry to inform you, but in a capitalist society, a lack of money is how someone ends up on the street, and it’s how they stay on the street. I can agree that in a perfect world there would be better solutions. The fact that people are still homeless in a society only proves that the solutions we have are currently inadequate, and those who slip through the cracks of our systems wont be helped by those systems as they are.
You can choose to help them in this reality they are in, or you can wax philosophical about what their reality should be. That’s up to you, of course
Great. Good for you. The whole start of this conversation was simply to point out that offering exclusively food is not always the most useful way to help. I’m emphasizing this point for anyone who comes along to this thread with that viewpoint.
So this is another disengenous oversimplification. You will take the position that a homeless person can sustain a hard drug addiction from panhandling, yet they would not be able to afford a motel room for the night, or an extended stay, and begin their climb back into society. This is purely a moral judgement on your part.
I wont bother trying to convince you, there is plenty of homeless reporting available online that shows these struggles, you’ve just made up your mind and refuse to look.
I am not responding to all this but I cannot let this slide:
You acknowledge that dependence is a need (which I agree with!) but you think that an addict will magically overcome their addiction when handed the money they could use to sustain the addiction? The justification you’re using for handing them money (i.e. relieving withdrawal) is the same reason I don’t expect an addict to buy a night at the motel over their drugs. The reasons are biological not moral. You must be operating on another definition of moral or something.
You’ve twisted what I’ve said yet again.
You’re starting from the assumption that they’re an addict, because that is your moral judgement of them. Not mine.