Money or food to beggars ?

Personally I prefer to give food and a hot drink. The gift of being noticed and having a chat often means the world to those frequently ignored by society. Giving money sometimes makes them a victim of robbery by lowlife scumbags.

Cossy

Not sure where the “but” cake from! (Edit button please )

😄

I don't give to beggars in the street anymore but instead donate direct to charities. I used to share my WFA between St Mungo's or Crisis every year plus others.

There was a documentary a few years ago where a journalist went undercover as a homeless man. It was shocking. Many were not homeless, it was a way of getting money for doing nothing. The amount of food they got in a day was too much and they just dumped it.

I never give to beggars, not money nor food and drink. I donate to food banks and charities when I can afford it.

I have been giving food but not money, as I had heard that giving money is not recommended by people who work with the homeless.

After reading this thread I decided to google 'What do homelessness charities say about giving food to beggars?' and 'What do homelessness charities say about giving money to beggars?'

The consensus among homelessness charities seems to be that giving money to beggars is not helpful. This is from a 2017 Financial Times article:

//Thames Reach, which supports homeless people and rough sleepers in London through its Street Rescue service and in hostels, is adamant that people should not give cash to beggars. It cites “overwhelming evidence” that people who beg on the streets in England do so to buy hard drugs, particularly crack cocaine and heroin, and super-strength beers and ciders; it estimates that 80 per cent of people begging do so to support a drug habit.

Thames Reach said its motive for launching a campaign over the issue, Killing With Kindness, was that “we were losing people… from hostels, who begged during the day and would wind up overdosing,” it said.

Of people arrested for begging in 2014, fewer than a fifth were legally defined as homeless. In Belfast, of the 146 people arrested in three months in 2015, 142 had an address. It is not the case, as beggars sometimes claim, that they need money to get into a shelter for the night. Hostels are not “pay for entry”: the funding comes from housing benefit which homelessness charities and agencies, often including the hostel itself, can help to access.//
giving-evidence.com/2017/04/20/homeless/

On the other hand, a majority of homelessness charities seem to be OK with people giving food. One letter from a formerly homeless person in Pavement magazine says it would be better not to.

I think I will continue to offer food (the offer is not always accepted), and to give to homelessness charities such as Centrepoint and the Salvation Army.

I know someone who lives in a council house getting his rent paid and on benefits. During the day he goes to his ‘work’ which consists of sitting outside a shop begging.

I rarely give money as I don't usually carry much cash but before the pandemic I regularly volunteered at the Salvation Army soup kitchen giving out clothes to the homeless. I soon learnt that there were homeless people who were really grateful for the help we offered but others who were simply after a freebie and turned their noses up at some of the clothing offered saying "Do you not have a black one" when offered a Tshirt!
I currently volunteer with the local food bank and again you meet needy people who are grateful for everything you do for them, especially those who receive deliveries, which I help with, as they can't get out to collect things themselves. Some of those who collect their bag themselves can try to grab anything going as there are often things on offer beyond the basic bag of food. All the recipients are needy I'm sure but some are clearly more needy than others, and, as in all walks of life, most are grateful for help though others take everything for granted.
I also volunteered at the winter night shelter for a few years before the pandemic. People end up homeless for all sorts of reasons. To be offered a bed for the night and a hot meal they had to be sober and sometimes a small windfall resulted in someone going on a drinking binge then being turned away!
I sometimes feel guilty for being judgementsl but as Oreo said, you often instinctively know the genuine needy person from the scrounger.

Usually neither.*. I give to Crisis/The Sally Army/St Mungo’s instead.

*Exception is when out with Gdcs - they always want to give money to anyone apparently homeless. So as long as I’ve got some £1 or £2 coins, they can.

I used often to give money to people on the street - until finding out that a bloke who’d had a pitch outside M&S with his dog for years, to whom I’d regularly given, was reported by a local paper to have his own flat - owned, not rented! - and had a healthy stash in the bank.

Not to mention that on a cold night in central London, a dd once bought a Big Mac for someone with a ‘homeless and hungry’ placard. He told her to fuck off, he wanted money.

JenniferEccles

It’s certainly true that a lot of the ‘homeless’ are running an extremely lucrative business by pretending to be homeless and begging in tourist towns.

They have somewhere to live but they pitch up in the morning, find a prime spot to sit ( with the ubiquitous dog) and then at the end of the day, taxis take them back to their accommodation, complete with their loot.

A few years ago I read an article in our paper written by a journalist who visited a number of tourist towns, and discovered that all is not as it appears with these beggars.

We have a band of four ‘working the area’ in the square below us. One sits outside Sainsbury’s with a dog on a tatty blanket, another outside Costa, the third has his pitch outside an estate agents office and the fourth sits outside Greggs.

Their most lucrative time is around 3pm. Schools are out and young teenage girls with kind hearts stop, chat a minute or two and drop money into the empty paper coffee cup which is always placed front and centre.

Hmm.

I watched one day as one of them left their pitch, crossed by where I was standing and accessed a flat above a bank (we still have two open here) via the fire escape at the back. He was carrying two Sainsbury’s bags full of shopping. Once seen never forgotten and now, since I’m aware of it, I’ve seen all four of them coming and going into that flat. I think their ‘business’ is pretty lucrative. Not a bad return for sitting on a pavement for a few hours now and again.

Do I give?
Do I look daft?

Walking down the Main Street in Torquay one day, there was a girl begging , sat on the pavement by the shop window. As we stopped to let someone go in the shop she said to a man walking past “how are the others doing” and he replies “ about the same “ ! It was summertime and Torquay was busy, so I guess it was a nice little earner!!

Homeless charities advise not to give them anything as they have access to places to go they do in the towns that I live and visit. I’ve been taken in several years ago by a couple who I’ve seen who have been sitting down one with dog the other further into the town no dog been given money and both have got up took ragged clothes off underneath very smartly dressed rogues and walked off collecting their money as they go. Obv not all are like this but I’m always wary now.

We donate to charity for the homeless now.
We gave a coffee and sandwich to someone in the Midlands and they got abusive shouting and being aggressive saying they wanted money.

On holiday in the canaries is a man with a deformed leg. The locals say he is the richest man on the island. We can believe that as we saw him getting in to a top of the range mercedes and driving himself.

LovelyLady

Oh this eats into my heart when I see anyone begging. It could be any of us or even ourselves. If I was sleeping out in a cold and in uncomfortable place, drink or drugs may be my way of coping. I don’t take the high moral code. These are someone’s children. Not one of them wanted ‘beggar’ as their career path. Over the years, I’ve given food and money. I now give money whatever I have. Let them spend it on whatever their need happens to be.
Please help then.

You are indeed a Lovely Lady …..
I agree, it could be anyone of us. Give and let them spend however they wish on what ever they wish.
Not everyone begging do it as an occupation- some are genuinely unfortunate

My husband an ex police officer tells me not to give to people begging in the street as quite a lot aren’t actually homeless, he’s arrested a few to know they may not be what they seem. So we donate to Social Bite a charity that helps feed the genuine homeless people and help them get back on the feet. All my AC also buy a Christmas dinner and gift through their fundraising option, that way we’re giving back some of our own good fortune.

Having read all the answers, I think I will just increase the direct debit I pay to the Trussell Trust and to Magic Breakfast. We also donate to Crisis at Christmas in December. I also donate monthly to the Biscuit Fund which pays a one off sum to someone who needs a one off amount of emergency money to pay for an energy bill, or washing machine repair or something else unexpected which is beyond their means and their name has been put forward by a professional. It's a very underpublicised charity.
So no cash to people in the street, but money to charities. It has been sad reading about purses stolen, sandwiches stamped on and Big Macs thrown away.

Food.

Cateq

My husband an ex police officer tells me not to give to people begging in the street as quite a lot aren’t actually homeless, he’s arrested a few to know they may not be what they seem. So we donate to Social Bite a charity that helps feed the genuine homeless people and help them get back on the feet. All my AC also buy a Christmas dinner and gift through their fundraising option, that way we’re giving back some of our own good fortune.

Sensible and caring.

Well I don't give anything now. Feel I was totally conned as young woman begging outside Asda in the winter. I asked if she had sleeping bag, blanket, hat, gloves etc and she said no. I said I will go home and bring mine for you but will take me a good 30 mins to get back. Made the time very clear to her and promised her I would be back with said goods. So off home and sorted all of the above out and got back to Asda and she was gone! Just felt a fool to be honest that I had driven home, sorted this lot out, driven back and nowhere to be seen.

I rarely give money as rarely carry cash now. There have been some beggars on the pavement in my nearest small town where I go to shop. I notice them on my way in and buy a coffee and sandwich to give them on the way back. I usually say I don’t have any money on me but thought you might like this. It’s always been gratefully received and nobody has ever been abusive

Neither, I m afraid and no they don’t eat at my heart strings There are rooms and flats for them but many don’t want to follow the rules that go along with a place to sleep and some actually have homes already and no I don’t spend my money on drink and drugs so why should someone else spend it for me
There’s one chap here who steals bikes daily and leaves them anywhere and asks for money and swears at you if you don’t give him any
I have a big heart for anyone really in trouble but not so many are

Where I live in Sussex if the street people want something to eat they just go into Greggs or the Co-op and steal what they fancy regularly plus some help them selves to a bottle of something to wash it down. Not all but it’s very common even with security always on the door of most food shops. It’s rife and very sad but also very blatant and annoying as this is what they expect. If you do ask if anything is needed it’s usually a £10 phone card !!

Social Bite is a charity I have never heard of before. Looks as though it is mainly operating in Scotland, but there is a shop in London.

In the 1960s I went to secondary school in Manchester but prior to that had barely ever been anywhere but my small town. Beggars were everywhere but in those days fewer of them and most appeared to be genuine. My boyfriend also went to school in the city and made the effort to "befriend" some of them, and all were genuinely in need. But in the 60 years since then I've become a lot wiser and have seen ALL of the situations that others mention here that shows that many or even most (though not all) today's beggars are now nothing of the kind. Trouble is you cannot tell, and if you have a kind heart then by all means try buying them food but be prepared for them not to want it.

I've seen many beggars with the "sick" dog in need of vetinary treatment who has later been seen running after a ball in the park, as fit as a flea, and once a beggar who, at the end of the day, I saw wheeling a trolley around Waitrose full of ready meals and booze.

So as many have said, donate to homeless charities, help at a soup kitchen, or whatever you can do.

There is a friendly and polite young man selling Big Issue out side one of the local supermarkets. I would rather buy the magazine than give anything to someone sleeping in a shop doorway