Tired of the performative beggars and alcoholics this time of year

Full o the Christmas spirit 🎅

It's probably because the prisons are full. Lots of homeless addicts get put in prison for the winter. They offend so that they will be warm, fed and given a detox so they don't have to suffer the winter on the streets.

It's horrific that as a society, vulnerable people are in this situation. And worth remembering, that these people were most likely the children getting the donations of a Christmas gift from charity. Because they were being neglected and abused as small children.

You'd have been the poster on the posts about the neglected, abused child..saying you were being kept awake after reading about it.

Yeah I can’t say but we have an active Salvation Army and so it becomes very unusual to see anyone homeless so they stick out like a sore thumb. They’ll be on the local Facebook pages. Some have proven to be be scammers and then they’ll be loads of posts about how people helped and now feel angry. Anyone genuine is helped quickly. It’s something they are very proud about. There was once a couple who blocked a doorway for months until being moved on but they were known to be begging in multiple places. Another man refused help, my friend literally tried to help him as she worked for the council but he didn’t want to be housed!

Nobody is making a quick buck because they are homeless. Nobody wants this life. And the back stories of most homeless people is desperate

A huge number are ex forces and care leavers.

And the social services net to help people like this has been cut to ribbons.

A section 21 notice can be served, and people made homeless. Look up how many people who present as homeless to their LA would be entitled to help. They have to be vulnerable. And that’s a very very narrow definition. In any decent society any one homeless is vulnerable 🤷‍♀️

There by the grace of god....

Addiction is an illness, You can argue that people shouldn't take things but you don't imagine anyone sets out to be an addict do you.

It's not nice at any time of year, this time is especially shitty. Just count your blessings that you are who you are and don't have to experience the effects first hand.

So you are just perpetuating the problem, aren't you? If you are concerned with homlessness or addiction it's not like there is a shortage of charities to donate to.

And people are quite at liberty to tell him no. It is not hard. Though I find this hard to believe.

I see this in my local town. There is a bed available and local services have engaged with them (according to the local councillor anyway) but they can't meet the criteria of no drugs / abusive behaviour.

We also have a big issue seller who has been doing the job for 10 years. She's really friendly so I often stop for a chat. I don't donate as it's clearly gangs but that's not her fault. She clearly isn't making this choice freely and is dropped off daily in the BMW with tinted windows.

It's such a complicated thing dealing with the homeless as so much is going on at once.

"Who do not resort to this"?

Lucky you that your life hasn't become so unbearable you've ended up in the grip of addiction...

By the way, the problem is exacerbated by your cruel attitude. It's the reason we had 14 years of austerity which left people entirely abandoned at times of crisis.

How do you like it when the consequences of that turn up at your doorstep? Oh, right, not very much. Interesting

We have a huge problem in London. I used to work in central London and I used to arrive to work really early and you would see them arriving all together in a car in the morning, they would have a meeting, get their cardboard signs out (which were all the same and all had the words (god bless) written on them too. Each had a phone and they would go to work. It’s very well calculated and they would really hassle you for money.

i once had someone ask me for cash and i said no (we were in a food court eating and she came over) and she said how can I say I have no spare change when I have fed my children and that I should pay her. The audacity

Don't know about you, but I genuinely miss the blind guy who used to play the violin outside Debenhams in Oxford Street in the early 1990s.

Oh dear, your 'goodwill toward men' feature appears to be malfunctioning. Such a shame these nasty homeless drug addicts and alcoholics are spoiling your view of the Christmas lights. Chuck another log on the fire and try to put it all to the back of your mind.

There’s a guy that stands in our post office sorry asking for you to transfer 20 quid (!) to his online banking on his iPhone….

Me neither. I'm just cowardly reading how others respond.

Personally speaking though I do give change if I have it. Unfortunately though it's probably gone towards funding their drug habit.

Almost lost for words... What are you doing to meaningfully contribute to positive change in your community OP? Homelessness, deprivation and substance misuse are sadly rife everywhere. It's no good complaining about it. Take action. Understand people's challenges. Be a voice for change.
If housing options and support is poor, shout about it. Write to Andy Burnham. Add your voice positively for change. Be aware of the charity needs in your area. Press the P&CC office for meaningful support to drug and alcohol initiatives.
People have disfunctional lives have probably lived in cycles of poverty and deprivation unimaginable to many.
People can overcome enormous challenges but only with appropriate support and that is not simply the job of others. We all need to play a part. It takes vast effort.

I work in housing, we have stock in large cities in England. At this time of year we get daily reports from police of our tenants being arrested after aggressive begging has resulted in them being stopper, searched, and found in possession of drugs. See also fighting with other "homeless" people for begging on their "patch". This can be a breach of their tenancy agreement if within the "locality" of their social housing property..

Whilst there is a disgustingly huge number of homeless people in this country, there sadly is a subset of people as OP describes who uses this time of year to make money from Christmas shoppers and that money goes on drugs and alcohol.

Our tenants like this, often refuse the offers of help and intervention.

So, this isn't a clear cut issue. There are, sadly, many really decent homeless people, there are nasty/aggressive homeless people, and there are adequately housed people who pretend to be homeless and beg with their pet dog to feed a habit.

Check your cliche

I think those of you against the OP perhaps have different beggars than some places.

When I arrived in Brighton 40 years ago I was homeless. I found a squat with others and moved in their. I had a job. As did most of the others living there, we just couldn't afford rent. A new girl turned up one weekend and suggested we begged, we all said no we had jobs thanks so she was in her own. After a couple of weeks she got bored with the life and said she was going home. I said I would drive her. She lived on Dyke Road, you won't get change from about 5 million these days. She had a row with her parents and ran away ( about two miles ) she made over £200 a day begging in the eighties and thought we were Muppets for working for £60 a week.

Brighton is full of aggressive street sleepers, I now work with one of the charities weekly and we say not to give them handouts, food hot drinks oet food, great but not money.

This is the point of MN questions. They are put there to solicit a reaction.

How do you know that they all have flats?

If your town has no one who is genuinely homeless, it’s unique in the UK.

Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Some homeless people became homeless as a result of addiction or alcoholism. Some homeless people become alcoholics or drug addicts because it’s a way to numb their pain. I think very few alcoholics or drug addicts are begging in the streets during the day and going back to their nice homes at night.

The massive decline in cash usage means that begging can hardly raise much anyway. People don’t have any spare change to give away without noticing an impact — they’d have to draw cash from a cash machine and that suddenly feels a lot more intentional. I have done it, but can’t afford to give £10 to every beggar I see, so must either choose who I help or decide to give to a homeless charity— who, again, probably can’t help everyone—and not help any individual beggars at all.

Yep, Brighton is similar. Walk out of the station into hoards of druggies and alchos all asking for money and getting abusive if you don’t oblige. Tents put up, queues outside the tent of people buying drugs. It’s horrible.

Help comes with conditions (reasonably so, like no drinking in the shelter and no turning up to the shelter blind drunk and aggressive) and many homeless addicts cannot meet these conditions. In Germany in some areas they provide secure, individual sleeping pods for rough sleepers that can't access shelters. Can't see that happening here and, given the current housing crisis, I worry that, if it did, it would start to be seen as "suitable provision".

Exactly! The guy outside John Lewis, he’s been selling the big issue for YEARS! The guy who sat in Buchanan Street, draped in a Celtic flag and a tricolour, jailed for attempted rape of a woman who stopped to talk to
him….the Roma guy, again in Buchanan Street, sitting shivering with bare feet because he had no socks and shoes, caught by a newspaper, sneaking up a side street where his girlfriend was waiting with his socks and shoes. Now we have them with cardboard signs hoping to raise £16 for a bed in a hostel for the night! Of course there are genuine homeless, but it’s naive to
believe they all are. I understand what you mean OP. I give to a homeless centre in Glasgow (Midland Street, if anyone cares to help) where there is lots of help available to
street homeless.

This thread is incredibly uniformed and callous. I work in child protection. The lives some of these addicts and alcoholics will have had are really beyond comprehension. I won’t share details here because frankly it’s deeply upsetting. The cruelty they may have suffered depriving them of the normal lives most of us take for granted literally change the way your brain is wired. The odds are heavily stacked of ever living a normal life. If not just a moral obligation of a decent society it’s cheaper to treat addiction than throw people in prison.

Try a little compassion. It is Christmas. If there are people ‘grifting’ it’s a pretty poor grift. It’s easier and more profitable just to commit crimes. I can’t imagine it’s by any means a majority. Give to a reputable charity if unsure.