To think the cafe staff should have given the money to this homeless man?

That's a good analogy

The doner could have given the homeless man the money if he wanted him to have cash. He didn't, he gave it to the cafe. So it would be wrong for the cafe to have given him the change. It wasn't either of their money to choose what to do with. It has been donated for a particular purpose. Maybe you disagree with that way of donating, in which case your argument is with the doner not the cafe, but they were right to do as requested with it.

You sound quite naive OP.

If he’d just have spent the money on other items that weren’t drink or drugs. presumably the kind benefactor wouldn’t have felt the need to issue the cash and an instruction to the cafe.

No good deed goes unpunished right enough, people have done a good thing here and you still have to pull up your judgy pants that it wasn’t good enough

If you remove the word “homeless” from the scenario, it may be clearer to see the financial transaction (between the first man and the cafe) is completely separate from the exchange of goods (between the cafe and the second man).

If a person bought a £20 gift card for me, from John Lewis, I would then have £20 credit to spend in John Lewis. I would not be able to spend £13 and then ask for the £7 change so I could spend it in Marks & Spencer.
The purchaser has already given the £20 to John Lewis, the £20 belongs to John Lewis, not me. They do not owe me any money but they do owe me £20 worth of goods or services of my choosing within the store’s terms and conditions.
I can use that gift card amount in one transaction or I can split it over multiple transactions.

Going back to the scenario in the cafe, the first man bought a £20 cafe tab (store credit) for the second man.
The cafe is honouring that.

You weren't the donor though. And you have no idea what the donor would have wanted. Apart from not to give the man actual cash, obviously.

How much cash did you give the person btw?

I don't know. If the bloke who donated the money wanted the man to have it he would be just bought him a sandwich and handed him the change? Or just gave him a twenty.

I guess the shop are being annoyed by his antics as if he's a crack head he might be really annoying, or he might be putting other customers off.

Next time just give this bloke some money yourself.

Why couldn’t you just trust that the cafe staff understand the situation of this man and are acting in his best interests? Why do you think as a casual observer who doesn’t deal with this man on a regular basis that you’d know better?

My partner works in this area and he would never advise giving money, always food and warm drinks.

But you aren't the donor. You are making the assumption that the donor would want the homeless man to have the change. You don't know if this is a regular thing and the staff know what the donor wants. You should really just mind your own business. Or give the guy some cash.

This is exactly what happens in our town. Half of the people who are homeless have a room is a hostel, or so,times even a house but choose to sleep rough to be close to the dealer. The other half have homes but earn good money from begging. I worked in town for many years and some of my customers were from the council’s homeless team. They really opened my eyes to the complexities of homelessness in the uk.

So, if the donor often brings £20 into the cafe to feed this homeless man, why doesn't he just give the money directly to the man? It's highly likely the donor knows the homeless man's back story and knows what he would spend the surplus cash on if he were given it. YABU OP. It's clear, judging by the cafe worker's response, that this isn't the first time this has happened and I think you need to accept that you don't know the full circumstances.

The guy giving the £20 didn’t give it directly to the homeless man for a reason. They are obviously familiar with him and have that arrangement for a reason. It probably isn't drugs but very likely he would just buy alcohol and not eat any food. Presumably at the cafe he gets hot food with some nutritional value and some left for tomorrow.

Then you donate £20 to the cafe and stipulate he can have the change.

Or give him £20 directly.

That's your choice.

The benefactor made his choice.

In that case then the donor would’ve given the money directly to the homeless man. There’s a reason he gave it to the cafe. The donor and the cafe staff obviously have an understanding between them about how this should be used, and it’s none of your business.

Omg you know what the member of staff no doubt has to deal with this lunacy every day on minimum wage with no training having NOT volunteered for working with mentally unwell local homeless people while people like you who DON’T have to do this sit there judging how well they handle it. You go in there once and cast judgement when you have no understanding of the situation.

I used to have this situation - a woman would come in, go round table to table in the place, tears in her eyes. We’d ask her to leave and she’d cry ohhh how evil the staff are at this cruuuuel establishment. And the patrons would gasp and say ooh that wasn’t very generous, how would it have hurt you to let her go round collecting some money?

welll a) actually yes, it is damaging to a hospitality business as it makes customers uncomfortable and stops them wanting to come back and considering the margins are tiny, to avoid becoming homeless themselves, hospitality owners need to, you know, try to keep customers?

B) it makes people feel uncomfortable and if she was a man people wouldn’t have felt so much sympathy!

but most importantly c) she wasn’t homeless, or poverty stricken, she was a hideous con artist who went venue to venue all over the county with her pitiful girlfriend driving her round in their brand new bmw with their incredibly expensive tiny dog (you know, the car and dog she bought by being a drug dealer and con artist). And she was a nasty piece of work who we were sick and tired of coming in, conning our customers, trying to take the place over as a dealing spot, and just generally smirking at us when customers would tel us WE were the heartless bastards.

and so yes, you are unreasonable because you have no idea of the back story.

the man who leaves the money is the one with the issue frankly because he’s putting the responsibility on wait staff instead of going to the shop and buying food for the guy himself. And there’s every chance the reason they say no is that if they give him money he goes straight next door, buys vodka and comes back later aggressive and drunk.

are all homeless people aggressive drunken addicts? No. But there is by the very nature of it a higher percentage of these problems when people are homeless so it isn’t unreasonable to float them as a possible reason this staff memeber refused him the money.

here are other possible reasons:
he used to come in and kick off demanding food and this guy said he would pay 20quid a week for food. If they give him the change, he then doesn’t have any money left for food in the establishment for the rest of the week but he still comes in demanding food. So who pays for the food? The staff? The owner? Is that their job?

he has in the past asked they don’t give him the change because he will spend it unwisely - he’s in need of a fix of whatever so he’s asking for it but she’s sticking to his original wishes.

the man who gave the money said it’s just for food (because he, for his own right or wrong reasons, doesn’t want to give money if he doesn’t know what it’s being spent on) and the staff member is respecting his wishes.

Or the staff think homeless people are all drunken drug addicts and doesn’t want to give him change - this is a bias they hold. And while not all homeless people are this way, and not all not homeless people are not this way, THIS guy is clearly aggressive yet they still show care for him. and for some reason you’ve decided THEY are in the wrong???

you are so unreasonable.

This ^. Also, the cafe was being very reasonable as they had also told him that he could come back the next day and buy food/drink to the value of the money that was left over. If he starts threatening/intimidating the staff, the staff should just terminate the arrangement.

There is a small group of homeless people that hang around begging outside the local shops a few hundreds yards from where I live. Most of them are relatively harmless, but there's the occasional drunken / drug-induced outburst from one of them. They are banned from going into the shops due to shoplifting offences. One of them died in an alley next to the COOP a couple of years ago from a drug overdose. Someone probably gave them a few pounds that paid for those drugs (maybe as little as the £7 change mentioned by OP). I would not want that on my conscience & no doubt the donor / cafe don't either.

Nope.

But if you lived in an area with a high level of homelessness then, unless you are being deliberately obtuse, you wouldn't be asking this question.

YABU. The donor did not give the man £20. He gave the cafe £20 to provide food/drink for the man. Therefore the money belonged to the cafe.

The cafe told the man that he knew it was for food, so it has likely happened before.

If the donor wanted the man to have £20 he would have handed it to him direct, which he did not do.

It’s not a leap at all. The man who came in with the £20 clearly knows who this man is, and knows it is unwise to give him £20. The man may even know him personally - it could be a brother or uncle and this could be a long standing arrangement with the cafe - e.g. he brings down £20 a week so at least he knows the homeless guy is getting a semi decent meal a few times a week.

Nobody would treat someone else like that unless it was the only option. It’s clearly a long-standing relationship with the cafe because the server knew what to do, and how to handle his temper - the shouting and yelling wasn’t the first time it had happened. If he’s sitting outside a cafe begging the chances are he doesn’t want the money so he can go to Lidl to stock up on pasta and toilet roll.

You’re looking at this through the lens of privilege. Sometimes people have to do things they don’t want to do to protect themselves and others. If there was a better option they’d likely have done it by now.

@Eastie77Returns "To the posters who keep repeating I’m naive..I’m really not. I grew up in East London and have seen a lot of homelessness, poverty etc."

I'm sure you have seen a lot of homelessness but that's not the same as living it and/or understanding the complex issues around it. Some of us on this thread have worked with the homeless and we can absolutely assure you that giving cash is considered very unwise. The change did not belong to the homeless man, it was intended to buy food. He was told he could have the remaining value in food tomorrow. If the donor had wanted him to have £20 cash, he would've simply given him a £20 note wouldn't he?

Most long term homeless people are there because of mental illness or addiction i.e. alcohol/drugs. The guy didn't give the money directly to the homeless man for this reason, choosing to provide food/drink only. The credit is still there to be taken another time.

Clearly they are aware of information you’re not privy to. Or, as a lot of us say, we’re happy to buy food and necessities for someone begging, but not give them cash. The problem is, we don’t know if the money we give will go on alcohol or drugs, so we would be enabling an addiction if we give money. I go past a Greggs on my way into the office once a month, and I buy the guy begging outside, a sausage roll and coffee. He seems grateful, but tbh if he asked for cash, it would be a straight decline.

You could have given him cash to spend in Lidl then. 🙄

It’s IRRELEVANT!!!

bangs head against wall.

the £20 was given FOR CAFE FOOD ONLY. That was the original owner of the £20s decision.

Absolutely this 👆