Lady begging on the tube

[UsedtobeFeckless]

Please all tell me in shouty capitals how it's a big wrong thing to give to beggers because l'm feeling bad about this.
Sitting on the tube and a lady comes along the carriage asking very quietly and politely for money. Everyone put their heads down and ignored her. I did too. If anyone else had put their hand in their pocket l would have done too but no-one did so l just sat there and l've been beating myself up for it ever since.
What would you have done?

yogawannabe why don't you just give your money straight to the drug dealers? Because that's where it goes, and it's very profitable, and that's why young kids are being sucked into being runners for the dealers, holding weapons for them, being beaten up ,stabbed and shot on the streets by them . Or maybe the homeless person will go and buy cheap imported back street alcohol brought in illegally and liable to kill them. Homeless people are often the victims of cynical criminals exploiting their dependency on drugs and alcohol. Another reason to give to recognised charities which are trying to help, not Using homeless people to line their own criminal pockets.

Gosh, I hope all the people on this thread who won’t give money to ‘gangs’ of ‘foreigners’ run by ‘men’ don’t give any money to amazon, google, Starbucks, apple - billion pound gangs that exploit poor people and drain tax payers’ resources (infrastructure, education etc) without contributing their fair share of taxes

Or is it different when you are thinking about your own convenience/ comfort?

Or is it different when you can actually see the ‘foreigners’, with their ‘fake babies’ And their ‘Roma’ skin?

What do you think you would do in a similar situation to the people begging? These are not chancers who just wont work hard enough. They are people who have been rejected by mainstream society and have very few choices. Nobody begs because they love to be demeaned, ignored, shouted at, pitied.

But if that’s what you need to tell yourself to feel better about it, then go ahead. Just don’t kid yourself that you’re doing it out of superior morality when really it’s your fear and greed and selfishness that means you have to dehumanise the people who share your streets.

FWIW I do not dress well.

Nearly 60 and still go around in jeans trainers and a hoodie.
A couple of times over the years I have sat down on the pavement just to have a rest or to sort through my bag with my dc. (usually have a plastic carrier bag as I have never owned a handbag)

Someone has come up and tucked £5 into my bag/hand or dcs hand.

Tried to give it back but they wouldn’t hear of it. Said I needed it for the children.

Usually gave it to any old guy with a dog sat along from me.

I think I could have been an excellent beggar. People seem to think I look poor.

Roughly dressed and because I am not English I have a certain style of hair that always looks like I have been dragged through a hedge backwards

I wouldn’t give either. Where I live we’ve got quite a large homeless problem, but we also have quite a problem with people begging around our town centre- please note that most of the beggars are not known to use the services of the homeless services in our town.
What has happened though is we are having massive problems with needles discarded around the town centre and the surrounding areas. We live on the through route to the hospital and have seen people shooting up against neighbours cars. There are local businesses to my daughters school, where homeless had started to use as a makeshift home at night, leaving their needles around until they built in a compound and still had to get security there of a night. Beggars ask my daughter who has just turned 11 and her friends if they have any money when they are on their way home from school. I used to give to them before I moved here, but no, not now. I don’t even really offer food now, one of the local cafes let’s you leave the change from a£ so they’ll add it into a hot drinks fund for the homeless, they offer teas and coffees for 70p or so to take away. And there are multiple places that cater to the homeless and needy each night.

I do feel that the homelessness in this country is a crying shame, and the government needs to sort it, people need to be able to ensure that those who are homeless are genuinely able to have their needs met. Maybe a scheme similar to American foodstamps, but for everything a homeless person would need that would work in conjunction to the current services. That way there would be far less chance of those who are addicted being able to sustain an addiction on the street.,

My brother had to be sectioned twice before we could get him clean. He hadn’t shaved for months or washed. You could smell him from 10 feet away. Refused everything. Would rather sleep on the street for his next fix than the newly furnished flat. With people willing to care around the clock care for him.

The problem is two fold. Mental health provisions are crap, addiction provisions are crap.

The system needs an overhaul. The charities themselves can’t help some of these people as they refuse the help. They’re geared up to help people who still have their hands on the fabric of modern society.

People should stop giving these people money which just allows them to continue this cycle.

From my experience the genuine beggars on the streets are there because of mental illness or drug addiction. I’ve only met a rare few who become a drug addicted or develope mental issues after becoming homeless.

A sober, mentally fit person will take the help available and drag themselves out of it.

Don’t get me wrong the help isn’t the best but it is there.

Homelessness is a symptom in the vast majority of cases.

Some might say - well why shouldn’t i give money to this homeless person so they can numb their pain?
That is your prerogative. But remember there are people like me and my family and other people I know trying our hardest to help our family members off drugs and the streets and your money is just compounding the problem.

I bet if you put a tracker on that money you gave them 99 times out of 100 it would go to

A) a drug dealer
B) an off license
C) pack of fags

My brother used to have piles of sandwiches bought for him( I don’t begrudge hot drinks and food, but just to give you a picture). When we got him back he was down to 6stone. He now has bowel and mental problems. He didn’t eat a fraction of what was given to him. He had to be physically fed by us or charity workers.

It’s only when he became a risk to the public and attacked a young child the government were forced to do something about it. He has been to prison several times previously and declared mental ill but we had to push so hard to get anything done.
We had to basically disown him and tell Police and local councilers they were taking full responsibility if he killed a young child and we would tell he papers as such.

Sad to say but if he wasn’t given this money and lashed out more and sooner he may of got help sooner and we could of saved more of the person he was.

Well to the best of my knowledge the money I give to amazon etc doesn’t go to fund drug cartels, whereas the money you give to a beggar most likely does.

And there’s a vast, vast difference between not paying taxes and paying for the upkeep of the drug runners and dealers and essentially funding crime.

Put it this way, if a beggar on the street asked you to go and buy their next hit for them, would you? And if not why not? When you’re perfectly happy to give them the money to do it.

Most women don’t choose to be prostitutes either but we don’t say that it’s ok for men to use prostitutes because otherwise what kind of existence would they have?

If people like the self-righteous on this thread didn’t fund these kinds of gangs then there would be less of them and the genuinely homeless would be taken more seriously.

A sober, mentally fit person will take the help available and drag themselves out of it.

If only that were true for young men from chaotic home backgrounds with little or no support. Care leavers, those whose parents kick them out etc. There is so little help for them it's tragic.

A young woman can 'drag themselves out of it' by getting pregnant. Then the authorities are obliged to house her somewhere and somehow.

Sadly for young men it's not the same and they are largely ignored until they end up in prison or dead. I bet loads of young men would have had stood a fighting chance to be a successful, functioning adult had they had the right sort of support in the early stages of being homeless or the threat of being homeless.

Unfortunately once you are there it's just a slippery slope downwards into hell. If you weren't a drug addict or an alcoholic or mentally ill before you lived on the streets, you probably will be by the time the streets have finished with you.

I don't think we can possibly know the circumstances of every beggar on the tube / streets, but it's probably fair to assume that some of them are part of organised begging gangs and some have genuinely fallen on hard times or be suffering from a mental illness that's led to them living on the streets. Like a PP I have a family member who's addicted to drugs and she funds this through begging. As her family, we've done everything we can to put safeguards around her, but we despair of how to stop her accessing this money as I fully expect this is what will kill her, probably within the next few years.
As a result I don't tend to give money to beggars (interestingly an acquaintance who used to be a rough sleeper also strongly advised against this on the basis that even the "cleanest living" types will struggle to resist the pull of alcohol and drugs on the streets, just to escape the misery). I'll often offer food, but will open the packaging as I hand it to them, as I know it's not uncommon for them to take it back to the shop and get the money.
However, I do die a little inside when I see people putting their heads down and avoiding eye contact. Beggars (of all types) are people too and it costs nothing to make eye contact and say "sorry". I'd rather risk being polite to an organised crime type than risk ignoring someone in genuine dire straits.

Given that we know that government cuts , housing shortages and childhood issues spiralling are a major cause of homeless (in addiction to substance abuse) who do we automatically assume that every homeless person is a drug addict ?

And that every single penny automatically goes direct to a drug dealer

I don’t buy that .

I can imagine that the desolation could
Spiral to drugs and alcohol , easily

But I don’t believe that every single homelsss person is a drug addict

Don’t give if you don’t want to

But stop making people who do give (and it’s sometimes a bottle of water , a tea , a sandwich) a sanctimonious guilt trip

I went to Canterbury a few months ago and then just after Christmas. They have had a homelessness explosion in those few months since my first visit Lots of doorways, or corner of streets not far from the cathedral with makeshift campsites. Really shocking the speed of it. And all in the main streets. I would be interested if anybody in or near Canterbury knows why the homeless problem has suddenly ramped up.

London is a shithole.

Same in Rochester in Kent too
Way more than London
Don’t know why

I saw a minibus dropping off a handful of 'beggars' one morning near the city centre, so no, don't give money but I will donate food and clothes to a local charity that works with homeless in the area.

Huge salaries and plush offices are where those donations are going.

Hahahahaha. Maybe the massive one or two, but I work for a medium sized homelessness charity and our CEO sits in a windowless rom with no heating. We sit nearby in a similar space fighting over the electric fan. Maybe the media would like everyone to think that charities are gold mines but for the majority that simply isn't true.

I wouldn’t. It’s hard sometimes to not feel bad but I used to work in a homelessness shelter, there are always them around and they offer provisions like clothing, showers, food, advice etc. Just ask if they know where to get practical support and signpost them in the right direction.

metro.co.uk/2019/01/28/beggar-500-arrested-city-centre-8401574/?ito=social&fbclid=IwAR0OKmewGUThUjojAppuqncsIaYiHSmx4las7buc0P_OdKm0JcjimXrL9Fc

Contents of that link:

Beggar had £500 on him when he was arrested in city centre

A man who was arrested for begging was found to have a large amount of cash on him when he was searched. Ludovic Gabor, 57, was taken into custody over Christmas where he was found to be carrying £515.87 in cash along with a paper cup and an empty crisp packet. Gabor, who lives in Gorton, east Manchester, was fined £250 with £85 costs after admitting to begging and a breach of a conditional discharge.

He was stopped on Deansgate in Manchester City Centre late last year. Greater Manchester Police used legislation dating back almost 200 years to the Vagrancy Act of 1824 to have him prosecuted.

That piece of legislation, which also makes rough sleeping an offence, is self-described as ‘An Act for the Punishment of idle and disorderly Persons, and Rogues and Vagabonds, in England.’ It has been repealed by Northern Ireland and Scotland but remains in force in England. The wording of the charge makes reference to a defendant having positioned themselves ‘in a public place, street, highway, court or passage, to beg.’ The laws contained in the Vagrancy Act remain controversial, with many calling for it to be scrapped entirely.

Wow, still going! Sorry to dump and run - next time l'll make eye contact and say something. Even if l had got myself unscrambled the only cash l had was very, very small change, a trolley token and my Oyster card, but l should have said sorry - although from all these stories it does sound like she was probably working for someone else.

Charities advise not to give money as it commonly supports drug habits. There was an interview in our local paper with some service users of a homeless shelter, and they said this themselves - what they did day to do was have a conversation, offer a hot drink or a sandwich.

I never give to beggars and don't feel an ounce of guilt or even wonder if I should have. Only on here, do people seem to have such angst over it. Just ignore and get on with your own life.

@KirstyAllsoppsFatterTwin the cashier told the mum posting that the woman had been in on an almost half hourly basis, and was insisting on a receipt for the goods, then returning them.

The term professional beggar is awful. If someone is desperate enough to ask a complete stranger for money I don't really care if they're 'professional' or drug addicts or drunks - what ever - they're still human.

Some are though - it’s what they do - these ones are not homeless or destitute but scamming kind hearted people - not sleeping rough or starving.

i live insomewhere that has a small town centre and something i have observed is that when the weather is dry there are several beggars in town but on a day like today when it was raining there was only one lad begging and local facebook group has confirmed he really is homeless, i try not to give money as i dont usually have much more than my bus fare home on me, but yester day it was freezing cold and i was going to get myself a sausage buttie from the market so went over to him said sorry no change but would you like a hot sandwich he said yes asked him what he wanted bacon with red sauce and he then asked if i had a lighter and he had a lap full of obvious dog ends that he had taken from the tops of the ash trays in town, i dont think this lad is a scammer somehow so i was happy to buy him a butty and give him a proper cig , and the winter shelter here though they do an ace job they make people leave the shelter for the day at 8.30 am, so to me putting them out on the street all day is encouraging them to beg

Sarcelle it's the same in Rochester.