How do you honestly react to homeless people on the street?

[MrsBrentford]

I watched a documentary, can’t remember which, about homeless people and how they feel totally invisible, and inhuman and that made me feel shit.

Thought about my own behaviour and how I occasionally give money or food but more often than not I hurry past and avoid eye contact.

So this year I have decided to make eye contact, smile and say hello to every homeless person I see in town (and there seem to be an increasing amount in my town ).

Is anyone else guilty of this?

@Queenofheartsnomore 'Also many homeless people don't bed down outside a shop, they find somewhere with shelter, in stairs some have tents in parks'

This isn't true for where I live. I get into town for about 5:30am and they are anywhere and every where they can rest. I've never seen a tent just sleeping bags and piles of filthy blankets/sheets. I often see quite a few all join up together so can all keep each other warm. You can't do that in a tent or on stairs.

@lostsoulsunited Buying The Big Issue would have been so much more help to her. There is only so many coffees someone can drink throughout the day.

I don't give money. When I go up to London I see a few but not that many.

In our small town there is only one, who had been offered everything, but unfortunately keeps returning. People tried again. And again. But to no avail. It's really hard.

unfortunately there are many that do drugs and drink and so it isn't great to give big sums of money.

If I was street homeless, I'd need to get wrecked to cope with it.

There are at least 6 street homeless in my small town, probably more. And there are two people living in tents in an old chalk pit up on the downs near my house.

I used to give them a card for the project I used to work for, which was homelessness relief/prevention. The project managed to get several people housed after I'd done this.

Due to cuts, the project can no longer take direct referrals, only cases that come via social services or the council's housing department. As street homeless don't tend to engage with those services, that avenue of help is closed to them. I give money instead.

It breaks my heart to see so many people sleeping rough these days. Cuts in mental health and addiction services have made it much worse imo. There aren't the early intervention services doing crisis prevention work any more. People go into crisis and end up homeless as a result.

I generally do look and smile and decline to give money. I'd give food or buy the Big Issue but feel it's more useful to donate money to homelessness charities.

I'm horrified by the explosion in UK homelessness during the last decade. I've lived in big cities in other western European countries too. In some there's no obvious street sleeping and in others it seems to be reducing over time.

The smartest homeless guy I met was in New York, explaining the subway map to tourists.

Best line ever

‘You don’t need to be nervous of me, be afraid of Donald Trump but not me!’

He gave advice to the tourists and explained they didn’t have to tip him but anything was appreciated if they wanted to as he was homeless.

I try and save up my change to give to one homeless person every now and then but I’m in London so it’s a drop in the ocean.

Have any of you thought about giving books? I've given quite a few books out and the people who've accepted them were very happy to have something to read, it was surprising.

There was a lovely homeless man outside the supermarket yesterday.
He asked if we had any change. I had no cash, paid for shopping on card. I apologised and explained this. He accepted this and said have a lovely day.
As we put the shopping in the car, dd(6) spotted a multi pack of fizzy cans. She asked if she could take one for the man.
(About 20 yards away, full view)
She took him one, he was grateful. She then went back with a huge banana and some chocolate biscuits. And the quid from the trolley. She chatted to him. He is saving his pennies to buy a house.
I was happy for her to chat to him. (I did chat too, then sorted the shopping)
I read on somewhere, possibly here?, that every person has a story to tell. If you have the time to ask them...

I find it almost poor behaviour that I would smile at someone so less fortunate, almost like pitying

I agree. I’ll respond if spoken to. There’s a couple on my route I help out when I can, but to smile at every one I pass would be weird.

impossible to tell who is genuine
If your best option for getting money is sitting on the street in the pissing rain asking complete strangers for money, your life has gone wrong somewhere.

As someone said, it's difficult to know who is genuinely homeless and who is part of a gang. It's much better to give money to a charity that helps, eg I used to sponsor a room at Centrepoint.

We had a guy in our town who sold Big Issue. I always thought he was a scammer and it turned out that he was. Not sure how he got hold of the magazines if he wasn't genuine. Anyway the council finally sorted it out and we don't see him anymore. He was around for about a decade!

If your best option for getting money is sitting on the street in the pissing rain asking complete strangers for money, your life has gone wrong somewhere

True but I don't want to give people money that will end up with gangmasters. This may be less of an issue outside London.

Mostly when I pass them they are asleep still. (And for my short route - 20min through city centre - walk there's a lot of people.) When I return (same route) no one's there.

Otherwise it's a mixture: if they are begging I might either say "no sorry" or just walk past. If not begging and they make eye contact I'll nod and smile.

I don’t tend to give money nowadays (I support charities instead, and know it can be unhelpful to give cash) but do make eye contact and say hello.

I often buy them a hot drink, always well received.

I smile and say sorry, good luck. It isn't difficult to acknowledge another human being ffs.

I don’t think there are gangs here (not a big city).

I think they are genuinely homeless.

It makes me sad that in 2020 when we fund raise for overseas causes we still have people living on our streets.

I had a homeless person approach me for money for food. I offered to take them to get a food voucher & then to the food bank

If they are genuine and hungry they will accept but sadly if not they won’t as they want the money for drugs and they want your money to pay for drugs

So I buy food in supermarket to put in food banks and offer help but not money

Homeless people don’t tend to use food banks, what with not having a kitchen, or anywhere to get a voucher from.

Mrs Brentford food banks have food that don’t need to be cooked

At the moment I do nothing. Although I do still (20 years and counting) volunteer / work in a food bank and community charity.

But at the moment we have an issue with the fakers. One woman has just had her second or third geographical ban - begs in one town, lives in nearby city, house, car, kids etc. Another male has been removed from the county, I think! Caught out a few times, ASBOd and made threats to people who recognised him.

Police warned they may have been the visible part of a much larger problem. So I no longer do anything as an individual!

Ours doesn’t.

There are various places you can get vouchers

I would never give money because if you get your purse out, they see where you've put it and you could get robbed round the next corner. Sad, but true.

I do smile and speak but never give money, I have bought a pouch of dog food for their dogs or a sandwich for them, never money as most are addicts. There's sufficient housing in this city for everyone and short term hostel places that take dogs as a stop gap (I'm involved in the project) so I strongly doubt any of them are actually homeless, they are begging for drink and drug money - the project coordinator gets cross because they refuse help including rehab then the local media claim that there's so many on the streets when we know everyone has been offered accommodation.

Strange, but I guess it depends what is donated