When someone steals food…

[Millymollymaisy]

Just still thinking of my visit this morning to a well known coffee shop in the town, where I noticed one of the workers blocking the door and having quite a stand off with what appeared to be a homeless man.

The situation was becoming quite hostile with the worker demanding he empty the bag ( that’s when I noticed he has a shopping bag in his hand ) myself and the rest of the shop continued to watch the exchange when it became apparent he had walked in and stole some type of sanwhich roll. Just one roll.

My gut instinct was to jump up and offer to buy this man the food, but I had forgot my purse at home ( coffee date had paid ) so I looked around and noticed while everyone was happy to watch nobody had had the same thought as me .

I am not saying stealing is okay I just feel if someone needs to walk in and steal one piece of food there is a high chance they are hungry and cannot afford to eat. The whole way this man was dealt with over a sandwhich just makes me feel when did we forget about humanity? About trying to understand someone’s actions even if we don’t agree .

It just made me feel sad. I can pretty much be sure he was a homeless man by his appearance/ dress and so on but even if he had a home he was hungry.

when did we get okay with being okay with degrading and humiliating a person in a lesser fortunate situation than us ? I just wished I could have got up and paid for the food.

I guess I’m a person that always thinks about the story behind someone’s actions.Nobody would choose to be in this man’s situation. I often wonder what happened to them and that’s where my compassion comes in.

You are a person who hasn't been repeated victim of these. Hence your "story behind it" will be some romanticised version of poor poor vixtkm of something which led them here.
Get robbed by them few times causing skgnificant damages and the tune willchange. They don't care.

So much clmpasaion you did. Nothing. .. Performative compassion

Our local drug addicts, who look homeless, walk into our local mini supermarket and help themselves to stuff every single day. If they wandered into your kitchen and did that, you might have more sympathy for the the cafe.

I’m curious as to why you thought nobody had the same idea as you? I would have thought others did but like you had a reason they didn’t offer.

Surely you don’t think you were the best person there?

Theft is theft.
There are options available to the homeless that do not include theft.
In my town we have career beggers and homeless people that have been housed multiple times. (I know this as my mother used to be involved in trying to help, she gave up as do many others)
I don't engage any more and avoid the end of town where they gather.
I'm fed up of the hand wringing.
Theft should have consequences.

Yes, that's what I'm thinking.

I've worked retail and we would never have gotten into an door blocking type altercation, it's not worth the personal risk. Just let them go.

I find it very difficult to care when homeless/people living in poverty steal from chains. Particularly chains who are profiteering (£4.30 for fondant fancies anyone?) and being shady with taxes. If I see someone stealing from Tesco, I didn't.

I work with homeless people and their support has been cut and cut and cut. Make provision better to make the situation better 🤷🏼‍♀️

I don't know what is meant by "profiteering"? Surely capitalism is based on making a profit. If people pay that for a coffee, it's their choice. Maybe it won't hurt a big chain to have a small amount of theft, but that's really not the point because where do you draw the parameters? Jeff Bezos is a squillionaire, so can I steal from Amazon?
I have sympathy for those in need and I hate the way society has gone. But if the OP didn't offer to pay and no-one else did, then it's theft.

Absolutely this

This thread has given me a very distasteful mental image of middle-class women sitting at home eating croissants and coffee while the other half takes the labradoodle for a walk, tapping away on their smartphone, piously casting judgement and claiming to be morally superior to a man reduced to stealing a sandwich from a coffee shop.

If you had no home and no hope and nothing but judgement cast upon you by society, you’d be on drugs and stealing sandwiches pdq.

I was in your situation last year, the thief crossed the road and sat on the pavement had a couple of bites … then threw the sandwich to the birds who all flocked around….

You have no idea of the personal circumstances of anyone posting on here..

Maybe he didn’t like it?

I didn’t say I did.

I’m saying the mental image I’m getting.

You seem touchy? If the cap fit, wear it.

If not… scroll on!

Oh dear. There's really no need to get personal or say "scroll on". I'm not being "touchy", I just don't like sweeping judgements about posters. Seems to be some stereotyping going on.
It's good to have a discussion, don't get personal....

So, OP, what do you think should have happened?

Why is middle class used as an insult?

Also. No

I think the Good Samaritan approach is right in principle - but only if you can and are willing to pay for the item instead

people saying shops and workers should turn a blind eye are being naive. In a busy town or city this could be happening multiple times per day, and once they turn a blind eye the person will return there time and time again. No business, big or small, can afford to support giving away food like this. For most, if they wish to carry out corporate charitable acts they’ll be doing that in a more organised way. Bear in mind they’ll get a tax benefit for doing that and it’s much more efficient and effective, just giving food out for free will end in cash flow crisis and putting a business at risk.

add to that there are a minority of “homeless” people begging who are not homeless . I live in small market town, and even here have three times seen the regular homeless beggars getting into a smart Mercedes being driven by someone else, not before taking off their “dirty coats”. This is a small minority of people but it is happening- so how is a business’s supposed to know who is hungry because they have nothing, vs who is hungry cos it’s lunchtime and their job is posing as a homeless person. I’ve seen this elsewhere wherever I’ve lived for last 30 years.

The real issue here is that homelessness and poverty has been driven up by the last governments. Support for mental health has vanished to very little. I feel mental illness support, particularly, is a significant factor in homelessness , as some people, even when signposted and supported return to a chaotic homeless lifestyle very quickly. Similarly I believe mental illness is at the route of many drug and alcohol addiction that also result in homelessness. I have specific experience of living with ex who had a severe and enduring mental illness for many years- so I know first hand how easy it is to slide into chaos if you don’t have loving carers to step in, as the system is not working. It’s down to money - individual psychiatrists and CPNs do their best, but crisis teams and secondary mental health systems are overwhelmed and massively underfunded. Hence why the police have recently said they will no longer step into the gap . Until that’s addressed seriously by government we will have this issue with people living “off grid” so to speak. I get deeply angry at society being asked to charitable support the Elastoplast approach of patching over this - rather than government using our taxes to properly fund support systems instead of handing over millions to their mates on dodgy contracts. It, as ever, comes down to individual views and votes over how big a tax burden are we willing to pay, and what flavour government we think will best address the causes we think are important.

other people, sitting in the shop, like me, will take a different view on whether to support an individual looking like they need a meal. I put my money into Refuge and mental illness research as I think this is a way to address these issue more at root cause. I have on a very few occasions offered direct assistance to someone on the street, but in specific circumstances and not always related to money or meals. I suspect the cafe had a few of those people who were the non step up and intervene types. But it doesn’t make us unempathetic and cold. We just have different views than you

I’d point out, before you get caught up in les mis emotions, that there was neither a welfare system or medical aid system, or pensions, or pretty much anything else in France during the 1860s. Hugo wrote the novel, in part to drive change.

despite all the flaws, and there are many, we do have a national health service and benefit service and state pensions.

the reasons for homelessness today in uk, are complex. Whilst it is driven by poverty, that poverty is also more likely to be an effect of other circumstances that also drive the homelessness.

Housing shortages, delays in benefits, sudden job losses, lack of parenteral support etc. all these drive , more typically, temporary homelessness.

There is also addiction- not just drugs, alcohol but any addictions- but I see the only solution to this is to address as a form of mental illness.

as I said in my previous response, homelessness is also driven by other mental illnesses: people with psychotic illness, bipolar, and the other “severe and enduring” mental illnessness which are not being supported adequately in the current systems and funding. There are routes out of homelessness, and a lot of very good charities working to try to get people back into “mainstream” society with a “home” and financial income. But there is a cohort of homeless people whose lives are so chaotic as a result of mental illnesses that they simply drop out of this support, they end up self medicating on drugs or alcohol (and that can be as simply as paranoia making them believe the medics are trying to use drugs to control them, or because many of the drugs, particularly antipsychotics , have pretty significant side effects which, frankly you can’t blame them form not taking. Compliance with medication is very low amongst anyone with severe and enduring mental illness, let alone if they’re homeless.). Research shows, it is not only homelessness levels being affected by poor support with mental illness, but even the rates of offending and custodial sentences. 45% have severe depressive illness, 60% have had a traumatic brain injury fgs, etc. the stats are appalling

I doubt, in Victor Hugo’s days that 19th centrum France was any better at serving it’s mentally ill than today. Despite todays flaws, I think we are in a better place than 19th century mental asylums, poor houses, debtor prisons and the like.

we HAVE made progress. We still have massive progress to make. No one gets hung, deleted or given life of hard labour in Europe for stealing a loaf of bread anymore and a first offence would not usually be a custodial sentence