Anger and sadness at this interaction with homeless person

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Tonight, a polite homeless man named Kevin told me he secured a spot in a 12-week program at St Mungo's after a year of homelessness. He needed £7.50 urgently to go there tonight and had been trying all day. Skeptical, I regretfully declined, later realizing he might have been genuine.

I'm replaying the whole conversation in my head and now I think I recall him almost bursting into tears as he asked if there was any way at all I could help him.

This one might have been genuine and I'm so disgusted with myself.

I could have helped. I had a £5 note in my purse....and I am fortunate enough that I wouldn't miss it or notice it gone.

And at the same time I'm also so angry at scammers of this thing. If someone stood in front of you asking begging for a small amount of money to help them and you knew it was genuine OF COURSE all of us would help! But genuine people don't get the help they need because scammers make people have attitudes like mine tonight.

There is no way to phone st Mungo's now to 'pre pay' for Kevin should he turn up tonight....meanwhile I'm going home to sleep in my warm bed and work my lovely job tomorrow.

Poor Kevin, I'm sorry I didn't help you.

St Mungo’s is free.

This, as a black woman I am almostg always stopped for this. And not everyone has money to just give away to everyone. People are crazy, how do you know someone won't miss 7.50. As a student, when I was targeted this £7.50 was a few days meals!

Night shelters are free too.

Sigh.

But surely some people do live in bad areas right? Is it okay if they have to suffer this?

I took it to mean that he needed £7.50 to get there...

That’s also what I assumed, evryine knows you don’t need 7,50 to stay there, but you absolutely might need it to go there.

Why would St Mungos offer a homeless person, a place, knowing they would have difficulty finding £7.50 to go there? I don't think he was telling the truth, it was manipulative, to make you think you were responsible for his future happiness/ changing his life.

Well, presumably that's often the case. Not everyone will be on the doorstep.

I can't believe people are so gullible still on this thread.
Begging is illegal. There are signs stating this most places beggars sit. The money you give them is not helpful mostly. Also most homeless people are not on the streets, street homeless generally cannot access help because of refusal to engage in addiction services or dogs.

This isn't how drugs and drug dealers work. No-one has to "push" drugs- anyone who has ever known anyone in this line of work knows that their phone never stops ringing. People don't get addicted to drugs because a drug dealer comes along and talks them into it. They get addicted to drugs because they seek out drugs, for fun, out of boredom, or as a coping mechanism for something else, and then can't stop when they want to. The dealers might enable this but if they weren't getting hold of drugs, they'd be addicted to alcohol or gambling or something else. That's why rehab which just focuses on removing the drugs doesn't work and people need to learn healthy coping mechanisms in order to stay clean.

Exactly, he might be using this line to hundreds of people a day?

You are seriously kidding yourself if you think drug dealing to teenagers (or anyone) is a rough area thing.

There is a homeless charity local to us, where one of the women running it is open that her motivation is due to her own past addiction and that of her late sister. They’re from a well to do family and went to a private school.

Do shelters charge people? I would not think so.

I’ve worked with the homeless for more than 25 years

your statement is so wrong.

no homeless in the street? Are you joking?

also in the hostel I worked at you could shoot up! So why do you think they can’t engage services with addictions? I work with those who are entrenched in addictions

ypure wrong. 100000%

Enabling his lifestyle 😂😂😂😂fuck me dead

I compromise by carrying a loose £2 coin in my purse always - to give to these folks, when asked directly. Means nothing to me, but might mean the world to them. And if it only buys them a hot cup of tea or contributes to their next fix, then that's also fine.

That next fix can kill them. There was bad spice in london before xmas which led to a higher rates of death in the street pop. Also it,s lining the pockets of the dealers

Oh please. Don't justify your lack of compassion with such self-congratulatory nonsense. No, you are not saving anyone's life by not giving them a coin. That does not cure substance use disorder. It is so much more complex than that. Going without can also make a person very ill.

People sleeping rough are not all the same but there are definitely commonalities just as there are with people living inside. One commonality is a distrust for authority to the point some will not accept a benefit even if they have an address for such purposes.This mistrust, the result of trauma associated with government agencies, also prevents them accessing medical help and so many other things that the rest of us to take for granted.

One tiny little thing that you could do is to quit judging rough sleepers. Just a smile and hello can make the day for these vulnerable people trapped in a living hell.

You have no idea what i do and dont do or whether i have compassion at all. I will offer to buy a hot drink if im going to get lunch, i just wont give any cash.

I work for a company that has street teams out there working with the street population. I hear everyday I go to work what goes on, they also sponsor charities that work with street pop.

The PP said they were happy to give money to pay toward a fix. That fix will be sold by a drug dealer, recently they have been lacing spice with god knows what which has led to the increase in deaths.

People that work alongside these unfortunates advise you don’t give them money as it usually for drugs. Your comment was very uncalled for. We have ‘tramps’ begging where I live all the time it’s mostly scamming. I have given £15 to a homeless person so he could take his dog in with him but the policeman that was talking to him assured me he would used it that way.
you’re comment was uncalled for.

Enabling his lifestyle....

Suella, is that you?

Yes, I've often given a sandwich or drink, and often had them thrown back at me. You can be fairly sure that any money the OP had given would not have been used to go to St Mungos

Maybe he needed the money to get there rather than pay for the stay?

One day the 'I just need £x to get to the room I've been promised' will be true. But not in our lifelines, and not on this planet. Don't beat yourself up over this. Yes, coming up against the idea of homelessness is upsetting.

I once gave a guy £16.50, the full fee for the night (actually took him to a cash point and got him out a 20), because his story was so sad when I got chatting with him it made me cry. It was heartbreaking. I'm confident his circumstances and what he said happened to him was genuine.

However, I saw him a couple of hours later still begging with the same story when I knew for sure I'd already given him enough... so. Now I think 'well you'll probably spend it on drugs but if it stops you stealing to do that then at least I can help that way'.

Possibly it really was for the shelter, possibly it was for both shelter and drugs. If you can spare it, do, but don't feel guilty. It's on the government and the welfare state that these people are suffering.