Anger and sadness at this interaction with homeless person

[BlueCupOrangeCup]

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.

Well you don't know do you? Just because a similar thing happened to you with a totally different person in a different place, it doesn't mean this particular person wasn't genuine.

Nobody on this post can know for certain if he was genuine or not op. You made a decision, no point dwelling on it now.

t's a lie. St Mungo's do not require £7.50.

St Mungos do not charge so he was telling fibs. You were right to walk away op.

Years ago, I was approached by a young woman at Waterloo Station. She said she was pregnant (didn't look it) and was trying to get some money to get into a shelter for the night. I didn't have any change so she walked off.

So, the train doesn't turn up and I'm still standing on the concourse half an hour later when she comes back to tell me that she's just had a baby and needs money for its care. The chap standing next to me immediately said, 'Well, you've had it pretty damned quickly - you were pregnant half an hour ago!'

You've never seen someone leave so quickly.

They do charge their residents rent, I used to work there. Most hostels do as the point of them is to move people on to permanent house, where you would have to pay rent and bills, so it’s good practice for them to budget for this. They don’t charge people £7.50 on entry and don’t run these mysterious ‘12 week programs’. What would be the point in Housing someone for only 12 weeks?

Why are people repeating this over and over again on this thread? It’s not the case. Not at St Mungos and not any of the other numerous homeless shelters have worked at. This thread is really opening my eyes to the how many posters on mumsnet simply repeat opinions of others upthread as fact.

During his year of homelessness, he could have walked to St Mungo's. He certainly could have walked there in the "all day" he was scrounging the £7.50. How far do you think £7:50 on a bus, train or in a taxi could have taken him? Or think again - he wasn't notified that morning he had a 12-week programme? From whom? How? By letter to which address? Or by phone? And to which company, is he paying the phone bill? Seriously? All organisations think through the logistics of how Person A can get to Help B. They honestly do. They don't assume some misguided well-intentioned person will hand out cash to fund their journey. They give them a travel voucher.

Do you know that some people need to feed their addiction or they are in more danger of medical risk?

Your comment shows you don't.

The ignorance and lack of education on this post explains why we've had tories for 13 years.

If it makes you feel better there was a homeless man that used to sit by the parking machine at the hospital where I regularly had to go with my son. I felt so sorry for him. People regularly gave him their change, but I never feel quite right giving homeless money.

The next time I was there, I took him a lightweight rucksack with some essentials inside; tissues, deodorant, thick socks, a long sleeved T-shirt, healthy snacks, a bottle of water, toothbrush and toothpaste, wet wipes, lip balm, plasters, a note book, a pen and other bits and pieces that I thought would be more useful. He took it off me, didn't say 'Thank you' he rummaged through the bag and then threw it back at me and said 'I don't want this shit - I want money!' I was absolutely gobsmacked. I actually went into the hospital with tears in my eyes. I actually couldn't believe it.

Another time, I saw a young woman and a dog sat on a street corner whilst I was waiting in my car for a friend, and I had been doing some PR for Soreen and I had a branded linen shopping bag and about 20 small individual bars of Soreen leftover, as well as some of my own dogs treats in the car and some poop bags, so I put them all in the shopping bag and dashed over the road. I asked the woman if I could stroke her dog - and she said 'Yes' with a smile. I then asked her if she could make use of the bag and the goods inside and she was incredibly grateful. Clearly she was really genuine. I could see her afterwards from my car hugging her dog and smiling as if all her Christmases had come at once!

Please don't beat yourself up. I find it incredibly odd that such a scheme would ask a homeless person for money upfront! Most of these provisions are charity led.

There is a girl I have seen at various affluent locations with glasses on in her sleeping bag . She accepts hot drinks food but on one occasion she didn’t and said she was not well and I looked further on under a shop front watching us was a man with a nasty presence so now I know she is enslaved to bringing money in to line his pockets and that he wants is cash coming in not her well being. I then would see well meaning people giving her money without knowing its being funnelled to that man but there is nothing I can prove but its like lifting a curtain as he saw me notice him and he knew I knew. I have seen a similar scenario a man watching with another young girl who was once sat on cardboard in the pouring rain crying out to everyone saying I am so cold. Crying in the pouring rain . It’s literally human misery to envoke hard cash and its not going into the hands of the victim for the longterm. Its also just a lot of the money funding cycles of drug addiction I can’t afford to fund drug dealers for personal use or strangers and I don’t want my money in their hands to continue human misery. I have had some heartbreaking exchanges because I will chat offer to buy food and its something I am very aware could happen to me. I can’t really afford to donate much but I think of all the hobbies we spend money on and apparently we could end homelessness if this became our priority

I always give out and no I’m no schmuck either. Their lives are crap one way or another. So what if they use it for other purposes. Human trafficking involves a lot more than begging on the street. If they are? Maybe they need to amass the money to escape. If you can, always give.

This is incredibly naive when it comes to human trafficking specifically

No the money will not go to them for them to amass to leave. The money will fund the human trafficking of more people to work in slavery either begging or in the drugs trade or in nail bars etc

If you actually think someone is a slave the better thing to do would be to report it to the modern slavery hotline, rather than give them money that will go towards the entrapment of more slaves.

Having just recently a homeless man come into the place I work, don’t believe half of what they say, this man was offered supported living accommodation and refused it, he then had an accident and was unable to live on the streets.
Hes absolutely loaded, alcoholic and drug abuse history, it’s his choice to live on the street’s and he says a lot of homeless people choose that lifestyle especially the ones with animals as not a lot of accommodation take in animals too!
I know this is just an example of one person, but believe me you would be shocked and wouldn’t donate another penny after hearing what we’ve been told
Some do have somewhere to live and beg on the streets and pretend to be homeless when infact they’re not!

@Bertiesmum3 doesn't surprise me to hear that. There was a guy who was begging on the street most days in Twickenham about a decade ago. Eventually when he died it it came out in the local paper about him and he lived in a lovely house in Twickenham, not sure if he inherited it or his family still lived there but that was his residence. I’m glad I didn’t give him a penny as I was the one working for very little and in grotty houseshares in London 😂. What he needed was probably mental health services.

I can rarely pass by, scam or not, so I would've given a couple of quid and at the point of him crying as much as I could tbh. There was a lady outside of a shop store all the time and I always gave her a bit and treats for her dog, turns out she wasn't what I thought. Fair enough but at least dog got some food. X

Oh this happened to me not long ago - I was dashing through the city centre and was stopped by a man virtually in tears with a story about how he needed to get to the local hospital etc, all seemed very genuine. I gave him a fiver to grab the bus.

As I was walking on I sort of gathered my thoughts and stopped to look back, and there he was with a couple (clearly more switched on than me) clearly giving them the same story. I then watched him go into Wetherspoons.

I thought about going back but left it. I was mad at myself as I should have known better having worked for the police and know this goes on literally all of the time. And if I’d had more presence of mind I’d have realised he could actually WALK to the hospital from there!

Yeah the person living on the streets is running a racket to defraud you. 🙄 even if he’s using the money for drugs or booze, he’s still on the streets and you’re going home to a warm bed. If you’re not happy to accept that, don’t give money, but a little empathy for their situation goes a long way. If I had to sleep in those conditions, I probably would also try forget as much about it as I could.

The whole “you’re enabling them”
nonsense is really winding me up. These people are out on their own, sleep in the cold and probably will use the money for booze and/or drugs. If I had to deal with that life every day I probably would too just to forget. It’s shameful how little services there are that effectively deal with these issues. Many have been abusing substances because they’ve gone through abhorrent abuse from a young age. There are no mental health services that would be able to address these and help these people long term, so what are they meant to do? Ideally there would be, but realistically there aren’t. I’m not going to begrudge people that. I would never judge anyone for not giving them any money, but when people get judgy about where their money goes, they’re better off not giving anything before rolling out the big lecture.

At least you have a kind heart and a conscience op. Unlike some of the pp on this thread unfortunately.

When I first moved to London, I assumed that everyone who asked for money was genuinely in need of a little bit of cash to get the last train home/make a phone call/get a bus ticket etc. After a while, you see the same people in the same places asking again and again and it makes you feel foolish and duped and it hardens you to any further requests. I'm very jaded now and it is because of scammers that I would be reluctant to help other people in future.

Yep, this

I'm very jaded now and it is because of scammers that I would be reluctant to help other people in future.

I went to uni in a northern city and once this old man approached me near campus. He had a sob story about missing his train and needing to get back to Bristol. I literally had £80 left in my bank as I was a student and it was towards the end of the semester coming up to Christmas. My next student loan instalment didn’t come in for a few weeks so I knew it would be beans and toast if I gave him the £40 he wanted. I basically told him all that and more or less said please if you’re scamming find someone else who can afford it because I can’t lol. He maintained he was telling the truth and naive 19 year old me gave him £40 from the ATM. I remember it now, 2 x £20 notes.

I went off feeling rather good about myself helping this older man….Until a few days later I saw him up in another part of the campus giving the exact same story to another female student! 😩I intervened and told her he was a scammer that SHOULD be back in Bristol by now.

He looked furious but the girl was grateful and just walked off. It did give me some satisfaction knowing I’d thwarted his plans but no doubt he found some other gullible (probably female ) student to target. Although to be fair I never seen him again on our campus.

I was just disgusted that he had accepted money from me based on a lie and knowing I didn’t have much. Situations like that really helped opened my eyes to the nature of these scammers. Anyone is fair game to them.

It’s a scam! They always need 7 pounds to get into a hostel etc. I won’t give money only food.

If you wouldn't miss it, why not give it? No questions asked.

Because there’s a 99% likelihood that you’d be supporting their addiction and contributing to making their health worse.

Local authorities have a duty to find accommodation for homeless people including those presenting in an emergency.

The people you see persistently on the street often aren’t capable of taking up an accommodation offer. Usually they’ve been chucked out or have repeatedly lost their place due to being

• Violent to other residents or staff
• Too intoxicated or mentally ill
• Bringing large amounts of drugs and/ or other people in creating unsafe situations
• Trying to keep dogs
• Unable look after a room or unit, safely use kitchen, lock doors etc
• Unable to cope with being on their own in a unit/ room
• Out for days or weeks at a time losing their places

I’ve been approached a few times by people who claim to be in need. Give them what I feel comfortable wit giving and let God b the judge. If they really need it, my conscience is clear.