To think this woman begging was taking liberties?

[BlackFriYay]

As I was coming out of the dentist a bit woozy from anesthetic I was stopped outside the newsagents next door by a dishevelled woman asking me if I could buy her some food.

I vaguely recognise her as somebody who sits with the drinkers in the town centre.

I said I would and asked what she wanted, she said some eggs and some bread. No problem.

I followed her into the shop where she proceeded to select the biggest bag of Tilda rice that was there, the biggest tray of eggs they had, a big bottle of some kind of pricey fruit punch. There were much smaller / unbranded versions available.

She put it on the counter then went back to look for something else at which point I looked at the price stickers.

£10.99 for the rice
£5 something for the big tray of eggs
£4.99 for the big bottle of fruit punch

And she wasn't even finished.

I thought to myself not a chance this and told her it's too much and I can't help, sorry. Bye.

She then followed me out of the shop asking if I can give her £10.

I'm happy to help somebody to a reasonable extent but I think she was taking the complete piss out of me.

What would you have done?

I hope I never reach the level of pettiness that entails asking a beggar for a refund.

I don’t agree

How is addiction a choice?

Obviously you don't, you wouldn't have done it if you'd not been thinking of yourself.

But cruel and mean-spirited it was.

Like something out of Dickens!

What an unpleasant attitude.

Judging from the number of thanks I have received for my post it appears that I am not the only one who is fed up with ungrateful ‘beggars’.

On a cold night in London, my dd once bought a Big Mac for someone with a ‘Homeless and hungry’ poster.

He told her to fuck off, he wanted money.
It was years ago though, she’d be rather more savvy now.

My friends daughter often bought coffee for an apparently 'homeless' woman her way to work and one day asked the woman if she would like something to eat. The woman said yes and went into the supermarket with my friends daughter who was expecting to just pick her up a sandwich, only for the woman to pick up a leg of lamb and hand it to her expecting to have it bought for her. People with drug habits tend to go for items they can sell.

@GoodHeavens99 because I asked her what she needed and she told me. I gave her thirty quid too.

What an unpleasant comment

Told her "Sorry, no."

On a cold night in London, my dd once bought a Big Mac for someone with a ‘Homeless and hungry’ poster.

He told her to fuck off, he wanted money.
It was years ago though, she’d be rather more savvy now.

People like this are something else. Even if I was a grifter, I'd be thankful for a free Big Mac. The entitlement is insane

Dickens has a very different attitude to those who suffer poverty - children, for example, or the ill or disabled or women with no-good men - and those who steal. He doesn't write approvingly of Fagin you know.

Yanbu unreasonable. But at least it was food.I’ve encountered beggars crying in my nearest city who when you offer to go to the supermarket and buy them groceries they immediately stop crying and say “I don’t want any groceries only money “

No one has said expecting more than a pastry is wrong. What people have said is be reasonable. To take the piss out of someone trying to help you is wrong. All it's going to do is damage any goodwill that person may have shown to homeless people going forward. If someone offers you food, you go in and pick up a sandwich or something similar, a drink. There is something in between a sandwich/pastry and a 20kg bag of rice, massive box of eggs and the rest, totalling 20 odd quid. The woman was clearly taking the piss, buying a fortunes worth of non perishables, more than likely with the intention of returning them for a refund.

I’m really shocked at some of the attitudes, there for the grace of god etc etc. People asking for money back and judging all of those less fortunate as being all the same…or referring to them as ‘these people’ who are not entitled to any charity. Awful.

The lack of compassion on this thread is a bit nasty. I don’t give money directly to people who are begging but I feel sorry for them and don’t blame them for wanting money even if they are attempting to con me out of it. A huge number of people on the street are mentally ill and I imagine most are addicted to drugs or drink (I would be if I was living that life). It must be scary, cold and horrible.

@bergamotorange It's my choice not to engage with addicts. They destroy families, friends, careers and finally themselves.

I've also seen a homeless person cry but in my case it was because I was the first person who acknowledged or talked to them in days when I stopped to ask if they wanted a sandwich.

I don’t necessarily assume that beggars aren’t poor or are 100% scammers, but I don’t trust that they’re going to spend money on what they’ve said they want it for.

It's hard to empathise because people are often so damaged and hardened by the time they're long-term homeless, and we can't see the long road that's brought them there.

Yes, many homeless people are addicts, pushy, scheming, and not easy to be around - but they've usually had lives full of abuse and trauma. And have no support network.

But there's a reason most of us aren't jacking in our jobs - even hard, low paid jobs - to sit outside Tesco pressuring people for cash for our next fix. It's actually a very shit way to live.

I've worked on research projects that have interviewed hundreds and hundreds of homeless men, women, and youths in the UK and Europe.
We made policy recommendations to try to improve the kinds of support that's available - especially for women rough sleepers. Even things like that barely help sadly - change is slow and limited! And like others say, some would prefer to stay on the street because the main relationship by that point is with drugs.

Reducing poverty and domestic abuse are the things that will produce long term change.

I think you should treat others how you want to be treated. None of us have walked in these people’s shoes. I would hope if I ever was in their shoes that someone would extend some kindness towards me. So what if they ask for a bit more? Maybe the person who asked for the rice and the eggs actually did want to try and feed their family for a week? If you are annoyed by them taking liberties You can say no! But giving a homeless person a fiver and then asking for most of it back is pretty abominable in my opinion.

I'm in two minds. Living in Bath, I walked behind some young men who said 'What are you up to now?' the other replied, 'I'm going home for a bit, then gonna do some begging later.' Like it was a job.
Then again, once, stuck in London, before mobile phones, trying to meet a friend but I was running late and needed them to wait to give me a lift home, needed to make phone box call and didn't have the money. Panicking, asking for 20p from strangers. Felt the hostility. Absolutely awful. Finally a Metro seller gave me it.
There are some people out for a scam, but some people who do just need help. How are we to tell the difference?

This is why I don't engage with beggars anymore. When I was younger I would give spare change and sometimes buy food. Now I just donate to food banks and Shelter when I have money spare. I've had some frightening experiences over the years working in retail. For example, one man asked for a drink so I gave him a glass of tap water, he threw it back in my face because he wanted me to give him a bunch of energy drinks from the fridge (which weren't mine to give away even if I wanted to).

People under the influence have spat at me, threatened to wait for me after my shift is over so they can stab me, threatened to attack my customers. One of my colleagues got robbed and beaten up very badly not far from our workplace, which was part of a spate of assaults done by a man sleeping rough. All these situations have escalated in a matter of seconds from an initial polite interaction. These scenarios are likely to be the exception rather than the rule, but it only takes being wrong once to get badly injured or worse by someone under the influence.

That got to me. I buy the Big Issue and on occasion have seen the seller's face fall when I just shove a fiver at them and say keep the change and run for the train. They want to chat. A BI seller once told me my DS always stopped to have a proper conversation with him and it made his day.