People begging outside of supermarkets

[Beautifulweeds]

I can hardly ever stop by anyone begging, especially those with a dog, without giving what I can.

Thing is, these days, we don't carry much cash, but I always make sure I have some on me.

There was a Romanian lady with the big iissue outside of an aldi, with a dog, who I bought treats for and gave her some money every week. Then she appeared in local news about being involved in child abduction! Didn't see her again but she has been replaced by another old Romanian woman, no dog this time fortunately. I have less generous about paying for the big issue from her, which I never took, just offered a donation.

Also, other people who sit in the floor and are friendly outside of other supermarkets. Often 3 of them, so who to give to?

I've noticed some will only be there for a couple of hours and move on.

I'm a sucker I know, can't bear to pass anyone who seems like they need help. At the times I had absolutely no money for myself I would still feel guilty.

Sorry, guess my question is how to know when someone is genuine? I tend to think if anyone is willing to sit and beg they're genuine but experience has shown could just be part of a bigger mercenary business.

You know there are begging gangs don't you, and also individuals who do it as a job. My friend went out with a homeless guy in the 90s when we were still at school, he used to make 150 a day and had a bed in shared halfway house. All his earnings went on going out and he had two sets of clothes, for begging and going out.
The gangs are there to take your money. You are feeding organised crime so stop it. Give to the homeless charities and church groups who help the genuine cases instead.

Thanks for all of yoir responses, which I appreciate. I'm not in any way rich, but would always try to help out anyone less fortunate. I donate every month to charities close to my heart and feel awful I have to cut back with the ever rising of COL. I do now see I was right about the scams going on, placing women at certain supermarkets. To be honest, some of them aren't much older than me and I work hard to pay mortgage, bills, childcare etc so maybe need to grow a thicker skin. Then again, if genuine, can't speak English, not much hope of getting a job.

Chuggers are a different issue. Solved by a simple law, that you cannot ask for any details that come under GDPR to anyone in the street. No address, no email, no bank details etc.

Any evidence that the charity has in any way supported this should lead to a withdrawal of charity status and/or the trustees being personally held responsible.

The big issue sellers in our town (a married couple) have been selling their magazine in the same place for the last 30 years. You'd think they would have got a better job by now.
I can only conclude that they make a decent living from it.

Stop it. You are still falling for the emotional blackmail.

There are organisations which deal with homeless in a much better way. If they are begging they aren't engaging with those organisations. They will have been signposted to them.

But they are part of criminal gangs, trafficked here to do a job. To take money from you and feed it back to criminal gangs. They don't see the money, won't be able to spend it in themselves either.
It's a sad fact of life but if yoh pay them, you are funding more criminal activity, it is not going in their pockets.

https://www.london.anglican.org/articles/look-out-for-forced-begging-on-the-streets-of-london-this-christmas/

Yup.

Same round here. We also had one family who sent their teenage girls to beg in a different city. They were picked up by the police.

Young Women and elderly women get more sympathy and more donations in a way young single foreign looking men dont. It's cynical. And it's deliberate. They know women are more likely to do the shopping and more likely to donate because women are socialised to be more empathetic.

You are being played.

I rarely have money on me now but will offer to buy a sandwich, coffee, dog food etc and the genuine ones are usually grateful for something like that.

@mentallyilltotallychill thanks for the streetlink link.
I rarely stop for beggars, but there was one outside the supermarket late on sunday evening - she looked very young, I think probably had SEN, and her bag seemed to be largely full with a stuffed toy.
Stayed on my mind for ages - l looked for reports of missing people, etc, but didn't know what to do. I'll give streetlink a try if I spot someone looking that vulnerable in future.

I've actually had a beggar try to sell me a meal deal outside the Co-op.

When I asked why, she said "Not hungry".

But possibly the worst thing now are the beggars going up and down the lanes of traffic at traffic lights, aggressively banging on car windows and rattling cups.

Even worse in the Summer, you can't get your window up quick enough.

In Edinburgh Old Town, I politely explained to a chugger that I was happy to give a one-off donation to Save the Children, but couldn't take out yet another direct debit for a charity.

He became enraged and yelled at me "But it's for the CHILDREN!"

I'd had a bad day. I replied: "I'm a teacher. I don't care."

It’s not just the UK, we have organised begging gangs in Germany too. They even come round the houses in our neighbourhood. There are lots of organisations here that help the genuinely needy, I’ll donate to them but won’t give on the street.

My local lidl has a Greggs opposite. For years there’s been a beggar outside each and then they swop every hour or so.
However the last few months they haven’t been there so I assume they have finally got rid of them. It’s a relief to shop there in peace.

I lost faith with Big issue when the best pitch in town had the same guy selling there for years and years, it wasn’t the point when it was set up and he’s hogging the best/most profitable spot. They also send sellers who speak no English into tiny villages near me, I can’t imagine they sell much at all.

I honestly dont give them anything. There's a family that take it in turns to get people to buy food for their meals at a supermarket I used to go in a lot. The guy once asked me for specific things. I said get off your arse and buy them yourself. If you were homeless you'd accept any food.

So no, I have a firm f-off attitude to them.

I was once in a major train station when a man came to be begging. Thankfully network rail staff knew him and moved him on. They then found me and I thanked them. It seems he's a professional beggar making way over £60k a year begging.

You're part of the problem OP. You're not helping poor people. You are subsidizing criminal activity and making things worse for the rest of us.

I've noticed this creeping in.

It's scary. You don't make eye contact.

Whilst this is a well-meant attitude, it’s ultimately a naive one. The reality is that the majority of street homeless people are not there because of “lack of money” or because they are “ordinary people who have fallen on hard times” and it actually does homeless people (and the services and people who work with them) a disservice to pretend that this is the case. The majority of street homeless people have very chaotic backgrounds featuring addiction and substance misuse, a history of offending, poor mental health, abuse and so on.

The “it could be any of us” take means that the general public obtain a false perception that getting people off the streets is easy - just find them a home and help them to get a job and everything will be ticketty-boo. When it’s far more complex than that because many homeless people are ill-equipped to maintain a tenancy on their own, look for work or hold down a job, and have far more complex support needs which means that without intensive support and a willingness to engage they often revert to the streets. This is what we need to highlight - that every person on the streets is different and that most want to be “normal” members of society but that there is no easy win, and handing out change out of guilt more often exacerbates rather than remedies their problems. Supporting and lobbying for the services and funding to actually work at the roots is a better aim.

Some beggers are genuine some are not. Some are part of a ring. Some have awful housing. Some are being FORCED into sexwork and begging. Some are drug addicts (no one grows up wanting to be an addict but suffer trauma or just cant get out of it).

no child grows up thinking begging will be their life. Or homelessness will be. Or sex working will be. Everyone deserves a level of compassion.
a lot of people are only a few payslips away and having seen v successful people slip into that its very real “it could never be me” mentality is awful, because realistically how many people have enough savings for life altering events.

sorry if i misread.

If people didn’t give them money/ food etc they would soon disappear from the streets.

You can feel compassion without having to put your hand in your purse every 10 minutes when you're walking around town.

DS is police and he can name all the beggars around our town because they are all known to the police. Not one of them is homeless. One I’ve actually seen unlocking and walking through his front door!

I’ve watched the beggars at my local supermarket do a shift change. The guy begging got up, took off his dirty coat and gave it and his backpack to the incoming beggar, who put the coat on. The one leaving took out a nicer coat from another bag he was leaning on, and got out a nice phone. He walked across the carpark to a corner, where he got into a waiting Mercedes.

if you sit and watch them, people give them money every 30 seconds. They make more than I do. It drives me mad when they bring dogs in. There is always a gorgeous young GSD outside our supermarket. To be fair he looks well groomed, but still.

There are very few of them that are “real” beggars. You need to wake up to the fact that you’re most likely funding crime and you’re part of the problem.