To say please don’t give money to the Christmas market beggars

[Nutmuncher]

This will seem controversial to some but as someone living in a City centre the Christmas markets attract high numbers of beggars, addicts and alcoholics.

Please do not give them money because it simply encourages them to keep coming back every year in larger numbers. It is frustrating to say the least when you see the same faces sat in the same spots day after day and visitors take pity on them without realising they’re only perpetuating the never ending cycle.

My advice is to instead donate to your local children’s charity or food bank to give to those struggling to provide who aren’t begging or feeding an addiction.

I actually don't care what people do with the money after I have given it to them, its none of my business
I volunteer at a Street kitchen and also with a food recycling programme that helps people (including homeless) and the people there are the same as those I see on the streets.
Perhaps there ARE some people who have a luctrative business begging but I think they are very much in the minority, despite what some sections of the press would have you believe.

Christmas markets where I am located have stall holders who are mainly food, craft and arts people. They hand-make goods and gifts, and I doubt they make a lot from it after the stall rent fees, materials and labour involved. I don't give to beggars around these events because I recognise it deters customers, and these small traders, with far more creative talent than myself, need all the help they can get in difficult economic conditions.

As a person with severe medical conditions impacting limb movement, I find it particularly distasteful that the 'disabled' beggars are dragged out for these kinds of events. It is the very idea that you should 'feel sorry' for homeless Harry with his missing toes or leg, more than able-bodied Harry is sickening. I have had to fight tooth and nail for equality, and to escape the pity and presumption of other people (including medics) about I can, and cannot do, in running my business and taking care of my family. I cringe at this Dickinson view of disabled people needing to beg on the street with all their health difficulties on display to make them 'worthy homeless' beggars. Homelessness is clearly a real issue and getting worse thanks to failing social care, health, landlord law and social housing systems. But giving money to beggars on the street is not the way to solve it, especially since many are organised gangs or otherwise trying to manipulate the conscience of shoppers, or embarrass people in front of their families into coughing up change.

People know what addicts spend their money on. But some people still have compassion for someone who looks desperate enough to literally sit on the freezing road begging all day.

I'd rather give to a smack head from this country than contribute towards a Roma gang which is what all the big issue sellers are.

If we're talking about beggars at Christmas markets, they're usually not just sitting there but working their way around the market hassling people.

Or you could make a donation to shelter/your local food bank etc rather than indirectly giving your money to the smackhrad's dealer?

But then their “own decisions” cause a problem for everyone else hun

Yeah that's true. I mean I don't really give money to beggars because I don't know any. If there was someone I'd grown friendly with over the years and I knew they were chaotic but a decent person then I might help them out a couple quid occasionally. They are human beings.

If someone is sitting on the ground in these temperatures I make an educated guess that they’re in genuine need.

That’s weird, because I speak Romanian and the Big Issue sellers I’ve spoken to recently didn’t. So it’s a sweeping statement to say they are all Roma gangs. Replace Roma with Jewish and you might realise how racist you sound.

Never give money other than to charities. If you want to do anything else, and they’re saying they’re hungry, then buy them a lunch and hot drink.

In my area they are though. I don't know whether they all speak Romanian or not. And if they were Jewish how would I prove it by seeing what language they spoke?

I'm not racist, I'm anti-racist. But this is what has happened to the big issue in my area.

To be honest I make a case by case judgement. You can often spot the organised Roma gangs round me because they are female, often pregnant, or if male are usually affecting some kind of dyskinesia. Of course I could just be being had by a different type of scammer but I'm not averse to giving someone a quid or two if I feel sorry for them.

I don't like the argument that giving money "attracts" beggars - they are part of society too, they've as much right to be there as anyone. People can make up their own minds whether to donate.

How do you know they’re Roma gangs if you don’t speak Romanian/Romani? You might be able to tell they’re Roma, but there’s no evidence that all Roma Big Issue sellers are in gangs.

Oh, you mean homeless people! At first glance i thought you meant the market stall holders selling tat off temu at ridiculous prices

You can tell who the real homeless are, their fingernails are dirty and they never ask for money. They have their sleeping bags and plastic bags of stuff with them. But the clean looking ones with nice white trainers are usually scammers, they'll ask everyone passing for money.

Unfortunately increasingly forced begging is a form of criminal exploitation and the money you're giving may not go to the individual themselves.

The National Crime Agency has identified this as a tactic of organised crime involved in modern slavery and people trafficking. They recruit from among the local homeless population as well as trafficking victims from abroad so "foreign" and "British" isn't a reliable indicator of whether someone is being exploited and controlled and the money going directly to criminal enterprise and exacerbating the problem.

I-AM-HUNGRY - signs always have the same funny hyphens between words. Probably written by the same overlord.

This. Whenever I go to certain cities I will see people sitting on the ground holding cardboard signs with exactly the same wording. Usually including "Bless you". Not one of them has a sleeping bag, or bag of possessions, and surprisingly good footwear.

I won’t give food after seeing a homeless person lob a cheeseburger given by a well meaning passerby at her departing back leaving a nice little splodge on her coat

It was in Rome, not UK, near the Vatican. We once saw a beggar woman "close up shop" one day. She tipped the money she'd collected in a plastic tub into a decent looking bag, took off the raggedy cloak thing she'd been wearing - had quite decent clothes on underneath - and skipped away onto a bus.

Aww
You sound so kind .. Keep on being You

Absolutely

I think most people are well aware of the fact that if they give a homeless person some money, it may not necessarily always go on food.

I'm fully aware of it and I sometimes give money and I give it them with no judgement on what they may spend it on.

Yep
They may spend it on a alcoholic drink or a bit of puff perhaps, but if it brings SOME niceness to an otherwise awful life (I imagine) then I am not going to judge

Are 'seasoned beggars' not in genuine need?

I agree. Im glad ìts him or her not me and I give them money. What they do with it is up to them. If the guy I saw this morning, sitting by a pile of manky bedding, wants to spend it on drink or drugs, who could blame him. I'd want to escape reality if I was him.