Homeless people / panhandlers

[nath]

I almost always give them money. I figure anyone who has to approach a stranger on the street for money needs it more than I do.

I also haven't had anywhere near the number of bad experiences it seems most of the people around here have. So nothing's happened to turn me off to the idea.

[jackflashdrive]

In response to my post NickMPK wrote:

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So I guess you must be one of those people that advocates solving the homeless problem by killing the homeless.

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I'm curious to know what about my post leads you to infer this (unless you are making the joke that I'm killing them off two cigarettes at a time).

-J

[udbrky]

I got cussed out by a homeless lady at work last fall.

There's 3 homeless people that come in and ask for food. We were feeding them pretty regularly. But it hit the point where we were feeding them every day, and it was starting to cost us too much. Plus, we give all our extra food to a group for the homeless already.

So I tell her I can't give her food that day and she just starts in. I finally say "Have a nice day" and try to get back to what I need. And she says "Have a nice day too, s---head."

[kkcountry]

i go to school in downtown detroit, the university police do a pretty good job of keeping them off campus, also it's been below zero at night for a week straight, so who knows what has happened to some of them.

the most bizarre panhandler situation i've ever been in happened to me in a home depot parking lot in ann arbor. i was with my dad and he went inside to grab something real quick, so i stayed in the car. out of nowhere, this guy that WAS MISSING THE ENTIRE BOTTOM HALF OF HIS FACE AND NOSE nocks on my window and holds up a piece of paper that says something about cancer and whatnot. it scared me, and i was super pissed that he knocked on my car window.

[Marnixvdb]

I fell for the 'ran out of gass' once. Met the guy twice afterwards. The second time i saw him he rang at my door with the same story and i told him to [censored] off with his bs. The third time i met him, another year later, I was with a friend. I let the guy talk, and my friend was actually buying the story a bit. After a few minutes i had enough and told him i knew his story and that his car is already out of gas for over two years. He frantically denied 'Must have been someone else!' and ran off with a very scared look in his eyes.

Another beggar made me laugh out loud. Near to my home (I live in an industrial, only slightly urbanised town in holland), I was walking home from buying a spare part. Was tossing some coins in my hand when an obvious drug addict (addict care is near) asked me for money to make a phone call. This is already funny, as there are no coin-operated phone boots here anymore. I didnt care much, and gave him the coins I happened to have in my hand, which was only like € 0,40. He looks at it, unhappily, and says 'ehm do you have a little more, I need... uuhm... to make uhm... a phone call outside... uhmmm... outside of [insert the name of a small city area five minutes walk from where you are standing]'.

i couldnt help laughing and telling him he'd have to ask someone else to help him.

Then the weirdest encoutner was at the most homeless/junk infected areo of this country, the railway station of Utrecht. An older woman (app. 55 yr) asked for money, she looked very unhealty - I actually felt sorry for her and I gave her a few bucks. She really appreciated it and walked a stretch along with me. Explained she was trying to save to get out of the [censored], that she wanted to kick of the alchohol but that it wasnt easy, as other bums were using her as a prostitute (i read that as she was being raped by them), after which she went on about her troubled relationship with her daughter who was in trouble herself and didnt want to talk with her anymore (forgot the details). She ended up asking me for advice on the situation. Obv I wasnt in a position to say anything really helpful, and couldn't offer much more than some heartfelt remarks about how she should put most her quarrels with her daughter behind her as she was the mother and her daughter probably needed her more than the other way around, even when that she was probably much in much deeper [censored] than her daughter could ever be. It was really akward though, to see a woman in such bad condition, be so desperate, and in a few minutes sharing every personal detail of her life with no other apparent intention then to finally let some of the steam out


Marnix

[Golden_Rhino]

[ QUOTE ]
When you give money to a panhandler they see you as an object -- a thing that gives money when the right buttons are pressed -- not a person.

Sometimes I put this aside and give money nevertheless, often for reasons diablo mentioned (if I get something from the interaction or if they look reallly hard up).

Personally, I prefer to break through the BS and establish a genuine if brief relationship with them. This is how I do it:

- Homeless guy: "Spare some change?"

- Me: "No, sorry I don't have any change but would you like a cigarette?"

- HG "ya, thanks."

I take out my camel lights and present homeless guy with *2* cigarettes (second cigarette is key). Homeless guy stares down trying to figure out if I'm offering him 2, or if one is for me, or what. He realizes they are both for him, he realizes that *I* do not see him as a mere object; ("thing to assuage guilt"), and then he takes the cigarettes and expresses appreciation that seems more genuine than the gratitude expressed in response to any monetary payout (and I've given homeless guys a $20 before, just to see the reaction -- their response is inevitably to think you're a mark and to ask for more money).

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I don't know why, but I find this disturbing. It's like you're doing sociological experiments on the homeless or something.

I usually give money to the homeless, but I prefer to give them food.

Funniest story was a homeless guy who asked me for five bucks. I didn't have any cash, but I had my debit card so I offered to buy him a sub. Dude looks at his wrist (where a watch should be), and tells me that he's got an appointment and can't wait for a sandwich.

[SlowHabit]

Giving money to homeless people is probably the last thing I will do, which means a lot of "no eye contacts" because I went to Cal, where the homeless population rivals that of the student body's.

[edfurlong]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
When you give money to a panhandler they see you as an object -- a thing that gives money when the right buttons are pressed -- not a person.

Sometimes I put this aside and give money nevertheless, often for reasons diablo mentioned (if I get something from the interaction or if they look reallly hard up).

Personally, I prefer to break through the BS and establish a genuine if brief relationship with them. This is how I do it:

- Homeless guy: "Spare some change?"

- Me: "No, sorry I don't have any change but would you like a cigarette?"

- HG "ya, thanks."

I take out my camel lights and present homeless guy with *2* cigarettes (second cigarette is key). Homeless guy stares down trying to figure out if I'm offering him 2, or if one is for me, or what. He realizes they are both for him, he realizes that *I* do not see him as a mere object; ("thing to assuage guilt"), and then he takes the cigarettes and expresses appreciation that seems more genuine than the gratitude expressed in response to any monetary payout (and I've given homeless guys a $20 before, just to see the reaction -- their response is inevitably to think you're a mark and to ask for more money).

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't know why, but I find this disturbing.

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Thats quite an understatement, I'm picturing Patrick Bateman saying this while laying plastic on the furniture.

[nubs]

The other night I was leaving a Walgreens in downtown Denver. There was this haggard looking black man standing by the door who stared me straight in the eye and said "I love you". Needless to say I was caught a little offguard but without skipping a beat i said "I love you too" and kept walking. Weird.

[Sciolist]

[ QUOTE ]
The other night I was leaving a Walgreens in downtown Denver. There was this haggard looking black man standing by the door who stared me straight in the eye and said "I love you". Needless to say I was caught a little offguard but without skipping a beat i said "I love you too" and kept walking. Weird.

[/ QUOTE ]
A bit tangentially: Last week I was walking home from work when some guy wearing a suit, nice shoes etc, walked past and said "Jesus loves you" in a perfectly normal voice. I ignored him obviously (I don't want to get stabbed, or worse, preached at), and he proceeded to tell every single person he walked past that Jesus loves them. This is in London, by the way, not your typically religious area...