You ever do something like this? What's your story?

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I semi-routinely get food for beggars. Gift cards, even. I don't carry cash, but if someone says they're trying to get enough money for food, I offer to just buy them what they need. They almost always say yes, and, especially in winter, you can tell it means a lot, at least in the moment.

On my first payday, post graduation, I did this for some kid who seemed clean by really skinny. He picked out frozen chicken nuggets, and seemed just so happy and grateful. That's stuck with me.

Owl

I don't get it

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I'm not upset at your story, I'm upset at you being judgemental toward unhoused persons. There are a lot of people out there when an unhoused person asks for money just refuse to give it because they think they are going by drugs with it (which, yeah, they might), so many unhoused persons have to resort to giving an excuse they think you might be responsive to. You have no idea what they need the money for. Maybe its to get a cheap phone so thry haveva way to contact someone if thry need help. Msybe they need a hair cut for a job interview. Maybe its for drugs. The thing is, you should give a person the help they ask for and not what you think they need, in my opinion. You are not their parent and what they do with what they ask for is not your business.

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This type of thing happened to me twice. I stopped giving directly and now only donate to charities which vet the recipient and distribute. I'm not paying for someone's drug or alcohol addiction. I also donate my time.

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Always ask if they want the food first.

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Blue shirt guy is holding a can of spray paint. You're supposed to think they're going to harass the homeless guy with it, but they bought him food instead.

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I had to learn the hard way that in many cases, people are homeless for a reason. Not ALL cases - I'm not saying they all just need to pull bootstraps - but be careful in sticking your neck out too far for them.

Owl

Oh ok

Where I live people don't harass homelesses with spray paint

Cultural differences I suppose

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I think I've given money to a beggar once. This one said it would go straight to booze and I though fair enough.

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It absolutely is my business what a person wants to do with money they're begging me for.

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Then why do you read them? You can tell from the first two words it's going to be a story.

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Nothing I'd ever consider doing, either. But there are a lot of cruel people in the world.

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I shared food with beggars on various times

First time I was like 11 years old, shared a sandwich, they got annoyed and throw the food back at me

Second time I was 20 something. Shared a full lasagna aluminum foil plate and bro threw it to the ground

Last time was before COVID hit, here in Argentina. I shared a sandwich and the man went into an insane rant about how the immigrants owed him money because they took their jobs.

I believe I have learned my lesson to not share anemonemore

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Like food on Soviet union.

Not everybody gets it.

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Honestly I disagree, it absolutely is not. If you don't want to part with your money, don't give it, but you are not paying for a service. You are are not entitled to what another person does with the money you give them. Do you want the company you work for to start telling you want yiu can do with the money they pay you? Or is it your money to do with what you want once it is given to you?

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Receiving money in exchange for your labor is entirely different. You are being paid for providing a service, and no, the employer has no right to tell you what to do with money you have earned. When you beg for money, you are asking for someone else's resources to be given to you for nothing in return. That person is therefore directly using their resources to enable...something. They have a right to know what. If the person giving doesn't care, fine, but it's the height of arrogance to think you have the right to take their money, no questions asked.

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I feel very sorry for the beggars where I live but also hate them with a passion. I can't go for groceries without two or three hawking the entrance to the store, ready to barrage anyone who looks mildly compassionate with sob stories.

Worst I got taken was by a young woman who looked very in need of help, asking me to buy some food for her family. Gullible me thinks alright, I can spend 10 € on some kitchen staples so these guys don't starve over the weekend, and took her into the store. Woman proceeds to absolutely stuff her basket with expensive meats, brand laundry detergent, diapers, to the point she literally can't carry the fucking basket any more. Cost me almost 120€ in the end, about 6x what I spent on food for myself.

Ever since then I will immediately recoil from anyone asking for help beyond the "classic" sitting quietly on the ground with a cup in front of them, because my scam alert has been readjusted in a bad way. I suppose I resent the woman more for destroying my compassion than for the money she tricked out of me.

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My rule is I give them cigarettes if they ask, but not money.

They'll usually never admit the money is for booze and I never carry cash anyway. Plenty of people have stories of the beggars throwing food back in their faces. They only want money, they don't want to be fed. Hell, when I was a kid and a beggar asked for money and my mom said she could go to the store and buy some food for him, he just straight up refused.

And I'm fairly sure some of those beggars make more money than I do at my day job as a software engineer. If you have a really lucrative spot, I think you could probably make 50 euros an hour, if not more. Multiply that by the standard 168 hours a month and...

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You know better beggars than I've seen, then. Usually I've seen them refuse food, they only want cash.

It's good that you ask them, instead of just buying food. The honest ones will accept your offer and the dishonest ones will at least tell you to fuck off if you offer them food but they really wanted vodka or drug money.

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I don’t know this guy, so this is just based off what you wrote and might be wholly unfounded. To be clear, I also don’t think you should set yourself on fire to keep anyone else warm.

I got a little hyper focused while writing this, so tl;dr: I get why he would lash out in that circumstance, which is why we need a social welfare system.

Having a bad reaction to cheese when you don’t have a safe, dependable, and clean bathroom sounds awful. Even if he doesn’t currently have lactose intolerance, he could easily develop it at any time if his dairy intake becomes inconsistent.

I also totally understand him getting annoyed and shitty about people skateboarding late where he sleeps. He’ll probably wake with the dawn, so if people are skating at 11pm throughout the summer, that’s going to cause awful sleep (compounding all the other factors that cause people to get worse sleep outside in public). Sure, it’s not his house, but just because he doesn’t have a legal place to live, doesn’t mean that he no longer has the need for quiet and safety. I’m not excusing actively chasing people away from a public area, but I do understand what might have led him to do it.

My sympathy with the rides bit depends on what his access to other transportation is/how far spread out needed services are. If there’s lots of free or very cheap options for getting places or there’s a grocery store, place to get mail, laundromat, bathroom services, and a place for him to register and receive support within walking/skating distance, then yeah, it’s a dick move. If not, he was still being rude, but I can empathize. I empathize when customers at my bakery are rude because they don’t understand the bathroom code, and that’s probably much less of an emergency situation for them.

People are generally rude when they have an unmet need and those around them could easily help with that need. It’s not productive or prosocial, but it’s pretty predictable. Most of the time, it’s directed towards service workers or really close relationships (my dad’s a bear before breakfast, which most of his acquaintances or more casual friends probably don’t know, for example). It only really gets directed at those in our larger acquaintance circles when something catastrophic happens in our lives, like the onset of a terminal/chronic illness, becoming disabled, the loss of a loved one, or losing a home or financial security.

I’m not at all saying that people should subject themselves to abuse because someone else is in an emergency. In fact, I think that tendency is one of the main reasons we should create stable welfare and medical systems(second to the moral imperative I believe we as a social species have to do what we can for others). That way, we don’t have to come to the point of aggression caused by desperation.