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idkmybffjoeysteel [he/him] @hexbear.net

Should you give money to people begging on the streets?

I really want an answer to this from people who are not reddit-brained libs. I have seen some good points elsewhere about this contributing to a cycle of abuse and control, causing parents to withdraw their kids from school to beg instead, etc., but if someone is desperate enough to humiliate themselves by begging on the street, shouldn't we give to them? Or should I feel bad that I did give to them?

63 comments

  • I always try to give money to people because I was homeless for the better part of a year and most people treat you like dirt.

    "Oh, they're going to just spend it on drugs." "Yeah that's what I was going to do with it, who am I to judge?"

    • Don't give money to your landlord or corporations they are just going to spend it on rentier capitalism

    • "Oh, they're going to just spend it on drugs." "Yeah that's what I was going to do with it, who am I to judge?"

      I make this argument all the time, usually tailored to the vices of myself/whoever I'm talking to. If I was just gonna spend that on a pack of beer, an oz of weed, some fast food, some electronic toy or video game, who am I to say that those less fortunate should have no respite from reality while I drown in vices? it's fucking bullshit moralizing that should have no input on whether or not you give to the needy

    • I crave a little something when I have a slightly rough day, most people do, so who is more deserving of drugs than people who have to sleep on the sidewalk?

    • Yeah that's what I was going to do with it, who am I to judge?

      I like this because it's not just true but also so out of pocket they don't know how to respond, but there's 2 more serious arguments against "tHeY'Re gOiNg tO JuSt sPeNd iT On dRuGs"

      1. being homeless is so physically and mentally stressful that turning to drugs is the only way to make it tolerable for many. it's not just not having money for food, it's worrying you might get robbed/assaulted/arrested while sleeping (or at any time really), and constantly feeling like shit because you never get decent sleep from all the noise and elements and having to sleep on the ground, as well as not being able to maintain hygiene. any one of these would drive a normal person nuts, but homeless people have to deal with all of it 24/7.
      2. drug withdrawal can be genuinely lethal, so even though it's true that it's bad for that person to continue using drugs, abruptly stopping might end worse for them.

    • Tax payer money gets spent in the trillions for Israel to drop bombs on homeless people and that's fine but someone begging for $10 to buy a pack of smokes is a bridge too far.

    • "Oh, they're going to just spend it on drugs." "Yeah that's what I was going to do with it[.]"

      lmao i love saying this, people always get a kick out of it and it's 100% true

  • I promise you nobody is making enough money from begging to withdraw their kids from school

    These are terrible points

  • Yes. I don't donate to charities or ngos. I give money directly to folks who ask for some help. Not 85% admin fees. No advocacy, no outreach, no "we must raise awareness". Much more efficient. At most venmo or whatever is scraping a few percent.

    I'm in the us and i've never seen minors panhandling, so i can't speak to that. I've only ever seen adults.

  • If you don't have a reason not to (hardship, no cash, etc) then why not ? I've never regretted giving money.

  • If someone asks for help and you're in a position to help, you help them.

  • literally the only reason i keep cash on hand

  • I do. I've not seen anyone who isn't a reddit-brained lib argue you shouldn't, though I have never gone looking for such arguments, and more than just give them some money when I can, I try to treat them like a human, to say hello, to wish them well, say sorry if I can't offer them anything that day, etc.

    If you had no income and no place to live or even safely keep belongings, wouldn't you want people to help you out when you asked and not just avert their eyes and pretend you weren't a fellow human?

    I guess if I saw a parent and kids out together on a school day that would set off some alarm bells but I've never seen that personally. It seems like a pretty contrived excuse not to help, honestly. Maybe there's some cycle that could happen if the person is always coming back to you specifically for money but even then... its hard to argue you should do nothing.

    liberals hate panhandling because it reminds them how inhumane their vaunted "end of history", "best possible system" society actually is and forces them to confront it, so they try to justify it by saying that the homeless/desperate are like that because they're just inherently worse people and that helping them won't make a difference. They are wrong. individual charity won't end poverty and homelessness, but it does help the individual, not merely enable them to continue "choosing" to be homeless or whatever nonsense liberals say

    The very same people that resort to begging, or even theft to stay afloat, will mostly gladly share generously if they manage to land in an environment where resources aren't scarce and their very survival doesn't depend on hoarding and guarding whatever they can get their hands on

    • A lot of it is tied in to this old calvinist (of course) idea of deserving vs undeserving poor. "Undeserving poor" are poor bc they're lazy, shiftless, blah blah blah, with the underlying theological brainworms being that god doesn't love them. Deserving poor have merely been temporarily laid low by circumstance and extending them a helping hand they will return to being a productive member of society!

      We've all seen the outcome -

      plus a lot of "leopards ate my face"/" i'm the only person who deserves help everyone else is a lying cheat"

  • Yes

  • Yes

    If you have time talk to them too. People won’t even look them in the eye. Everyone I’ve talked to has been pretty nice and grateful for some humanity.

  • Yes. I do so when it's within my means. And I wish them well because it's not easy being considered an unperson on top of whatever circumstances brought them in that position in the first place.

  • Only if they're cool and spend it on drugs/alcohol. I ain't giving money to someone to buy food/clothing, that's gay.

  • I don't think you should feel bad for giving to people begging. I budget some money for this purpose. But giving money to poor people will not end poverty; ending capitalism will. The bulk of your available time and effort is probably better used fighting for structural solutions. So I don't think there's a moral obligation to like, seek out individual homeless people to give money to or something like that, but you are probably obligated to work towards eviction protections and public housing and stuff.

  • Yes.*

    *Unless they're a veteran.

  • Speak to your local homeless people, form a relationship with them and decide for yourself. Different circumstances will always be different, I don't think there's a one size fits all here.

  • I've got a related question: I often hear people talking about "organized beggers" which are supposedly organized structures with bosses at the top that place beggers throughout city centers. They then give a cut of their income to the higher-ups who make a lot of money off of this. Is this a real thing or is it just a rationalization for people to not feel bad about giving money to beggars? I'm tending towards the latter but thought I'd use this opportunity to get some more perspectives on this.

  • "Dad, can I inherit the textile mill?"
    "So you can advance the interests of the capitalist class?"
    "Yeeees"
    Actually keeps Karl Marx alive like a boss

  • Yes, and remember inflation hits them too. Better to give anytjing than nothing, but if you can afford it, better to give something bigger. I try to slip 20s when I can. Can't afford 50s. Folks seem pretty chuffed the get 20s

  • I've never heard about the situation with the parents and the kid happening, I don't think that's very common.

    The biggest risk is that the money you give ends up in the hands of some scumbag who employs people to beg for him. If you're a little bit familiar with the homeless community in your area, you can figure out which spots tend to be occupied by jobs like that and just not give there.

    • There are places where kids from loathed demographics - Roma, Dalits, "low caste" or "untouchable" people, are systematically excluded from education. Or, worse, places where the state may kidnap your kids while they're at school becuase [facism noises]. Boarding schools for indigenous people in the us "kill the indian and save the man" are an example of that kind of violence. Roma people in Eastern europe occaisionally have their kids kidnapped by the state and put in orphanages or adopted out.

    • How do you employ someone as a beggar.

      • Idk any recent examples, but it's a racket, comparable to the economics around drug dealing. A racketeer and some goons will control a territory, assign people a territory where they're allowed to work, then come around and collect a cut under threat of violence. People get assigned more or less profitable areas based on their relation with the racketeer or their earning potential. Maybe if people have disputes over turf the racketeer settles them.

        More or less feudalism, i guess. Steal some land, parcel it out to peasants, take your cut, maybe provide some government services and dispute resolution.

        I've heard there are also groups that -aren't rackets and function as guilds, or even collectives. Territory is assigned by seniority or need or some other criteria, there may be an income sharing plan to ensure people get something if they had a bad day, the group may cooperate to get access to some services. The group handles issues of justice and dispute resolution within the community. Maybe even does job placement for "legitimate" jobs, or facilitates getting people piecwork or day labor.

        Idk if it's still the case since city governments stepped up the oppression of homeless people, but in the us there are definitely some places where the homeless community was stable enough over time to have a degree of community, elders, allies in the area, a form of collective decision making or dispute resolution.

      • Employed might be putting it to nicely, forced is probably more accurate.

  • I try too, at least. Giving things other than money is also real cool, like doing Food not Bombs or donating your skills.

  • I have a bunch of follow up questions if anyone is interested in offering their advice.

    I have spent a few days in Istanbul and today is my last day. I had walked past several homeless people and beggers, and began to think to myself, damn, I'm a real piece of shit if I ignore these people, and if anyone has the institutional power to make this go away and doesn't use that power immediately, those people should be

    .

    By the end of the night though my feelings had changed a little. I had a few people I had given money to follow me down the street for a bit trying to get my attention and this bothered me a bit, I had given what is for me a shit load of money already today and kind of had to run away. For the rest of my walk home, I was slightly regretting my life choices, not enough that I wouldn't do it all again, but still no longer felt good about any of this, instead felt bad. Not great for me, but still worse to be the person stuck begging on the streets. Anyway. I went home and googled all about it, and came across varying takes, so here is everything that happened to me, and here are my questions:

    1. I was on the tram in the town centre after rush hour and this skinny dude (looked like he had some kind of autoimmune disorder, arthritis maybe) was in the cabin in sandals and a t-shirt (it is winter) with a big plastic bag full of bottles. I thought damn this is unfortunate, let me help a brother out, so I gave him a bunch of money and ran away. When I googled about this later, Turkish people are saying basically nobody in the city is that desperate, they can always find some way of getting what they need, and they make more collecting recyclables from trash than waiters do from working in posh restaurants (seriously doubt), so what the fuck, did I actually just harass a normal working guy by giving him money for no reason?
    2. I saw two teen girls eating trash they had scattered from a trash bag torn open like a picnic blanket just chilling and talking to eachother at 9 o'clock at night on one of the steep hills leading to Galata Tower. They made no attempt to catch my attention, and after I caught my breath, I went back and gave them some cash then ran away. Apparently this is a common "scam" in Istanbul, and as I said above, there are so many ways to make money (selling flowers, collecting bottles), and failing that, there are so many charities and churches and masjids giving food and other provisions to people that there is no way anyone would ever need to eat from the trash. They say they do this to get pity, and they aren't hungry at all, and if you do by them food they will refund it (how the fuck do you refund food, especially as a street urchin speaking broken Turkish at best?)
    3. I passed a mum and her little baby sitting on the side of the road looking pathetic and not trying to get my attention in any way, so I also gave her money and have the same question as for the scenario above
    4. I passed a whole other family on the streets including a pregnant woman, a bunch of kids, and a teen girl (these are the one's who followed me for like 5 mins)
    5. I also tried to speak to some of these people in Arabic because everything they were saying did not sound like any other language. When I tried to use google translate with them, I finally got them to say arabic bilmiyorum (Turkish for I don't know Arabic). So do some Turkish people just have harsh as fuck accents that are impossible to understand? Way too many hard KHs and aaa3s to be Turkish, Farsi or Pashto, but idk, just wondering. It is kind of fucked up to assume they are arab because they are begging...

    Sorry if the formatting is fucked, I tried my best.

    • I've heard variations on most of these in the USA

      • they make more from recycling/begging/whatever!

      Afaik it's just flatly not true, and something people say to imply homeless and poor people are faking. In the usa i've heard news stories claiming people make a good living panhandling, and it's always just rubbish, or it turns out the "nice house" the person owns had the mortage paid off long ago and they're panhandling because they can't work and have no income.

      • in the us, at least, half of all homeless people have a mental illness, and it's often a severe mental illness that prevents them from getting work.
      • i'm sure there are lots of masjids and gurdwaras and churches and whatever handing out food. The people begging might have some other issue, who knows. Even so, cash is cash, and you need cash for many things - paying for a cellphone, maybe, or tampons/pads, or just something to making being desperately poor less miserable.
      • I've had folks follow me. I think, if you're in that situation, trying to hustle people for more money probably makes a lot of sense. You're not getting much help to begin with, and I imagine people who do help might be able to be pressured to do more. It sucks, it feels really bad, but I think people do it bc their situation is desperate. Idk, I think the vast majority of people would rather be doing anything else than hustle people for a few more lira.
      • idk what the demographics are in Istanbul, but if you couldn't figure out what language they were speaking i suspect they'd have a very, very hard time finding work, dealing with the police, dealing with government services. In the usa people speaking anything other than English have great trouble. Minneapolis has a large Somali people and finding English to Somali translators was always a problem. The little kids who translate for their parents are heroes.
      • also from the usa - any minority population here, no matter how good their english is, they face a lot of discrimination in housing, jobs, education, and government services. Cops will do sweeps targetting black people or american indigenous people, things like that. If the folks you were talking to were Roma or another marginal minority there's a good chance they're on the street because society and the state shut them out. I know a little about the Roma struggle in Europe and it is dire - brutal official discrimination at every level of government, frequent violence or even pogroms from Europeans, great discrimination in jobs and work. European racism against Roma, or people they think are Roma, seems insane and vicious even by the standards of America, a nation built on race terror. There are maginalized groups like that all over the world who are subjected to brutal violence by society and the state. Often indigenous people like America indigenous people, or Maya in central america. Or people of "low caste" like Dalits in India or Burakumin in Japan. Society hates them, society creates the conditions that keep them in a miserable situation, and then society use's their situation to justify the hate.

      My take is always - i'd rather give money to someone who doesn't need it than refuse money to someone who does. Much worse to withhold help from someone in need than refuse someone who genuinely needs a hand.

      It's funny, there are endless stories about beggars being important people in disguise. Jewish people are always expecting Elijah to show up. Vikings could never be sure if the stranger at the door asking for a meal and a place to sleep by the fire was Odin. Many European fairy tales feature a beggar who is revealed later to be a fairy or a prince or a saint who later rewards or punishes the main character. In the Hebrew Bible god sends two angels to Sodom, Lot takes them in and protects them, and the rest of the city is destroyed for violating the laws of hospitality.

      • Thanks, yeah it looked like a lot of bullshit online. In the UK, people always tell you don't interact, keep walking, etc., it's fucked. After hearing this repeatedly and not exactly being well off myself I eventually internalised the message. Wild.

      • i'd rather give money to someone who doesn't need it than [...]

        Even that benign scenario is extremely unlikely to happen. Anyone with too much money has better ways of making money.

        "You fool! That's Warren Buffet you just gave $20 to! He has this side hustle where he puts on dirty clothes and tricks people on the street out of their money. He learned it at Davos."

    • You're in Istanbul, Turkey. Do ask hexbear/this website for advice on this issue. Don't trust Google either, it will be full of anti homeless nonsense. Most of the people on here live in the USA, Canada, or the richer European and Scandinavian countries, they have no idea about the cultural context or what it's like in a poorer country. If you're from a "first world" country and are just visiting Turkey, you're experiencing this culture shock I just described. The only way to get accurate advice here would be to ask a Turkish person you trust for advice, and definitely a person who is not an arsehole towards homeless people or beggars.

    • IDK about Istanbul specifically, but if someone isn't actually asking for money it's rude to just give it to them. That shit about how nobody ever really needs money and collecting bottles pays well is obviously false. You see the same in the US where many genuinely believe that it's easier to be homeless than to have a home and a job because you "don't have to work for a living."

  • of course, but the more essential thing is to get involved with local orgs that support homeless people. go volunteer at a soup kitchen, or help some anarchists hand out support packages, or donate to a shelter - etc.

  • if you've got money to give, yea. maybe they literally do just go buy drugs with it. maybe (most likely) they don't. maybe they already have drugs and they buy food or a cot. $5 or $50 isn't going to solve their problems or turn them into a model citizen. but neither will ensuring that they starve or freeze.

  • If you want to sure.

    If you're interested in helping homeless people I recommend talking to your local unhoused neighbors and organizing against anti-homeless policies and activities, including bans on camping, bans on feeding people, and cities "sweeping" (throwing everyone's shit away). And also organizing against housing commodification.

    Of course one should also recognize that capitalism must be overthrown to solve the fundamental cause.

  • I don't think its right or wrong to give them a tiny amount of money, regardless of what they use it for. If you're worried about that, I've bought them fast food before, and honestly, most of them seem more appreciative of that than getting money.

    Also, the best thing you can do is of course, support laws and charities that feed/provide for the homeless.

  • I used to, but I would also hand out extra snacks or food that I had with me since I don’t usually have physical cash on me.

    But the usual guys who took whatever I had have gone somewhere else, and now it’s just a bunch of people holding up signs about fictional children dying from cancer or some shit. It seems like a whole ass team doing it - one corner does the dying kid routine, the other corner tries to sell me something then they switch when they’re tired and move to a different location.

    Maybe you’re thinking “so they’re emotional manipulating people. So what? You gotta do what you gotta do to survive.” Okay, fair. But the thing is that this is 2024 and I don’t have cash on me all the time lol. But I usually have extra snacks or food, as previously mentioned. They don’t accept my food and either refuse it, throw it, or become hostile to me as if I insulted them.

    The ones who I will not even consider giving money to are the ones who use actual kids. I don’t care if you think you can manipulate me with them, but this is the US where drivers are already reckless and now you’re forcing kids to run in the fucking intersection. Sometimes I don’t even see them until their little heads appear as they walk past my car. I could’ve killed someone. I don’t give a fuck about how poor you are, your bitch ass should be begging for money, not your 4 year old son or daughter. Usually the adult just stands there while their kids walk around the cars. You put their lives at risk and you risk ruining my own life had I taken my foot off the brake. Unbelievable.

  • Whenever I can, I keep a few fives in my wallet and give them out. Don't care if it won't solve the problem on a systemic level, and I'm sure that there are some horror stories out there, but I believe that the overwhelming majority of people who beg really are just in a shitty spot and should be helped unconditionally.

63 comments