Why shouldn't you give money to homeless people?
spiralprogress.com
spiralprogress.com
Another homeless person went out of his way to get me a sleeping bag, someone else would stop and chat, offering ideas for how I may be able to get more help. Another offered me a place to stay until I got back on my feet, 12 years later he's still my best friend.
I never asked for money and was never offered it. I'd witness people who did ask with no second thought and, undeniably, they were doing so to fuel a drink or drug addiction (many of these people were also not technically homeless).
If you can really help a homeless person then go ahead and do it, that help is unlikely to materialize via a simple transfer of cash though.
Entirely this. Giving some amount of money is easy and might make you feel good, but it's not actually that helpful. Really helping takes effort and genuine caring.
As to whether or not you "should" give money, I think that's the wrong question. I don't think there's anything wrong with doing that, but I also don't think it's very effective.
Well, the life of a person whose addiction (always stemming from spirals or depression, abuse, physical or mental illness) has driven them to homelessness is horrible. Why shouldn't I give them the means to a brief escape from the pain?
Yes, of course, escape from addiction and rehabilitation is the goal. But denying them temporary relief of the only kind they, in their addiction, are currently capable of, is just more cruelty. And nothing will drive them deeper into it than being ignored by everyone who walks past.
Of course, if you have time and means, volunteer, donate to a homeless shelter or charity. But if you, like most people, are not going to do that, and you just get the occasional pang of conscience when walking by, then by all means, give!
Giving a homeless person $5 will not fix any of their underlying issues, but it might be the thing that gets them through the day.
Because they'll leave their Hep-C infected needle on the sidewalk when they're done with it?
It sounds like you're saying that the fault of thefts is on the people who don't give money to panhandling addicts.
>Certainly, if you or I were pushed to homelessness and addicted to hard drugs stealing wouldn't be off the table.
"If you were different to the way you are, you would do things you wouldn't otherwise do" is a rather inane thing to say, don't you think? You don't need to argue for the fact that people steal; that's obvious.
What a terrible line of reasoning. Enabling is also a component of how people remain addicts. There is such a thing as misdirected empathy.
You, a stranger, giving money one time do not swing the pendulum. They will do drugs with or without your five dollars, because you as a person have zero influence in their life. If you died right now, not only will the homeless not care, but they also wouldn't even notice. You're not, and can't be, an enabler.
Best case scenario your five bucks prevents them from stealing something.
The issue is more complex than you give it credit. If everyone followed your solution it would backfire catastrophically.
Sorry, but I have no pity to spare for criminals, certainly not murderers. People who will take what they can't get by other means are not fit to live in society.
> People who will take what they can't get by other means are not fit to live in society
How revolutionary, did you come up with that all by yourself? We are looking for solutions. "They're bad people" isn't a solution. You CAN systemically discourage theft and other crimes. However, you don't do that by simply demonizing those people. If anything, that actually causes MORE crime because you put already impoverished people into even more dire circumstances. This is why "tough on crime" simply doesn't work.
I don't think it's not fair, I think it's a non sequitur. If I give money to someone who I know will use the money to buy drugs, I'm enabling them, because I know that they will buy drugs. If I don't give them money I'm not indirectly responsible for crimes they commit to get money, because I don't know if they will commit crimes. It's not a given, it's a decision they make.
If we go by your logic then crime is not punishable, because no one is responsible for their decisions; we're all just flesh automata animated by neurotransmitters. I am no more responsible for the decisions I make than a drug addict on withdrawal, a starving man, a horny rapist, or a bloodthirsty psychopath. All of us are equally enslaved to the physics of our brains.
>"They're bad people" isn't a solution.
Did I say they're bad people, or did I say they're not fit to live in society? Did I exclude the possibility of reformation? Hm...
This ALSO applies to drugs.
You don't know if they'll use drugs, you just assume. And it's a fair assumption.
Symmetrically, you can't claim you don't know they'll turn to crime to fuel their addiction. It should be a fairly straight forward conclusion.
It's a matter of cause and effect. Your own personal moral code is irrelevant. We know, whether we want it to be this way or not, that it's extremely difficult for drug addicts to stop using, particularly those with zero resources like the homeless. It's just the reality, and we have to live and operate within that framework. Because any other framework is make believe.
> because no one is responsible for their decisions; we're all just flesh automata animated by neurotransmitters
I'm not claiming this, you're doing the typical thing where you take my argument to the furthest extreme and then claim that is actually my argument, so it's easier to disprove.
The truth is choice is tricky. It's not binary, it's continuous. There's infinite levels of influence we have in each and every aspect of our lives, even the smallest ones. I can choose to, for example, not brush my teeth this morning. Would it be easier, or harder, to choose to not do heroin, provided I'm an addict? You know the answer.
My main argument is that you're not an enabler by giving them money because ultimately your influence is minimal. You're also not an enabler by NOT giving them money. Their "choice" (loose) to use drugs is due to societal, biological, and economic factors, which you cannot control. If you simply do not provide them money, even if everyone did this, you would not rid the world of drug addiction. In addition, you have to understand there's a reason these people do drugs. They live very hard lives. It's pretty easy for us in comparison. I can't blame them for craving an escape from the reality they live in. It's hard to look to the future you can build when you have no present.
It was an assumption posed by then original commenter. "IF I know they'll use the money on drugs, THEN all the more reason to give it to them." That they'll commit crimes if they can't get the money is an additional assumption that needs to be justified.
>you're doing the typical thing where you take my argument to the furthest extreme and then claim that is actually my argument
No, what I'm doing is taking your argument and following it to its necessary implications. You say "X", I say "X implies Y, do you also hold Y?" Well, do you? If I'm causing a crime to happen by not giving money to a drug addict, because he is not in control of his actions, then it follows that no crime has a perpetrator, because no one is truly in control of their actions. Crime is merely a consequence of a complex system that has interactions beyond anyone's control. Therefore it's wrong to punish criminals beyond merely preventing them from doing crime, because ultimately they have no more control over it than a rock following its trajectory after it's been thrown. They've just been unlucky enough to be born into the life path of a criminal, instead of that of a law-abiding citizen.
So, is that what you think? Maybe you do, I don't know. Most people seem to feel uncomfortable thinking about themselves and other people in these terms.
The book which shaped my thinking the most was In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts by the Canadian physician Gabor Maté, who spent years working as the house doctor in housing for addicts. It's a hard book to read, one of the most difficult books I've ever gone through. But if you genuinely think that giving an addict temporary access to their addictive substance is enabling them, I suggest you read it and challenge that perception.
Also, one important thing you will note reading this book is that even the people actively working with addicts will often help them by directly giving them drugs (especially methadone) or even money for drugs, alcohol, and cigarettes. Because often, that is a step on the path to recovery, or at least, the path to getting though just one more day.
Having worked in a soup kitchen, I've observed the current homeless are in their positions for many different reasons. Some had a long string of bad luck, some had one huge bout of bad luck (in terms of an unexpected bill, layoff, heath issue, etc.), some are homeless because of addiction/mental problems, some have addiction/mental problems because of homelessness, etc. So, all these different categories have to be addressed in different ways. There's no one size fits all solution, and pocket change is certainly insufficient in all categories. It's a tough sell politically to spend resources on this, and while religious and charity efforts can certainly "momentarily defer discomfort", they simply can't address all the underlaying issues all of these folks are having.
In terms of preventing future homelessness, that would require policy changes, like cheaper housing, a stronger welfare system, easier access to health care and more modern drug addiction treatments. Addressing these will be helpful for everyone, so hopefully it is easier to at least throw some political weight behind it for the future.
This does not apply to restaurants only FWIW.
https://kingcounty.gov/en/legacy/depts/dnrp/solid-waste/prog...
There's logistical issues, like: restaurants are busy and usually can't spare somebody to go find somebody to take excess, having excess is unpredictable so setting up a system is hard, having 8000 loaves of bread or whatever is too much (nobody wants to eat that much bread), etc.
Also if the restaurant/grocery/etc. is getting rid of food, it's usually in the neighborhood of not being suitable for consumption anymore. If it's not suitable for consumption, you can't really make a great case for then collecting it and giving it to somebody to eat, even if they're hungry and poor. So you need someone to have good food, care for it safely, but not want to use/sell it but still go through a lot of effort to get it to somebody who can use it.
There absolutely is some room in there for like "yeah we're getting rid of this because we don't want to sell it but it is still absolutely safe to consume", but it's just a difficult needle to thread in an area of society where there's never enough money or manpower.
The devil is in the details, but this may be one way to go about it, even if not daily, even if not perfect.
The unresolvable problem of homelessness is this: how do you house these people without concentrating poverty? The reason this is unresolvable is because if you build housing only for the homeless, that is by definition concentrating poverty. If you try to house them in multi-family housing, those who live there who work and pay taxes will move out, because unfortunately many of the homeless bring anti-social tendencies with them (and nobody wants to live next to a person addicted to drugs, even if they're on the path to recovery). This experiment happened in both the Netherlands[0] and in St. Louis[1].
This isn't an easy solution that just requires "political will". It's a very complicated problem that requires the study of incentives, mental health, economic factors, etc. (all mentioned in the original article).
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bijlmermeer [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pruitt%E2%80%93Igoe
> The almsgiver is a harbor for those in necessity: a harbor receives all who have encountered shipwreck, and frees them from danger; whether they are bad or good or whatever they are who are in danger, it escorts them into its own shelter. So you likewise, when you see on earth the man who has encountered the shipwreck of poverty, do not judge him, do not seek an account of his life, but free him from his misfortune. Why do you make trouble for yourself? God has excused you from all officiousness and meddlesomeness. How much most of us would complain, if God had bidden us first to examine each person's life exactly, to interfere with his behavior and his deeds, and only then to give alms? But as it is we are freed from all this kind of annoyance. Then why do we bring excessive cares on ourselves? A judge is one thing, an almsgiver is another. Charity is so called because we give it even to the unworthy.
I'm not going to judge someone on what they do with it. I have a fundamental belief that people are going to do the best they can with what they have. I'm going to put it all in the same level of self-determinism as the people who give me my income and what say they have on what I can do with it (none). If anything, by giving them that with no strings attached at least I gave them a little bit of dignity.
If you're not convinced, I encourage you to talk to them and make up your own mind.
I live in a city that had a huge influx of migrants. And with them, children. It feels different when those asking for money or trying to sell goods have children with them. Rather than someone who looks like they've struggled with addiction and homelessness for decades.
Everyone should do what they feel is the right decision at that time. One blanket answer for every context and every person out there isn't the answer.
Some people like to help everyone, others only in certain situations, and yet others never give help at all. And that's OK.
I would claim that if people practiced more genuine charity, they would become less miserable.
In the past I was homeless for a month. I was young at that time (18 years old). After a very depressive period of 2 weeks I started to act so I won't be homeless any longer. Today I have 3 kids and a good job. It went well for me.
But usually, you will find people who are homeless and they like it. Or they don't want to change anything in their life to make a difference. For example, here where I live there are shelters for homeless people so they can find a place to sleep, take shower and wash their clothes. Also, they can get new clothes. But most of them don't want to go there as it is forbidden to be under influence of drugs and alcohol. Also, here is easy to find a job. Even if one has no special skills, there will be always something to do on the constructions. After one month of work and sleeping in the facility which I mentioned you can easily rent something and live normally. But being homeless, you don't need to work. That's it.
Now, that said, my Dad has also arranged his life so that he's rarely in a position where people are asking him for money. If he's out driving and see's someone he can pull over and ask them or he can keep driving.
I on the other hand am constantly accosted by people. I never have cash so that I can truthfully tell people I don't have money to give them. I avoid eye contact and have been embarrassed when a person asked me for directions and appeared to actually want directions to a place.
The thing I really suspect is that giving money really is about you not the person you're giving it to. That when I have had cash and handed it over it was because I actually interacted with the person acting and I just couldn't imagine myself as a person who would rudely tell another person asking for help "no" and then walk away.
Personally, if a guy looks like he's in rough shape and asks me for a drink, I might oblige him. Not because I think it's helping him in the long run, but because it could help him feel better now.
Very much this: The long run is vague, and the only sure thing is that we will be dead. But this is a small thing one can do now.
(And I don't mean to be critical of your position, just pointing out that it might not be neutral in the long term.)
When people aren't using the services there's always a reason. You might not find that reason valid ("well then they should just quit" etc) but it's there. An addict on the street isn't having a better time than you would be doing the same thing. You have to consider why they experience that as a better option for themselves than the one you're presenting.
That is what I was saying. There is the perceived return on investment of using the services designed to help get one out of homelessness, and it is being weighed against the perceived return of going back to the street. If you can bring in several hundred dollars a day on the streets that you can spend on alcohol, the effort of being in a place that is trying to help you change your situation might be hard to justify.
But a big piece of the equation is how easy it is to just get cash from well-meaning people on the street.
I'm not disagreeing with you about needing help with addictions, but there are two sides to the equation.
That’s the dark truth of it all.
Don’t worry about your kids or yourself. As usual most people won’t think so deeply about the matter and they will come up with some excuse to lie to themselves.
A few people will actually care enough to help. But these people are a tiny minority.
Among the people that don’t care most will be lying to themselves. Out of these people a small portion will be able to face their own intrinsic evil and literally say it like it is: I just don’t give a shit.
I’m one of those people. Anyone else like me?
dont pull us into despair
I think "evil" is a strong word for it, though. I see bigger evils than apathy in the news every day. And I vote for policies that are supposed to help these people. Some people are actively voting against them.
OTOH I don't call it good when people take care of their friends and family. That's self-interest, that's tit-for-tat. Everyone is kind to people who are kind to them. That does not impress me one bit.
I admire the people who are good, I’m just not one of them.
For me, the answer is probably yes, and so it makes sense for me to give money to folks in that situation.
Sociopaths are something worse. What I describe is normal people.
Of course it does. If there is any logic to ethics is that you should behave towards others how you would like to be treated in their position.
> There's an implicit assumption that most people who ask for money are in the position you imagined yourself to be in that case.
Well, yes. To assume otherwise, or to fall into such deep skepticism that you think you cannot assume anything about how other people pass through the world, is to give up on empathy.
Please expand on that. How are you becoming less empathetic by not assuming things about other people?
Because there isn't a single situation in existence where this isn't a valid excuse to not care about the needs of others.
I don’t care to spend that effort. And neither do you. I don’t think you’ve saved a single life either.
Presumably if you were walking past a dying person, you would call an ambulance to save their life. (Perhaps not, given your other answers!) Now what if you knew with high probability that they'd die without a little money for a shelter? Now what if you knew with high probability that they'll have a really rough night - get beaten up, raped, mugged etc... - without a little money for a shelter?
My personal experience is that the vast majority of humans have a strong innate sense of compassion for others. But many of them have it beaten out of them by social and financial pressures.
I walked by several people like this for probably about a week. Then those people disappeared. I assume they died because who would spend the money to give them care?
You saw it yourself when you visited these places and like the others who lived there you chose not to do anything about it.
But homeless shelters do exist in the city. So there are people who a genuinely good and who do care. But again people willing to take action on this are in a tiny minority.
This is what I was going to say. But looking backwards, I think it's a consequence of large cities vs little towns. If you lived in a little village, it's harder to ignore someone in need. You're going to see them again, you know their name, and almost like your family. This is how societies operated for millennia. But in a metropolis, it's easier to stop caring, expect the government to fix it (lol), and fear your neighbor instead of thinking of your city as "yours" and investing in it.
So I think it’s more than that. And clearly if the homelessness exists in the city then we know the government isn’t doing anything about it.
Fact of the matter is both me and tons of people who live in sf… when we walk past homeless people… none of us feel anything.
What's the point of throwing around labels anyway?
The issue is that people are independent agents, so the effect of whatever we do for them is going to be dwarfed by what they do for themselves. When we examine the roots of poverty and homelessness, we find that in most cases people in those situations keep on making choices that perpetuate their circumstances. This isn't meant to suggest that we should reduce charity efforts or that these people who are suffering "deserve" it, it's just an observation that there is no solution without correcting the actions being taken on the individual level.
Unfortunately trying to solve a condition as broad as homelessness is like trying to cure cancer. Why do people repeatedly take the wrong actions? There are a thousand causes. But if you want some broad groupings, you can start with unresolved trauma and a lack of information/education. So if we want to achieve fundamental improvement we need to work on those. By the time we get to the homeless I think trauma is the most common factor that prevents them from pulling themselves out. Trauma from serving in the Vietnam War for example probably created around 75,000 homeless men.
I come from poverty and escaped it, and in hindsight I'm able to see that my family and the other people around me were making bad choices repeatedly for years. That is why most of them remained in poverty and some of them died an early death. I'm also able to recognize the bad choices I make today which limit my contemporary success, and I'm not always able to change those habits due to my own issues. Everyone is a WIP. Compassion is worthwhile but alone it is insufficient. People must somehow be compelled to change.
Plenty of people care most don’t care.
Your perspective is unique. I’m talking from a perspective of someone who looks at poverty like a foreign country. Most people have never experienced it.
Besides, kindness begets kindness. I have been on the receiving end of selfless help from uncountable people; to not do the same with the money I have would be cruel.
I helped get a homeless person into a place that provided him with an apartment, food, and work that he could do, with a path to helping him become independent. He quickly left because on the street he had a better system for getting money that he could spend on drugs. It sounded like there was a large percentage of people the charity tried to help that ended up taking that path. There were some who were able to get back on their feet. The charity basically felt it was worth giving everyone a chance in order to reach the ones that were actually trying to get out of homelessness. However, as far as providing free housing is concerned, that is what this place did.
Unfortunately (at least for this person), the well-meaning people who were always willing to give him money on the street meant what the charity was offering wasn't of interest to him.
Why couldn’t they get the housing AND the money too ?
For those who are intermittently homeless, due to mental health issues, and served by the public mental health systems - there seems to be no priority given to "find things that work for this client, then STICK TO THAT". Example - I've lost track of how many times a friend's niece has gone completely off the rails - because her latest gov't "psychiatrist" decided to switch her meds yet again, and she didn't like the new/different/worse side-effects.
There's also the issue of organized homeless encampments. NIMBY's and most of the government seem virulently opposed to those - even if well out of sight on low-value public land, and more orderly and safe than many traditional (but bottom-end poor) neighborhoods and housing complexes. Why? Does a "better" homeless encampment fail to provide enough boogeymen and government interactions and head-bashing opportunities for the politician and bureaucrats and cops?
Each card has two sides with text:
1. “I want a better life! What do I want?”
2. “I have a better life! What do I have?”
When you give away the card, you might say, "I have a lot of respect for what you’re doing. I want to give you this card because I believe in you. Look here: do you want a better life? You deserve it, but always have to know what you want.
Now, on the other side, consider this: maybe today was a good day, maybe you’re happy with this card. So every day, ask yourself what you already have. Don’t compare yourself to others; just be grateful for what you have, even if it feels like it’s not much.
And remember, this card is more than just a gift—it’s a meaningful tool.”
It’s even about patriotism.
There is no right answer— I can’t see the truth and don’t know the consequences of my actions. So, my policy is: I usually ignore them, and once in a while I offer the help they request.
The first time I visited Paris I saw a man begging on a street-corner. He had a dog. I gave money to help the dog. I soon found that nearly every street corner had another guy— with another dog! I wondered if this was a scheme by the men or if the dogs started it. It was harder to not give money to dogs, but I had to steel myself or I would go broke and be forced to get my own dog.
But they often don't want to go there because of their substance abuse issues as there's typically a zero-tolerance policy for drugs and alcohol.
For example, it can't be all or nothing. You shouldn't be kicked out/lose all support by getting a job or a raise. Assistance can be reduced, but it should be something like pulling back $.5 for every dollar earned over since level.
Whatever limit should also be index to inflation.
An example of how to do everything wrong is what we did with SSI and Medicare for people with disabilities. Means test set in the 70s, no inflation adjustment, and all or nothing.
Since American political parties are utterly financially reliant upon donations from investors with property portfolios, you're rarely if ever able to vote against their interests as a group.
If the US were democratic like Finland rather than being an oligarchy then it might be possible, but at the moment, 60-70% of US voters craving single payer healthcare isn't enough to make that happen and that would only hit a specific group of investors. A finland style "housing for everybody program" is a political pipe dream given the damage it would do to donor portfolios.
The best homeless shelters have programs targeted at helping people graduate into apartments. They have social workers and counselors that try to help people overcome addictions. They partner with charities that collect donated home goods and turn them into a "free store" so that when someone graduates into an apartment they are able to furnish it. This is how the shelters in my area operate, but many shelters do not have the resources to offer this many resources.
The best food banks do not question your level of need, but offer food and hygiene supplies to anyone who asks. If someone owns a car and home but has run across hard times, these no-questions-asked resources help them make do without losing their car or their home.
Giving to homeless shelters and food banks helps us to have better homeless shelters and food banks. Shelters that have more resources are able to offer more to those in need, including helping people graduate to stable living conditions.
It's also just institutionalizing homelessness rather than trying to address the cause of the problem: refusing to give (or subsidize sufficiently) people who need houses.
> The best homeless shelters have programs targeted at helping people graduate into apartments.
The capacity and cost of this is a tiny, tiny, tiny fraction of the problem with homelessness we face today. It's nice, it's good that there are some resources available, but it's not going to lessen the overall problem of homelessness.
For all of time, there will always be a subset of people unable to work. Homeless people aren't just homeless, they're jobless, many permanently so. Due to mental illness, disabilities, drugs, etc.
Ultimately giving these people houses does not solve the problem, because they will still be very unsuccessful in a capitalist system. You need a job to survive. What happens if you don't have work?
We don't have a solution for this. Typically, we do bandaids. Retirement funds for those who can't work, medicare, social security. That helps a bit for those people who did work but no longer can.
SOME homeless people can be "trained" to be ideal capitalistic laborers. Most can't, and never will be, because of physical limitations of their person. We don't know what to do with them. Previously, we just institutionalized them. Disqualified them from society. That was awful, so now we let them participate. But they fail, and always will fail.
Ultimately, there is no way around it regardless of the solution you choose. There will always be a subset of people that cannot work and will never work.
Watch this stand-up comedy bit which deals with this topic
Too add further stress to overwhelming anxiety, many people who work in homeless shelters are also, unfortunately, narcissistic bullies on a power trip.
Nobody gives a fuck about the security situation of homeless people though and their reluctance to use shelters is usually chalked up to them being drug addicts unwilling to deal with the no drug mandates.
Let's say my marginal tax rate is 50%. That means I could give $10 to a homeless person, or $20 to a homeless shelter, both costing me the same amount.
If someone has highly appreciated stock that is going to be sold, can donate it (e.g. through a DAF), and has the highest possible marginal tax rate in California, that person has the choice to donate $10 to a homeless person or ~$80 to a homeless shelter, both costing the same amount.
I think he was saying base the decision based on your own values and morals, but don't assume so you can make judgements about what they do with that money.
accurate
Sorry, what are you referring to?
There was a guy on my corner here in Brooklyn who I'd do this with a lot over the years. One night I was coming back from Manhattan and he clearly had just taken something -- he was in a totally joyful, high state. We say what's up, he's laughing, and then is like "can I have a hug?!?". And so we hug, he starts yelling "thank you!", and I ask him if he needed any money, to which he said "no money! just hugs!".
He's clearly been through an amount of trauma I can't even begin to imagine. If throwing a few dollars his way while chatting for a moment makes him feel like people see him as a human, then I'm going to keep doing it.
It is really not complicated. It is not difficult to be generous at all levels to the extent you can. Give to the panhandler, give to a shelter, give to and volunteer at a soup kitchen, volunteer your time to public policy meetings. So many options that need neither your guilt nor gloat.
it would be much easier to say, "i am a bad person, and i don't care," and own it. that would help develop a less hypocritical vision of ethics and the functioning of society. confronting the banality of our own evil would humanize the evil in others.
probably even better than offering food, which is the most patronizing and offensive move (just offer money, always, please—and if they use it for drugs or alcohol, good for them). If people ask money, give money please. don't be an ass.
And food is hardly the most offensive thing you could give. You could toss a bunch of change on the ground, or give them soiled money.
The real existential question, once you jerk off into the cosmological mirror for long enough, will still be "do you want to?"
The unhoused are not a fact of nature; they exist only because of a deliberate choice as to the nature of the social safety net.
My statement does not necessitate there being anything wrong with panhandlers, but at a base level it's annoying to be interrupted from what you're doing to be asked for money.
>The social dysfunction that gives rise to panhandling won't disappear if the panhandlers do.
There's not a single reason why people panhandle, but if enough people give money it turns panhandling into a viable profession.
I think I agree. Drugs are bad, but withdrawal is also bad. Alcohol withdrawal can be fatal.
One major weakness of consequentialist ethics is that ethical actions require a non-trivial amount predictive power from agents:
Should we spoil our pants to save a drowning child? Sure. Should we wire a significant amount of money to a Nigerian prince who has informed us that he is setting up an organization to save drowning children? Probably not. Would we save baby Hitler? How could we ever accurately predict that a child will become Hitler?
The interplay between prediction accuracy here is tough when it comes to giving money to homeless folks. It's entirely possible that giving money can do harm, but in other cases it could also benefit. This indeterminacy is a huge problem for consequentialists (I am one), and creating a reasonable discount rate for lack of knowledge about outcomes generated is a very important part of creating a consequentialist ethical theory. Dealing with general rules for difficult-to-predict decisions is the realm of deontology, not consequentialism.
I was like this woman when I was a teenager as well. I not only did what she did, but I went well beyond that. When I got my first car, I drove into LA's skid row at night and handed out whatever cash I had to whoever I could find, at least once a week.
Much later in life, nearer to now, I actually lived in a major city downtown district. Frankly, the experience left me feeling hopeless in the face of a problem the scale of which no single person could ever hope to have a meaningful impact on. I started walking for several hours a day as part of my spinal rehab 8 years ago and I'd be stopped every 50 feet at times by people asking for money. This wasn't even just homeless beggars. It was often fundraisers for political campaigns and charities. This left me not only with the impression that I could spend the entire day handing out cash and all that would happen is, as much money as I make, I'd end up broke giving out thousands a day, and still not make any dent, but more practically speaking, I'd get no actual walking done. Being stopped three times a block by all the people demanding just a minute of my time adds up to a lot of minutes, leaving nothing for anything else.
It's a similar problem to retention marketing. Every single business you have ever done business with or even looked into doing business with puts you on a permanent list to send you updates of every promotion they ever run. To them, it's perfectly rational. Some evidence suggests the rate at which this turns leads into sales exceeds the cost of sending the messages. Collectively, however, if you even bothered to read all the e-mail and SMS and answer the phone calls, you'd have no time left to do anything else. You wouldn't even be able to eat or sleep.
To me, the only rational response left is to turn off and ignore all of this. I don't have the capacity to do individual triage. If I tried to evaluate which beggars need money the most or which spammers trying to buy my house might make a worthy offer, that would take even more time than simply listening to or reading all the spam. Even if I wanted to do it, it's not logistically possible.
This is probably not "optimal" altruism or anything, but fair or not, I've just retreated back into the circle of family and friends I already know. Plenty of them are hurting for money at times and I have never once hesitated to give it to them. I'm well aware there is no moral universe in which they are more deserving of charity than some distant kid in an impoverished, war-torn nation, but there are tens of millions of such kids and I can't get to know them the way I know my own family. I already pay taxes, and as far as I'm aware, though governments do a far from perfect job of this, their basic purpose is to address these kinds of large-scale coordination and knowledge problems that individuals can't possibly hope to address on their own.
What study?
of all sad words
of tongue and pen
the saddest are these:
dad was right again
If you live in a western country, or even most developing nations (India in particular has a great culture around this) food is available to the homeless.
When you give them food they have to eat it on the cold wet ground often with filthy hands, not at a table with a knife and fork like they had gone to the shelter or soup kitchen. They don't get to feel human. They don't get to experience dignity.
The soup kitchens are strategically located, often in areas where begging won't net you much. This is intentional, its set up to drive the homeless into the arms of the social workers and help them stay sober so that they might have a moment of clarity whilst talking to them.
If you want to help volunteer, make the toast or wash dishes so the social workers can spend more time trying to reach their clients.
You aren't trained to help so don't try. Its a more complex problem than you are equipped to do anything about. Trust the people who dedicated their lives to this work.
> When you give them food they have to eat it on the cold wet ground often with filthy hands
Seriously? There is a wide range of packaged food available, ensuring that your hands never have to come into contact with the food, and they give you napkins and plastic utensils, too, if you want. You simply hand it over to them in the packaging.
Every single expert I have spoken to, people who have actually saved thousands of individuals from the cycle of mental health issues, addiction and homelessness shares this view. In fact, I used to think like you prior to meeting them. I have learned that I was wrong.
Your act allowed him to continue begging, this allowed him to obtain more of his drug of choice and only prolonged his battle with addiction. It did not help him, if he didn't get help like I previously described he is likely dead.
You meaned well, you aren't a bad person, I just ask you to understand what the experts in the field have to say and perhaps consider that they know more than you.