Blunt Money has opened up an interesting thread about giving (or not giving) to beggars. Some of the comments bring back memories:
One reader says, “My daughter and I saw [a beggar], with a sign ‘hungry need food…’ while he was smoking a cigarette and talking on his cell phone.”
Or this one: “At the airport, a stranger approached me and said he needed $18.50 to buy a return ticket to Seattle. I immediately thought to myself ‘Who comes to the airport without money to buy a ticket?’”
While on a New Jersey transit train last week, a man in a blue button-down shirt, very clean-cut, young, and tired-looking, walked the aisles. He loudly explained, “I’ve just come from Princeton [or some other Jersey town] and I’m short for my return ticket. I lost my cell phone and can’t get in touch with anybody. I can’t get money from Western Union because blah blah blah…”
He went into a long-winded explanation of Western Union’s business practices, but it was clear he was a scam artist. The fact that he lost his cell phone and couldn’t get in touch with anyone but was somehow waiting at a Western Union counter for a transfer was clearly a big hole in his story. My accompanying friend wanted to give the guy the benefit of the doubt.
Before I could answer, the woman sitting on my other side muttered, “That was the same speech he gave last week.”
Ben recalls that when he was five, he was out with his parents when a man on crutches asked him for some money. His parents refused to kick him back some of his allowance for the cause and Little Ben was incensed. Nevertheless, the family marched on to lunch, then hopped a subway home. Just before entering the turnstiles, they saw the beggar, crutches under his arm, walking up to the token booth to buy a fare, laughing at something the attendant was saying.
In New York, there are your homeless people and your professional beggars. The homeless person is the guy who accosts you in Home Depot for spare change. The professional beggar is the guy who is almost well-dressed, clean, and doesn’t smell too bad who walks around your neighborhood every day and hits up all passerby. I never, ever give to these people, but occasionally I give to homeless people who somehow strike me as really in need. How I determine this, I can’t really say. (A few years back, a survey of New Yorkers and their earnings reported professional beggars make $14 an hour. Not much worse than temping, I guess.)
Do you give money to your local professional beggar, random homeless people, or anybody at all who asks you for money? —BRIAN FAIRBANKS
Do You Give Money to Strangers? [Blunt Money]
(Photo: Getty)
I was approached by a guy near a movie theater in Fort Lauderdale for “bus money” to get his daughter and he gas money to get home. I obliged.
Two weeks later, I was approached in the same spot by the same guy, same shtick, and I reminded him fiercely that I has already “donated”.
I don’t generally give and this experience helped ground my belief that many beggars are really scammers in disguise.
@Skyoodpov: I run into that guy all the time on South Street. I usually give him a couple bucks if I’ve got anything on me.
When I was going to art school, once I started driving into town instead of taking the train I’d bring my doumbek with me and busk in Suburban Station near City Hall, or sometimes in the square itself for a while before someone would ask me to leave. I never put anything out to make money, mostly I was there to play for the passive audience. Occasionally I’d end up with a couple dollars, which I would take and find a guy who was genuinely hungry nearby and get him a sandwich or a pretzel and a drink from the cart.
I also don’t give to people who don’t do anything for the money. If you play something or tell a joke or do a magic trick then I’ll give you a dollar or whatever. Yesterday in DC there was a guy sitting on a milk crate in the middle of the sidewalk in Dupont circle jingling a cup of change, and he got all irate when we walked past him. He said something like “hey up there” in a snarky tone, and I looked at him and said “I wish someone would pay ME to jingle a cup all day.” and kept walking.
I’ve seen the bus ticket scams, the gas money scams, the metro fare scams, just about all of them in different variations. I don’t want to hear about it.
Once I came across a guy begging for money to buy his dog some food, so I went into the CVS and bought a small bag of food and a bowl, and a bottle of water with one of those dog funnel cap things. The guy was grateful that I cared about his dog. He said “I can find food easily, but I don’t want him to get sick because he’s my only friend.” That sorta melted my heart.
Beggars? Never.
Buskers? MAYBE. Earning my dollar is much better than begging for it.
My family isn’t from the U.S. and have little sympathy for beggars. Basically they always say they should be hustling for work so they can buy food instead of just standing around asking for handouts. I’m with baa. I’d only buy someone some food instead of just giving them money. Then I know my money is keeping someone from starving instead of being used for drugs/alcohol.
Sometimes I give and sometimes I don’t, mostly don’t because I don’t have it. I would like to carry an envelope of dollar bills in my car just for that purpose. Don’t like the story telling beggars but if I can help like putting gas in their gas can I will. I feel like it is better for me to take a chance giving to the wrong person than to pass by someone in need.
But here is the other thing. This month I am so so broke that if I don’t get some money I am going to be homeless too and for real! I am behind on two car payments, this months rent, the utilities, owe a cash advance I can’t pay, the list goes on and I really don’t know what I am going to do. I swear I have considered standing on one of our city’s finer corners! Now do I do this dressed in my everyday clothing, telling the truth that I work one full time job and one part time job plus an extra side job at my full time job, that my decent, year old low-end cost car is parked over there and I just need help, before I jump off the overpass from the stress and worry? Or should I put on some torn up worn dirty looking clothing, mess up my hair, eat some garlic, and hold a sign that says homeless?
I have learned from this comments that I need to hide my one tattoo that I got like 5 years ago.
So what do you think will it work? Would you give to me? I am 45 year old white women and not in the best shape or the most attractive….so yeah can’t work the corner any other way>>>I would have to pay them. But man I have run out of options…just may give it a try.
@kerry: “I know that they really are homeless, even though it’s by choice more than anything.”
That’s my point exactly. But even if gutter punks weren’t decked out, it is their choice to live the way they do.