I want to give them money but since my childhood my parents pretty much told me that they are all either faking it or are too lazy to go to work for money. I mean, I guess they can go to work but not everyone gets accepted to work as easy as it sounds like.
Having empathy is normal, yes.
I used to be homeless. (I am doing significantly better now though. Hard work and luck.)
I did actually have a job, it just didn’t pay enough to get me a place to live at the time. I was too ashamed to beg for money, but I did occasionally hang around restaurants and ask people for food. (So much shame because I had so many peers with family that helped them and they would look down on me for “failing to launch.”)
Why didn’t I go to a food bank? Because the bus system sucked and I couldn’t get everywhere I needed in the amount of time I had in the day. Additionally, I had no kitchen. No place to prepare food that isn’t ready made. The shelter did not allow me to store food.
Government help and charities were definitely not enough, but it did help. A lot of people in charity were good people, but there were quite a few that were just plain nasty. At the shelter, I would get yelled at for following their rules and asking for my phone that they held at the front desk so I could get to my job for instance.
It does not feel good when your family lets you down, your community lets you down, the government lets you down, and even the people that are supposed to fill in the gaps lets you down. Really makes you think that you are undeserving.
You are right that some homeless people have a hard time finding a job. A lot of places will discriminate against you if you do not have a permanent address (and some will even look for addresses of shelters). If you went to jail, a lot of places won’t consider hiring you. And if course wages are just really low compared to cost of living.
Yes, it is ok to feel bad for those people that don’t have what you have. That is human. Yes, some of them may have made some bad choices and some of them might not need the help. But a lot of those people are just victims of an uncaring system. If you do not help them (which is fine, it is not always possible), at least treat them with dignity. Being treated like a worthy person, rather than a second class citizen, means a lot to someone who society let down.
And none of this addresses whether or not giving money to panhandlers helps them.
I’ve lived on the street before, it sucks, but what the typical visibly homeless person does isn’t sustainable and doesn’t help them. It’s just a rut of wasteful and irrational behaviour, if you are panhandling you’re not engaging in productive behaviour that will result in long-term changes.
Thanks for talking about it. It’s more than I could do. It’s interesting and aggravating to have spent most of your life in a certain situation, then working to help other people in that situation, then studying it…then reading a bunch of comments by people arguing over it who are so certain they’re all right when it’s obvious that most of them have never come close to experiencing it.
This must be what it feels like to be a lawyer and have to talk to a sovereign citizen or something.
Yes, it’s normal. Even if they are faking it, it’s still a bad situation that they feel the need to do it. Most of them have mental problems and can’t find or even look for work. Without work you have to apply for benefits in most countries and some are not capable of this beurocratic process. Without benefits they have no health insurance in most countries and therefore can’t get treatment. Also, without a home address and internet it’s difficult to find or apply for a job in many regions abd without a job it’s difficult to get a home address and internet.
However, there’s too many to help them individually. This is not your problem as a person, but our problem as a scociety. You’ll be overwhelmed caring for all of them. Instead, you should try and help passing laws and regulations to help them in your region. In the EU, for example 2016 a law has been made so everyone may create a basic bank account, even if they are homeless or foreigners. This is important, because before that in many regions you couldn’t get hired or payed because the banks required your home address and without pay or a bank account you couldn’t get a home or work.
Instead, you should try and help passing laws and regulations to help them in your region.
no, because -
In the EU, for example 2016 a law has been made so everyone may create a basic bank account, even if they are homeless or foreigners
that is literally less than bare minimum and only provides help to those already getting support (applying for benefits takes much more than a bank account, without additional support, and a societal framework to end homelessness instead of making it “more manageable”, being able to get an account is still useless).
The only action any individual can take to end homelessness is to become an active anti-capitalist, since as long as capitalism exists, so will homelessness.
So i saw this response of yours first, and wondered why you’re coming in so hard against someone that: 1) proposed a solution, 2) did not insist it was the only solution, and 3) was opening a dialogue of how to help, instead of dismissing the homeless as most of society does.
Then i saw your responses in the rest of the thread and realized either
A) You’re a troll Or B) You’re socially inexperienced
Your responses to other people show that you think your opinion is the only correct one. Before you immediately bang away on the keyboard defending yourself, please take a moment to reflect on how your speech affects your cause. The adage “you attract more flies with honey than vinegar” may not be scientifically correct, but it is socially accurate.
In general, kindness is never wrong. Be kind to others, including strangers on the internet. OTOH, if you can’t play nice, go touch grass and let the adults have a conversation.
Oh, and you’re not wrong about capitalism being part of the problem. You are wrong that working for policy change is “less than bare minimum”. Doing nothing, that is less than bare minimum
Did they delete comments, or are you replying to the wrong person? They’ve only commented once in this thread.
Must not be showing on your side because I can see it
If you want, try to help such people.
It might surprise you that you can dump unlimited money into certain people and they’ll end up back in the same situation, but they’ll hate you for not giving more because you still have something left.
It’s like trying to help a drowning person, they often will drag you into the water with them.
Sorry to tell you but your parents are capitalist assholes who lack basic empathy.
