Neville's Financial Blog

Something people find rather interesting is when they hear about my Homeless Experiment. Usually they hear it from one of my jackass friends mentioning to someone "Ask him where he lived this year!" or some question-inducing comment like that.

• HTML viewing version: Follow the experiment in chronological order in an online-ebook format.
• Word Doc: If you prefer reading it in a Word file.
• PDF Format: You can take it on the go to read.
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Labels: Homeless Experiment

You're driving in your car, come to a stoplight and see someone holding a sign on the side of the road asking for money. Should you give them money?

That decision is totally up to you, it's your money.

Here's what I think:
After doing my Homeless Experiment I got to know more about homeless habits, even more so than when I did the Bottled Water Experiment.

There are several ways bums commonly make money:

• Flying a sign: Holding a sign on the side of the road.
• Panhandling: Walking around at gas stations, streets, busy parks, supermarkets etc. and asking people for money.
• Random Hustles: Washing windshields at stoplights, pointing out parking spots and other relatively useless services.

Different areas, climates and populations promote or discourage different types of efforts.

This time I experienced a part of Austin, TX. called Riverside as well as the Downtown area. Riverside bums camp out in the woods or live under a bridge. To get food they dumpster dive, panhandle (aka walking around at gas stations or supermarket asking people) or fly signs. People often give food.

For food the Downtown homeless population simply goes to one of many free soup kitchens or organizations that provide free meals. I was VERY well fed when pretending to be homeless in downtown Austin. For extra money they may panhandle for a short while, or they can go to a day labor center and get a manual labor job for the day (although almost none actually do this).

For the most part food seems to be easily available (at least here in Austin) no matter where you go.

So if food is taken care of, where does that money you give bums go? I'd say less than 20% goes to food, and most goes to drugs and alcohol (from what I saw, mainly beer).

After observing the lifestyle many of these people lead, I feel relatively little sympathy, and don't particularly feel like giving them any money.



So should you give them money?
In short, my answer is: NO.



Why I won't give:

• It supports bums standing on street corners begging or panhandling all over the place, and I don't like that.
• It almost all goes towards alcohol.
• There are usually plenty of places to go for a meal.
• It's usually only the chronically homeless that stand outside flying signs or panhandling for money.
• Most "real" homeless people who have temporarily fallen on hard times rarely ask for money in any of these ways.

So those are some of my reasons. It's very obvious that many people DO give, it's an economic truth that if no one gave, they wouldn't be out there trying for very long.

However if YOU decide to give away YOUR money, that's your personal decision. A lot of people will even voluntarily buy bums cigarettes or beer. Once again, that's a personal decision.

I especially hate giving money to bums downtown in my area, because I found out just how easy it was to get a free meal, plenty of food and even temporary jobs.

Labels: Homeless Experiment

Though it'd be interesting to visually see the transformation from Neville Medhora to Neville the Bum and back:

How I normally dress. Everyday.

12 days of no shaving

17 days of no shaving. Hair is starting to get a little out of control.

My new invention: Lightweight homeless signs

A few hours before starting

Putting on my best "pity pose" face

I'm sure my Mom wasn't happy that her first born was sleeping under a bridge.

Home sweet bridge!

Does YOUR house have a river running through it, an aviary, garden, plenty of fresh air, large backyard and a million dollar roof?!

My room.

Black Mike sleeping on his mattress.

The bum just bumming around

After brushing my teeth in the public library bathroom

Kicking of the Homeless Drinking Experiment

Waking up from the aftermath trying to clean my clothes.

Hungover + Broken slab of concrete = bed

Was it comfortable? Hell no! Did I get bitten up by ants? Yes.

I'm now a trained street fighter

I often didn't know what time it was or what I looked like.

This is what I looked like right before I stepped back into my house after 5 days.

First order of business back home, discard of EVERYTHING.

2nd order of business: SHOWER

I was VERY happy to take a proper shower

Even though I kind of liked the beard, 3rd order of business was to shave

All smooth again!

Back to normal. I look 5 years younger and 10 years less mature.

Did I develop more sympathy for the homeless = Not really.

Did I learn much = Yes.

Glad I did it = Yes.

Do I plan on doing this again = Nope.

Do I understand why people get trapped in homelessness: Yes.

Will I donate to the homeless community = Already did, probably not much more for now.

If you had to change one thing about the homeless shelter, what would it be = Have Earl Nightingale playing on repeat (link):

Labels: Homeless Experiment