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.
Good post. I agree with your observations and comments.
I don't know about the social system in the USA but in Australia, if you don't work you are entitled to cold hard cash from the government.
There are two levels
- Youth Allowance – for full-time students aged 16 to 24 OR unemployed people aged under 21
- Newstart Allowance – for people aged over 21 who are unemployed or are temporarily unable to work due to illness, injury or disability.
Just one example. There are lots of different levels and such but for a single unemployed person over 21 they are entitled to $453.30 per fortnight!
There is also government housing, government rental assistance, and community housing.
There is so much help and money, but there are still people living on the streets.
People do not have enough will power to help themselves.
This is why I refuse to give money to a homeless person.
If a homeless person came to me and said something like. "I want to change my life but I don't know what I can do. Can you help?" id say sure.
I would point him in the right direction of all the places that can help.
But this is not what they ask for.
I don't give money to any of them that hold signs. Only because if you can hold a sign begging for money, you can spin a sign for a condo complex. I see those jerks everywhere and its a legitimate job.
I agree its only enabling them to continue to do drugs and alcohol. I believe they should have the right to choose whether or not they are bums but not on my dime.
I feel your report has taught me so so much. I don't want to give money to them at all. I know Austin is a different place than other parts of the country, but it seems like there are tons of activities for the homeless and they are not taking advantage of them.
Again, I have to remember that these people have issues that they are dealing with, I don't know what is actually going on in their heads.
Since I'm with you of not giving them any money, I might have a couple of beers with them to get their story.
I wonder if it will work.
Nev,
So are you going to give them anything, besides the things you have already given out? Do you feel they are a lost cause?
Homelessness is legalize begging
Nev, love the blog man! Been reading for a while and this homeless experiment really resonated with me. A while back I wrote a post about an idea I have to solve the homeless problem.
Now that you did this experiment, I'd love to hear your thoughts on it and if you think it has potential. Homeless people are all over NYC and it's something I think about a lot!
http://www.gurugilbert.com/2008/07/10/my-brilliant-idea-on-how-to-solve-the-homeless-problem-at-least-in-nyc/
Keep up the great and interesting work!
-Adam
How cute… an affluent geek pretends to be homeless for a few days with a sleeping bag and thinks he can make sweeping moral generalizations.
How about you learn a little more about the mental health issues surrounding homeless (most of whom are vets) before you pretend to know what you are talking about.
You can't paint everyone in such a broad brush from some short pseudo-fieldwork experience.
You should give some serious consideration to becoming a sociologist. As a sociologist you can earn money doing these kinds of "experiments". We prefer the term field work or, even better, ethnography.
I used to go fishing every year up in Canada on a First Nation (Indian) reservation. The natives lived in a small village and owned a few thousand acres, tax free. They also had a casino and leased recreational fishing rights. Combined every native made about $20,000 a year, also tax free. They didn't need to work or seek higher education and virtually none of them did. What they did do was drink and do drugs and get in a lot of fights. Before my first visit I thought how noble and proud they must be. It was quite the opposite.
So we go ahead and give the homeless a free pass and get the same result. Anyone that doesn't need to work for their dinner loses respect for life. That is the tragedy.
It's great that you made the effort to understand homelessness, but in your decision to not give money to homeless people, you state that you're asserting that they choose to be homeless.
In making your decision, you have fully ignored the causes of homelessness, such as alcoholism, substance abuse issues, and mental health problems. I assure you, as a medical professional, that these are all diseases that have been shown, time and time again, to NOT be under the control of the sufferer.
How can you begin to imagine that somebody would VOLUNTARILY dig through a dumpster for food? Is there an other choice? Yes, for Neville Medhora, an extremely intelligent, healthy, well-adjusted human being, there is a choice. Not for someone with schizophrenia who has lived on the street for the last 40 years.
I hope in the future you'll refrain from making huge – and erroneous – generalizations
It seems very clear that Neville is expressing his opinion.
He is not proposing a law or policy that will affect a large group of homeless people. He is not making huge generalizations.
Except for the one person who works with homeless people, the rest of the negative comments seem to be coming from people who have no first hand experience living as a homeless person.
Neville went to a lot of effort to learn something. What's the harm in that? He did not hurt anyone. Are you saying he should encourage people to give money to beggars, even if he does not believe in that?
Neville didn't even say his opinion covered homeless people outside of Austin! He went to a lot of trouble to stay away from generalizations. He tried to link all his opinions to his experience!
Please! Be more constructive!
Devin,
Please put a bit more thought into what you have to say, before you say it. I'm only 17, and I could have come up with something a lot more intelligent to say. Nev made no generalizations. He simply used Austin as an example. Those homeless people that have been there for 40 years, have a choice. As much as you want to say they don't, they DO.
If they really wanted, they could get off those streets, and make something of their life. It is a personal decision of their own.
Either way, Nev was NOT bashing homeless people, he was simply making a point.
Financial problems are real mess and nobody from real life is shielded from its effects..
After the economical breakdown of this world, the effects are more severe!
In my opinion we should help the poor and needy people but not bums whose sole purpose is begging!
It seems often annoying but the right thing to do is to help with a bit of money.
Back in January of 2004 I was in a homeless shelter for a month. I was tired of being beat up by my dad and I was newly 18. I had called the police and they had placed me there. There are time limits at this particular place. Two weeks for homeless and 45 days for domestic violence victims. Food and support is easy to get. All that was required of us was to do one daily chore and keep our rooms clean. Food was provided at certain hours during the day. When we left we were all set up with apartments/living situations, assistance via food stamps, the food bank, etc. Most people who lived there did at least one type of drug. I remember my roommate smoking crack in the bathroom with the vent going and two other of her "friends" with her. After we were out, all of the people I was connected to lost their homes and ended up going to another shelter. Some just didn't want to go to work, the other had her baby and the father didn't help. I'm not sure what happened to them, but I worked hard and got out of that situation. At least it was just and experiment and something serious didn't happen where you lost your job and everyone who would help you. However, several people seem to bring homelessness on themselves.
Right now I live in central Wisconsin I know what homelessness feels like and I might be there again with three teenagers. I almost want to go out and hold up one of those signs but cant get myself to do that. I do have a job, but it does not pay enough and I cant get the gas turned on due to the fact that
I cant afford it. Today I have enough gas to get to work but am not sure if I can make it tommorrow. That is how some people become homeless. Have a job but lose it then they lose everything house, car, everything. Losing a job just because they cant get there. I am also going to college online but I am lucky I can pick up the internet where I am at. I will probably be losing college also because I will need to sell the last thing I own worth anything and that is my computer. There are some people I admit that dont need the money and claim they are homeless but are not. I have tried getting help through agencies but they send me other places and that costs money too for gas which is hard to get that kind of money. I know it is an opinion you hold about the homeless but if I was you I would dig deeper into your thoughts and giving.I have not came to this sight before but if you have a comment for me e-mail me at theresaabbott@peoplepc.com
I spend a lot of time monitoring Austin Police Dept. data. One thing that I have found is that the biggest use of police resources is interaction with the homeless (I suspect the same applies to EMS but I don't have data for this). There are many homeless people who have been arrested over 50 times.
Try this…go to
http://www.krimelabb.com/_lab/view/_view_frequent_arrestees.php
and enter your Austin zip code to find out who has been arrested the most in your area. Then click on the arrestee's name and view their arrest record. In many cases, the arrest signature of people with many arrests is that of a homeless person. We all want to reduce misery in the world but over the long term giving money to solicitors only prolongs it.
Jack
krimelabb.com
Jack, great site! I spent 20 minutes poking around all the stats!
I agree – awesome site Jack. I think I recognized one of the panhandlers that I see almost every day on my way home from work.