Why can't you just walk in peace?

Ok this is gonna kind of be a rant - but I would like to hear other people's opions on it as well.

Its about to seperate things which are kind of interlinked...the basis of both is the fact that without exception everytime I walk home form work (and sometimes on the way there - tho i leave early and they aint about as much then) I get hassled by at least 4 people looking for money!

'Sir would you like to donate to.....'
'Got any spare change?'
'Big Issue sir?' (big issue is a magasine sold in the uk by homeless people)

etc etc etc

now I know the first one doesn't sound much like a beggar well remember i said it was devided into 2 parts - thats beggars & charity reps!

Now i have notyhing against charitys and Yes i do donate - what i have a problem with is people hassling me on the street to give money - attempting to make me feel guilty for just walking on!

So woohoo they are standing on the street working for the charity - but they dont do it for free. Ever wonder how much of their hard earned cash goes to the charity....very little i would say!

Ok am getting of the issue - its like this. I give to charity on a regular basis.....and I give to the charitys I want to....the ones I feel are a worthy cause and you know what I am more than capable of finding these charitys myself and arrnaging to donate I do not need to be hassled everyday on my way home from work in order to give money.

They also know where to target - i work in an office along a street filled with them and they always work that area cause they know they have a higher chance of getin a suit with some spare cash. But if they know that we work along there why not call into the offices? leave an information pack with the HR department or something for them to email to staff for us to look at in our time and make our own decision about it without being guilted?

In the end it would save them money as well - would take alot less labour costs to have someone produce the information and drop it round the offices than to pay 4 or 5 people to stand in the street all day!

Ok next one the homeless - now i know i am going to sound heartless here but is just my own opinion.

I pay my taxes which take a considerable amount of my wage....now i know some of these go towards NHS, Road Cleaners, Garbage collection and other public services - but most of it doesn't (cause thats why i also have to pay council tax after what they take from my wages)

the part which doesn't helps pay for unemployment (not my pension as thats covered by my NI payments) homeless shelters etc

so why if i am paying for other peoples benefits etc should i then give them money in the street as well? The wholehomeless thing baffles me - ok so people fall on hard times....even i have i was just lucky enough to have a wee bit put away so i didn't need benefits until i ound work again.

But even without any kind of savings you still can get money provided to you every week, a council house etc - all paid for by those people who are working
so how do people end up on the streets? come on to claim benefits all you gotta be doing is looking for work - and if you can't be arsed to do that then you shouldn't get anything.....

I dont even go into that whole 'They'll only buy drink/drugs with it' - I couldn't care less what they buy with it - I still aint gonna give anything.

Some people I have spoken to about this say that they give them food, or buy them a cup of coffee - thats just perpetuating the cycle as far as I can see.

If everyone stopped giving money/food to homeless - then there's be no homeless....the current ones would die out and when people start seeing that being homeless will end up in death then they'll make sure that if they can't keep their job that they are looking for another one so they can claim benefits!!

ok my rant over - opinions??

v_Ln

1st of all, you shuold try and put yourself in their position and don't only look at it from your point of view which is different to theirs. Now here's a question for ya, a homeless person signs up for that city council thing where would they mail the check to every week? (123 fake st. 3rd corner 1st box?) if they are homeless meaning they have no home. They're just like everyone else, just trying to get by. Now I don't give them any money because they are a lot of people here that act as if they are sick/homeless and what not just to live off what others give them when they're plenty of other jobs on the streets.

Now, if that's all you're worried about stopping you you're in heaving. Here you have, the guy selling this meat yelling at the top of his lungs and the guy selling peanuts also screaming at the top of his lungs, the guy selling ice cream with a bell ringing it all around town and the crazy guy who walks around with a metal tube to scare you to see if you'll give him money .... point is they're A LOT of things that don't let you walk in peace here but the upside of it, you can walk all the streets here and you won't see 1 homeless person. Why? because here you don't need a permit to sell anything so if you can sell whatever you please without worrying about going to jail. :)

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ow here's a question for ya, a homeless person signs up for that city council thing where would they mail the check to every week? (123 fake st. 3rd corner 1st box?)

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but we dont just provide benefits we also provide housing so if someone knew thy were going to be evicted or watever they could just apply for council housing and they wouldn't end up on the street in the first place.

v_Ln

Valhallen, if that's the case and you guy's do have that there, why don't they? I'm not asking you to answer a question for them, but why wouldn't they take the free-housing and whatnot to help them get their life back on track?

i have no idea - and thats my reason fr no giving anything......if they can't b arsed to sort themsleves out when there is so much help available (which i already pay for through taxes) why should i give them money on the streets??

v_Ln

Well (and this is the thing in America) sure there is help, but it isn't THAT easy. You don't just walk up and ask for a house and BAM! ya got one. I'm sure in Ireland you need to fill out some paperwork or have some sort of requirement needed in order to obtain the house. I doubt they'd just give it to anyone claiming to be homeless/is homeless and whatever without any form's or whatever.

Hey Hey,

I was going to reply earlier, but I was heading out... so here I am now... staying up late just to add my two cents.

I live in Ontario, Canada (for those of you that don't know)... in a decent sized town of about 330,000. In the winter you see a few homeless people, and those are the people that are genuinely homeless. In the summer you see all the, and I hate myself for using this word, anyways you see all the "punks." These people are true to the ideals, but they dress in a "punk" way (if there's such a thing) and in the summer they aren't in school so they run to the street corners and make extra money while having some fun. Very seldom do they say anything to you, usually they have a sign and just sit there. You can busk here (play an instrument on the corner with a bucket out for money) without needing a liscense, so many people do that... especially at night when the bars are getting out. I will almost always give these people any spare change myself, because I have done it on occasion. They aren't necessarily there to get money, but they know they'll pick a little up. I have gone to the beach and just sat playing guitar, and people will come and listen and give me money, even though my guitar case isn't open and I'm not asking for anything, I'm doing it for myself. As far as people asking for money, there's a hottie that sits outside the A&P (Grocery Store) down the street. She's prolly 16..17, dressed totally punk, many piercings and quite attractive. I usually give her money. I've also seen her on the bus and see her with her $100 MP3 player and her $200 designer boots, but I still give her money. The reason I do it... she's hot.. and I sit and chat with her after I give her the money. We have squeegee (sp?) kids here also, and they only appear in the summer... for the most part they tend to be pretty good also. If you say no you don't want your window cleaned, they'll still clean it but they'll walk away without even coming to the side window to ask for money... a "donation" if you will. Anyways, that was my rant... now for some other statements.

I'm currently trying to get a place together for computer learning. Any CIPS members will remember seeing a write-up in the last issue of CIPS Across Canada about someone who did something similar, and I've been speaking with him through email about it. However it's hard to get volunteers. Basically it's a small centre to teach high school drop outs and under privledged teens computer basics and general computer skills. If I can find a place to house it, i'll have it up and running in less than a month... Wish me luck.. but that's a side note. The reason I'm having a hard time finding a place to set up is because rooms in Shelters and missions is hard to come by. The street missions in town (again we only have a pop. of 330,000) will serve 300-400+ people a day and we have several shelters. When you figure that there are bigger cities with even more homeless people. The government can't afford to provide shelters and money for all these people. If you took the number of people the mission serves (that doesn't include people who are boarderline homeless, or those who have lost their homes and have a month or two to live with relatives before they are out on their asses)... you'd be looking at well over 2000 homeless people. To provide shelter, food, electricity/water, money for all these people would be a serious drain on resources and isn't feasible. That's why people resort to begging on the streets. It can be a serious drag on these people's pride to have to do it, but sometimes there's no other way to provide for your family. I had a woman come to my door the other day collecting for a shelter. She has a Bachelors of English and still spent a few years on the street... student loans were too much, and she couldn't find a job... even with a university education... I have several friends with degrees and diplomas who have resorted to working fast food because there's nothing else... but the reality is, there's even a finite number of these jobs, and when the employer can get a post-sec grad, why would they want a high school grade or a high school drop out.. They don't.. these people again are pushed to the side and end up on the streets. A little compassion is required for these people. Many of them work their asses off doing odd jobs, and still can't make ends meet. I'm a poor student. I've yet to graduate and I've got over $30,000 in debt... I scratch to make ends meet from week to week and usually end up without a penny to my name 3 or 4 days before my next pay day. Yet I still give to homeless people, to charity, to buskers... to anyone that asks. It's humanity. I may hate them, I may not want to help them, but I'm compelled to help them. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. I don't want to imagine what it would be like to be on the corner begging for money. I don't know if I have the inner strength to even carry it out and I have a lot of respect for these people who are out there because they have no choice...

There was recently an article in the paper. A woman (journalist) was waiting for a city bus and a man sat down next to her and started talking to her. She decided to be polite and put away her book and carried on a conversation. She learned his name, that he was an immigrant and that he came to London (my town) to try and get a job, after having lived in other Ontario cities. He couldn't get a job. The reason... he was a refugee... he had no money to afford a fancy suit. He had his good shoes that he'd managed to take with him (they didn't suit the rest of his outfit, but other than that he looked like a homeless person). He had a degree from a university back home, but here that meant nothing here. He couldn't get a job because of how he dressed, and he couldn't change how he dressed because he didn't have a job... it's a vicious, never ending cycle. The Indian who ran the corner store next to my old apartment had moved here only a year or two ago. In India he had been an Engineer, had a degree in the field (with honours)... here he had to resort to working in the corner store... why? The government wouldn't recognize his diploma. We have a doctor shortage here... yet I have had cab drivers who were qualified doctors in their former countries. Why are they driving cab? Because we won't recognize their diploma's.... we won't upgrade their training so that they'd qualify to work here. Now they are stuck driving cab, making some money, instead of solving our doctor shortage, making good money if we'd just upgrade their training... Financially it'd be a good investment for the government (regardless of the level it occurs at).. .but they are unwilling to take up the idea.

My roommate works 68 hours a week.... He still lives below the 'unofficial' poverty line (Canada doesn't have poverty lines like other countries do... not officially anyways). He works his ass off in a plant 5 days a week (some weeks 6 and those days he's over 70 hours) after that he goes and delivers pizza three nights a week... yet he's still below the poverty line. I was working 35-40 hours a week and still not making ends meet. I'm supposedly on government funding for my education.. I had to get a 15,000 loan because the government funding wasn't even to even pay for my tuition, let alone living expenses. It is very difficult these days to be a student, a graduate, or anyone looking for a job...

You can't bash the homeless, all you can do is respect them and try to help them out... It's a shame they are stuck in their current position, but most of the time they don't want to be like that... they simply have no choice because no one is willing to help... and those that do help are spread to thinly to properly provide adequate help.

Peace,
HT