Opinion: Don’t give money to the homeless
The givers not knowing where their money’s going
Is as sinful as throwing away
- Cold War Kids, “Passing the hat”
By: Janine Edwards
We’ve established already that I’m an uncaring human being. If you are unaware of this, perhaps you should pay closer attention to my Letters to the Editors. If you’ve previously been offended by my point of view… you really aren’t going to like this.
Homeless people are ruining our city.
‘But Janine! They can’t help it. They’re addicts, they’ve had a bum deal, they are victims of an uncaring society.’ Bah.
There are places out there to help them. Lots of places. Okay, now we’re all recessionary… But there were tons of homeless even when we had staff shortages.
Now, in the style of our soon to be ruler of Colberta, I’m putting the Homeless on notice.
Case #1: Homeless couple from 23rd avenue interchange. You’ve probably seen this couple with their signs, cart, and dog. They approach people at the 23rd ave interchange and ask for money. Every once in a while, they’ll use that money to purchase meals at McDonald’s. The manager at this McD’s has offered them both jobs, trying to help them out. They snubbed the job, continuing to beg at the corner instead of taking a job with benefits, that will help pay for schooling, and allow you to accumulate copious amounts of McDonald’s Monopoly Properties. (By the way, Monopoly is back October 6th. Mark your calendars.)
Case #2: Food Screamer. You may have seen him in the West End. My friend was leaving a 7-11 and saw this dude, who may have a problem – may be faking – flailing his arms around and yelling. She tried calming him down, eventually figuring out he was throwing this public tantrum because he was hungry. She bought him hot dogs and continued about her day. Later she spotted him outside the A&W in Mayfield Common doing the same routine. Guess it was dinner time.
What do trained seal man and the homeless family have in common? WE AREN’T HELPING.
Oh, by no means am I telling you we aren’t donating enough – we all have our own causes we donate to. I just think we need to stop giving them money.
Just don’t. I wish every single time someone opened their purse for a loonie, bus fare, or a plane ticket for one of these people I could be there, giving them a tough-love slap on the hand.
It would hurt just enough for you to remember not to do it anymore.
Aren’t you sweet? But ARE you helping them?? Or are you increasing their ‘I’m-owed-something complex’ and leading them on so they beg more. This is to say nothing of the addiction and mental-health issues…
And really? You’re giving to people using the “I’m blind and deaf and can’t hold a job” card? Or the signs on the side of the road? Or the “I can’t get to my reserve/job/FamiliesHouseForChristmas because MyDogAteMyMoney/IWasMugged/IDrankTheMoney/IWorkForSafewaysDistributionCentre” excuse? (The last excuse is like a madlib. Get the kids together tonight and come up with your own list. I can’t wait to see them.)
At least come up with a better sign than: “Homeless. Need Money. God Bless.”
Creativity counts people!!! “Saving money for baby Elephant to join Lucy” or “Like to drink, meet pretty ladies, and get lucky,” or “Family has been abducted, need money to pay for ransom.” All are better lines than the crap they’re feeding us.
Years ago I had the opportunity to work and help out some of these people. You know what I found? Most of the Homeless are fucking with us. Preying on your sympathies to scam you of money, and end up making good coin doing nothing.
Want to make Edmonton a World Class city? We need to crack down on homelessness. Put them to work at the shelters they’re using. Hire a construction crew to work with the homeless in building a new shelter all “Habitat for Humanity” style. I don’t have all the answers, but I know the answer isn’t in you handing them money for nothing.
6 Responses to “Opinion: Don’t give money to the homeless”
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There is no place in the world that has solved this problem. Shelters and charities help but are not panaceas and the idea that all we have to do is make/offer them work has failed in the past. You even provided an example of this in your post.
There are always people at the edges of societies who, for different reasons, don’t function well in it. The measure of a society is what it how it treats these people. In our case we have shelters, charities, and, as individuals, we can offer what we can.
Finally, homelessness has nothing to do with whether or not a city is “World Class” or not. Even without defining what “World Class” is it would be hard to say that New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco are not World Class cities. I’ve been to LA and just got back from SF and frankly Edmonton doesn’t have a homeless problem in comparison.
I’ll respect your choice not to give to panhandlers, I rarely do myself, but the “World Class” city thing was frankly clueless on your part.
You should write for the Calgary Sun.
If you don’t want to donate money to the homeless, that’s totally your prerogative… you’re a big girl, capable of making big important decisions like that.
what irritates me most is not the fact that people don’t donate to panhandlers, it that people completely ignore them, and pretend like they don’t exist. sorry to tell you, but panhandlers are people too; they’re really not so far removed from you or I. imgaine how humiliating it must have been for most of them to take that first step, to realize that their lives were so shitty that they had to resort to begging for change on the street. is it really so tough to look them in the eye and muster up a “sorry, dude…”? simple courtesy.
i live in a shady part of downtown, and regularly give my bottles to the homeless bottle-pickers. they’re actually pretty decent people with really interesting stories (especially Dennis, and guy with an 18-inch scar on his chest and a life-story that would make you weep). most of them are surprised and kind of happy to have a ‘normal’ person take some small interest in them. imagine what it would be like to walk around and have everyone you saw completely ignore you…
are all panhandlers on the level, just looking for enough money to get a meal and maybe a place to stay for the night? no, of course not, but how many people do you know in “real life” who are totally up front and honest, who’ve never stolen anything from work, never forgotten to pay for something at the supermarket and not taken it back in to the cashier, or never lied about their qualifications on a resume?
maybe something to think about next time you pretend to check your watch or ‘notice something interesting on the other side of the street’ as you pass by a panhandler.
sorry, janine, this isn’t necessarily directed at you… i’ve never met you, much less seen your reaction to a homeless person…
Derjis: Very important points and very well put.
Whether I give to a panhandler or not I always try to acknowledge them. An interesting thing is that even if I’m not giving them money I almost always get a gracious response when all I do is say hello.
At our house we also make an effort to get our bottles to the local bottle pickers. I now try to hand them over directly since I’ve seen guys in pickup trucks collecting bottles left out.
Derjis, I’m behind you 100%. (Not literally – don’t turn around) Although I’m against giving money to panhandlers, and have had nothing but bad experiences in doing so, I still acknowledge them as people. I think they do need our help, but what I’m trying to say in the letter is that we’re doing it wrong.
Paul says that making them work would only fail. And I’m sure it wouldn’t work for everyone, I’ve seen some people who’ve just had a switch flipped somewhere inside that makes them different. They aren’t the same successful individual they were mere months ago… but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try. I’m certain some of the homeless are just waiting for that chance – or for someone to pay attention to them. If we teach them a skill, prove that we believe they can work to make themselves better… maybe that’s all some of them need to turn their lives around.
And as an aside – any time I ever mention the World Class city of Edmonton – it will always be a joke. I love Edmonton, and I also love the way World Class gets thrown around. “If only we had ____, we’d be World Class!” Suuure we will.
Eh – can you get me a job? Will it pay good? And do I have to move to Calgary? That might be a deal-breaker.
I’m pretty sure forced labour (which seems to be part of what you’re suggesting at the end) isn’t really the solution to homelessness. And, I’d hardly say that “most” homeless people are taking advantage of “the rest of us.” Surely, some of them are. But these people are in the minority.
A significant portion of the homeless population suffers from some sort of mental illness—sometimes undiagnosed—that prevents them from being able to operate in normal society. And, with no permanent address, it’s tough to properly treat them (i.e., provide them with the support/therapy/medication that they need…assuming they can even afford the medication). Often, those with addictions turned to drugs or alcohol in an attempt to self-medicate.
While simply calling them victims is an over-simplification (at some point, people need to take responsibility for their own actions), so is saying that they’re all a bunch of swindlers taking advantage of Joe and Jane Average.
On a lighter note, I had to laugh at your comment about making more creative signs. To paraphrase Chris Rock, if a homeless person has a funny sign, he hasn’t been homeless for very long.