Wednesday, March 26, 2008

POLL: Do you give money to homeless people on street corners?

I just moved into the city and have been encountering this more frequently. If you drive at all, I'm sure you've encountered this from time to time.
There are certain intersections that always have a homeless person standing there with a sign reading, "Homeless, anything will help, God Bless" or something of the sort. My question for this poll is whether or not you give money to these people.

I struggle with this, it's on my mind whenever I drive past them, though to be honest, I have not given money to a homeless person in this situation. A few things go through my mind when I think about it:
1) If I'm not mistaken, the majority of homeless people are drug addicts or alcoholics. If I give them cash, how do I know they won't spend it on drugs or booze? If they do, am I really helping them?
2) How do I know this person is really homeless?
3) If this person is just standing on this street corner, isn't there some job they could get somewhere?

My personal feeling is that I shouldn't just give those people cash. If they are drug addicts, I'm just feeding their addiction. If they aren't really homeless, I just got robbed. If they truly are homeless, is giving them cash really helping them? Is there a job they could get?

What do you think? Leave a comment.

3 comments:

Jon Towey said...

start blogging more!

Rachel said...

totally.

Rachel said...

this blog sucks! it has been almost a year since you updated it! let's breakdance fight now. obey my dog!