What can you contribute to the welfare of the street people in your community?

Question

As a Christian minister, I am involved in ministering to the street people or dwellers here in the City of Manila, PHILIPPINES. It is my observation that if we let the homeless people live on their own ways, homelessness will not be stopped. Street people are also like us created by GOD! What we need they need them too!

Answer 1

It is easy for people to say that the homeless people should get jobs so that they can support themselves and improve their situation. There are a few things that they don't realize that hinders a homeless person from doing that. Ask yourself, would you personally hire a homeless person? Imagine a homeless person who has not taken a shower in weeks or months and cannot even do any of the other basic grooming such as brushing their teeth, having a decent haircut, washing their clothes, etc. Would you hire someone who looks dirty and disheveled? Ofcourse not! Even I wouldn't, I would be afraid to. It is true that there are some who choose to be homeless, like streetchildren who are afraid of going home, or have nothing to eat at home and find life out in the streets more adventurous. What can we do to help them? True, don't give them money, it only encourages them to stay in the streets begging. So if I don't give them money is that enough of a civic duty that I am fulfilling? Is my conscience secure in knowing that I have helped someone in my own way? We need to take a pro-active stance, we need to support non-profit and non-goverernment agencies through financial means and through volunteerism. However, as a Christian minister like yourself, how can you assure us that your cause is worth contributing to? There are so many fake foundations, so many corrupt government agencies, can we really trust your organization? If you want to make changes, don't start at the bottom, start at the top. Change your organization so people will trust you more and support your projects more.

Answer 2

I work for an organization called Hope for the Homeless and where in the Skid Row area of Downtown Los Angeles. It's actually a 5 to 8 mile square area of over 10,000 homeless people mainly drug addicts, mentally ill, families, alcoholics, vets. We provide services as asking them what they need as medical, housing, Id's, housing, counseling, clothes, a shower, food. We give them referrals to different service providers to help them get back on their feet. More than half do not want any help because they do not want to stop their drug and alcohol use. Some are afraid of shelters and prefer to sleep outside, others like women and children want the help. It's pretty hard and heart breaking but slowly it's getting done.

What we really need is more places to house them and more service providers to aide in their recovery. They dont need a hand out they need a helping hand. Also we need more volunteers to help out. When some see the conditions of the Skid Row area they turn around and run to the hills.

Answer 3

Many people are "homeless" simply because they choose to be. In order to have a home, food, clean clothes, and a decent lifestyle, you need to have a job or someone to support you. Both of those options requires following someone else's rules, and some would rather live in the street than obey a few simple rules.

The only thing you can do to help is offer opportunities. Set up a training center and help them to learn job and interview skills. You can offer financial support for those who are HONESTLY trying to improve their life (attending classes, interviewing for jobs, no drinking, no drugs, etc.), but if you simply hand out money and don't force them to get on the path to self-improvement, they will simply remain street bums.

Answer 4

I don't know the situation in the Philippines, but in the U.S. much homelessness is due to lack of affordable, inexpensive housing, and also lack of treatment for mental illness. In the long term, addressing those will be necessary. In the short term, if a person wants to help a homeless individual it is probably best not to give cash (which can be misused) but rather to give food. When I lived near downtown Atlanta I often got pan-handled coming out of the grocery store, and used to buy a couple of extra things (bread, peanut butter, bananas) to give.

Answer 5

I wish you well.
From experience in US, my late wife saw one of many on the street holding a sign, "Hungry. Need money for food."

She offered to take him to a restaurant. He refused.
Unfortunately, a bottle of wine would have sufficed.

I am not making a comparison to those in your country.

Unfortunately, welfare is only a temporary solution. It feeds the symptoms only.

Until governments turn away from greed and use the resources of a country to benefit all the people, then it is left to charity and welfare. Here, in US, we have families on welfare and it begets welfare.
I could give you examples of people who "cannot afford to work". The subsidies, medical care, the food stamps, tax free, far surpass the wages less taxes, that one can earn by working.

I suppose all that one can do in your position, is appeal to those with abundance to share a few crumbs, left over from their wasteful spending. Such as it has been for centuries.
I have lost any excess "wealth" which I once had, and wish I could help.


God bless and God speed.

Answer 6

We need to not give them money. We need to find ways to help them get jobs so they can support themselves. As an example, I was recently informed by a friend that visited China that one of their key programs there is to hire "homeless" people to clean the cities or promote recycling. This seems like it serves the dual purpose of maintaining cleanliness/hygiene and providing for the poor. Even if this isn't exactly what they do there (as it was just related to me by a friend) it seems like a great idea.

If you give a man a fish he can eat for a day. If you teach a man to fish he can eat for a lifetime.

Answer 7

*Ahem* (and smiles) What did Jesus say about the poor? They will always be with us didn't he? Right before the ascension.

I have been homeless, thanks to my wife going insane and losing everything I own. Most people are closer to being homeless than they realize- civilization is only a very thin venieer over the primate primitives that we have at our core.

Good luck- do what you can with what God sends your way, and smile

Answer 8

I felt the same until I gave $5 to a man begging on the street. Only to see him with a bottle of cheap wine 10 minutes later. GRRRRRRR

Answer 9

Direct them to the nearest Salvation Army Station. My great uncle was a Colonel in the Salvation Army. He helped thousands in his 60 year career. Jack

Answer 10

This is a difficult question.There are several answers that could help; however, I believe that to educate the street people would be the firtst priority (ofcourse while tending to their physical and emotional needs).