What is your take on giving to the poor?

Question

This is my take: I won't give money to homeless people living on the street or to charities who give money to homeless people living on the street. This is why: Most of the people living on the street are either drug addicts or alcoholics, I'm not going to give my $2 to a guy thats saving for some meth. BUT I will donate to homeless shelters because the people living there actually want help and wouldnt be going there if they had something to hide (like drugs) Thats my take, plus i dont think the lepers 2,000 years ago would take the money and light up. WHATS YOUR TAKE?

Another tidbit. I also am offended by how a homeless person begs. In my hometown of cleveland i will give money to a woman and her young child. But wen i was visiting washington dc a man with one leg kept hobbling around behind me cussing at me and telling me he was a vietnam vertean and to stop ignoring him. that pissed me off.

Answer 1

I generally agree. I give food to people on the street, I've given them coats, but not cash. I give cash to charities.

I also don't give money to politicians. For the same reason.

Answer 2

I've been volunteering at several domestic violence shelters for the past 10 years....what I have found is that when you donate to a lot of these charities, the people who work for the shelter cherry pick through the donations and then give the shitty stuff to the clients. What I do now is I identify a family that needs help and give directly to them. Not cash, but food, clothing, shoes, winter coats, toiletries....think about all the 'thrift' stores in business now...that is exactly what it has become A MONEY MAKING BUSINESS ---and they are making big money at it....so much so that the homeless people or people who have just gotten a place out of the homeless shelter, go there for help for furniture or other things they need when they first get a place and the "charitable" entities (Salvation Army, Goodwill, Volunteers of America,, etc.) won't give them the time of day, they want to push the broken useless stuff off on them (it's sickening really). I read that 95% of the money given to charity really gets spent on the Administration of the charity (paying salaries, rents) and only 5% of the money given actually gets to the poor. SO, my advice is to identify someone or a family in need and give directly to them yourself....your charity will be going where you intended it.

Answer 3

Giving to the poor is an act of sincerity, given yes your point is based on reasoning that benefits your sincere cause will be put to good use, which is ingeneous and commendable to say the least.

BUT...personally I give to homeless AND to those shelters based on my offering is my good samaritan act to show that i care...regardless of who they are. If they use it for drugs, alchohol, whatever it is that is undoubtedly a waste of my good offering....that choice belongs to THEM, its' THEIR life, and that will be their demise, I wont' follow them to see if my good acts did anything, what's the point? Honeslty you'll probably NEVER know unless you see the guy again...but if you only gave the guy $20 bucks then that'll only help the guy for a day...of COURSE he's gonna still be on the streets.

ALSO....some of these guys aren't fully capable of being inteligent enough to go to a shelter...let alone FIND A SHELTER for that matter. You have some men and women who..most people would call crazy or out of it...decent people...but due to some certain circumstance they're how you say "not all there." I worked at Mcdonalds during my college years (yea yea shut up.) And there was a homeless guy..nicest guy in the world, and would always order the 50 cent coffees we had at a certain time....it was interesting cause he lived next to the store somewhere behind a motel area. But thing was, he 'talked' to himself....or to his imaginary friend....and do odd things like write things on napkins and spill salt on it. I'd try asking to see what it was all about..but normally he'll just smile and say nothing, and then go off into conversation with his imaginiary friend.

I don't think shelter, askin for where it's at, or even where to START is on his mind.....

SO it's a wonderful way to give in the solution that you had...but in my opinion i'll give to the poor regardless because what they do with it is not my business, i'm just there to show that someone has compassion for them....and also that some of them don't have an answer as inteligent as shelter for them....a lot of them are incapable of the idea...so i keep that on my mind, and ignore the bad apples that don't appreciate it.

Answer 4

My "take" is that one thing the homeless need more than anything else, is love and respect. If when stopping to give $2 to a homeless person, you take the time to talk with him, listen to him, looking him in the eye, then your $2 is well spent even if he does use it for something not good for him. One thing I do when a street person asks me for money is ask them if they are hungry, I would like to buy them a meal.
We need to be willing to give, but also give of ourselves.
Unfortunately, many of the homeless people that are on the streets are people who would have been institutionalized for mental illnesses about 25 years ago. The government disinstitutionalized them "to give them better care on the outside" - which is a lot of baloney! Those people are on the streets now, and dying.
Honestly, I don't begrudge them their drugs. What else do they have? I would rather offer them something better, but life as they are living it now is really unlivable, and it is not completely their fault.

Answer 5

I'm not about to judge who needs my help. I took in a homeless man who was at a shelter just because he lost his job. He stayed with my family for six months until he got back on his feet. He now is married with a nice car and a house. What if I had thought of him as a drug addict or alcoholic? We have to be careful how we spend our money, but lets get involved with the homeless and help those that want help.

Answer 6

I think a lot of them are mentally unstable and chemical dependencies may not be to blame. People can lose everything through circumstances. I say food, clothing, and shelter should be provided. The needs of humanity haven't changed and there were reasons then the same as now. The prodigal son was in a hog pen but he came to his right mind again after he had wasted all his living. I say don't judge them but use good judgment by teaching a man to fish instead of giving him one. Let them wash your car or shine your shoes and if they will actually work, give them a job because they want out of their situation and if no one takes a chance and shows mercy, how will they get off the streets? Jesus healed beggars so they didn't have to beg for a meager living. If you don't have the gift of healing, you should still be the good Samaritan because that is pure religion, undefiled. I say give them a ride to a mission or a shower house or restaurant or employment offices and always give them love and respect. Treat them as if you were in their shoes and you'll be doing what's right because who knows but what you could be there one day yourself!

Answer 7

the great majority (somewhere between 60 and 80 percent) of homeless people have some sort of psychological/mental disorder. it keeps them from holding a job in some cases, or it could be as severe as preventing them from communicating coherently.

i work in dc and live in virginia, and i don't think our homeless people are all that aggressive. but we do have a lot of them. i have two or three homeless people that i talk to pretty regularly. whenever we have a meeting and there are leftover sandwiches/drinks, i bring them to these guys. this is the way to go. giving money isn't necessarily a bad thing. most homeless people just don't have the werewithal to say "hey, here's three dollars. i'm gonna go buy a hot dog and a drink." so i can understand the hesitance.

don't ever forget, these people depend on the kindness of people like us IN ORDER TO LIVE.

Answer 8

I agree with you. Instead I donate things like Clothes and stuff I don't need to Goodwill and food to the local food bank. I figure that would help poor people alot more than enabling alcoholism and drug addiction. Hobos on the street get really mad when you do that though. I guess because you can't get high by smoking a hoodie.

Answer 9

A lot of people would disagree with you and what you just said. But you know what you are right. You know why I do that. Cause I was one of those that use to hang out by a liquor store bumming change for a beer. My life has changed now I'm ok now. But yes the majority out there want a fix or something. And now myself if i see a person out there who wants a dollar or two because they say they are hungry, or they say so. I bring them out a soda and a sandwich. But no money (in fact they got more from me than a couple of bucks when the total is 5 bucks for the food.

Answer 10

2 Corinthians says that we should give to the poor, but not to the degree that our own families suffer.

But aside from the scriptures, giving $2 to a street person just enables them to continue in their addiction(s). That's not even good stewardship.
Some get clever and ask for enough money to buy a meal. At which time, you have an opportunity to control the gift by actually buying them a meal from a local restaurant. (Make it "to go" and give it to them.)

Answer 11

I serve the homeless in the community that i live in and love doing what the Lord has called me to do. I do not give them money, but we do provide food, shelter and many other things for them.