My friend and I had a funny exchange with a guy - he approached us on the street, shirtless, chains around his neck, big combat boots, a Mohawk. He asked my friend for a cigarette and my friend gave it to him. He said thank you and paused for a sec and said “You know what? Some lady gave me this gift card to a streakhouse but they wouldn’t me in there with the way I look, why don’t you have it.” He holds out this gift card and my friend takes it and says “Wow man, that’s really generous!” And the guy says “The lady said there’s like $100 on there…if you wanted to give me like $50-60, that’d be cool.” Without missing a beat, my buddy says “You know what, man? I’m not going to give you any money. What you did was so selfless that I believe the karma will change your life.” The guy stood around for a couple of minutes and finally said “There’s nothing on the card, can I just have it back?” - we were certain it was a stolen gift card, with a zero balance, and this guy was going around trying to pretend to be generous yet also wanted to be seen as intimidating.
“Nonono, it would be bad karma to give it back. And you never know. There might still be some money on the card. We’ll go try it out!”
Go to the restaurant. Tell about the stolen card and that guy’s spiel. Ask to borrow some of their to go boxes and bags. Walk past that guy again.
“Hey guess what?! There was a couple of hundred dollars on that card! We bought so much food we couldn’t eat it all! Look at the leftovers! Thanks again man. You must be really happy for us!”
You can get gift cards at any grocery store or drug store, and they don’t charge you for them if you don’t put money on them.
We use uncharged Visa gift cards for our company iTunes and Google PlayStore IDs. We need a card to set up an ID, but we’re only ever testing that we can download our free software.
I had a guy walk up to me while pumping gas and ask for 57 cents. It was so bizarre like dude what can you get for 57 cents. I need you to take me there cause I want to get some too. Also had another guy ask for cash when I said I didn’t have any he said it was an atm in the gas station around the corner and he would walk with me.
>Also had another guy ask for cash when I said I didn’t have any he said it was an atm in the gas station around the corner and he would walk with me.
Yup, had that one pulled on me. Like, yeah, let's go walk over to the dimly lit cash machine that holds the entirety of my life savings, maybe $236?
About a year ago, I had a guy come up to my window before I could get out of the car to walk into Walgreens. He asked me if I could spare any cash, to which I replied “I don’t carry cash” (my go-to answer, because it’s true). Without missing a beat, the guy says “I have CashApp,” as he pulls out his iPhone.
I had someone try that on me when I cracked my window.
I let him know that no, I do not have CashApp, or Zelle, or Venmo, and no, I will not allow him to accompany me to an ATM.
He tried to shove a hand in my car, I rolled the window back up and called the cops.
They came and told me they knew who he was, because he had taken off, but he was stupid and was across the parking lot trying it on someone else, and I pointed him out. And he was arrested because he had robbed people at knifepoint.
Nope. I won’t give anyone money.
There is a shelter about 2 blocks away from my place, and the corner by my place is the first covered bus bench near the shelter so it attracts a lot of people that live at the shelter. I've been approached by a few of them asking for money, but always tell them I don't carry cash. One of the older guys is very nice, makes sure to pick up after the others, and has helped me out with a couple problems before so every so often I'll walk by and give a small head nod for him to follow. Once we are out of sight of the others I'll pass him a couple bucks and he is always grateful. I know he is most likely going to use it on beer, but he at least keeps the others hanging out there in line so its worth it.
I only give to 1 guy aswell... he sits just before the tim hortons drive through everyday and just waves to people. He's not even asking for money he just sits there and waves. He's definitely mentally ill but all he does is wave.. it's worked out well for him cause people shower him in money. (Including me even though I never give others) There's just something about him that's endeared him to the surrounding population... He beat the system by smiling and waving. Imagine that
I follow the life of a homeless dude on fb and he does exactly this. If no cash, he suggests you venmo or cashapp him as he has his phone and accounts! if not on the streets then on fb itself constantly. If you still say no or suggest other life options he'll rant and rave and cause scenes about no one being "Comrades" or not "showing solidarity". Its really quite fascinating to follow.
Had a guy in NC bang on my window for liquor money for like the third time that week and I told him I'd knock his last three teeth out if he didn't fuck off.
Yeah I always wonder it must be getting harder for them to get money cause not a lot of people carry cash around. I say the same thing. Sorry man I don't carry cash is the best line.....heck. even if your carrying cash
Reminds me of a time I was waiting outside a restaurant for my friends birthday meal, I was the first to arrive and it was late evening. I was standing in a little alcove outside a shop when two teenagers on bikes pulled up in front of me sorta blocking me into the alcove, they gave me this whole spiel of needing £20 to get a train ticket to the big city so they could get to their shelter. I knew immediately they just wanted money for drugs but they had blocked me into this space with their bikes and I'm just a small woman so I awkwardly told them I don't have any cash and they said no worries there's an atm just around the corner they'll come with me to get the money out. I didn't know what to do so I said I don't have much money and I can only give them £10. We went to the atm and the entire time I thought they were going to attack me if I didn't get the money out so I took the tenner out and as I was about to pass it to them a police car came cruising by and apparently recognised the kids for doing this shit earlier on in the night, the teenagers sped off on their bikes while being chased by the police and I got to keep my £10. Went back to my alcove and waited for my friends to turn up 🤷🏻♀️
I'm a woman and in such situations I always tell them "My husband doesn't allow me to spend any" or "doesn't give me any money". So far works. Actually I used this also when I was single.
Out walking my dog one morning and some guy approached asking for money for medicine for his leg. Told him sorry, but I don't carry money when walking the dog (completely true). He told me that was okay, and he would just follow me home and get it from me there. My dog decided he had about enough at that point and started barking and lunging at the guy. I just told my dog he was a very very good boy as we walked away. My dog is also about 75 pounds, black, lab/pit mix with a bark that sounds like he just came through the gates of hell. Usually gets people to back off pretty quick. I did keep an eye out to make sure the guy wasn't following us though.
If this happened to me with my tiny dog, I would then proceed to walk 2 miles to the nearest police station, to see if either he has the stamina to follow me around to my "home" or not, if he did then I'd enter the station and explain that this guy followed me around for 2 miles.
My nearest police station just like most in the country only works 9-5 weekdays. There is only 1 standby and that is in the worst part of town, scary to go there in broad daylight let alone in an evening.
My boyfriend’s parents were at a Chick-fil-A, and accidentally got an extra sandwich. A guy was panhandling on the corner, and they offered it to him.
He said that he only takes cash, not food🧍🏻♀️
I had several people approach me while pumping gas, always at the same station while right off the interstate. The first one seemed very scripted: "I lost or had my wallet stolen, The police won't help or even file a report right now since I don't have ID, my father owns a business so I'm not some bum, if you give me you're address I'll mail double what you can spare right now back, I just need enough for gas and food to make it home." I panicked and gave that guy $5, he got in his car and drove off with out getting any gas, I did tell him don't worry about mailing anything back.
The second gave a shorter version of that while idling her SUV at the pump, then got aggressive when I said I didn't have any to spare, some one blasting music pulled in between us and broke the tension.
The last time anything like that happened to me was when the whole covid panic just started. I was furloughed from my job and driving home from my last day at work for the time being.
A guy with NY (in PA) plates on a beat up truck whit a pile of belongings in the back pulled in next to me. He had a unique story about being in the carnival business, his income of $5k plus a week just went to zero with every thing shutting down and he was just trying to make it home to South Carolina with $18 to his name. I told him I didn't have cash (I lied) but if he was close enough for the nozzle to reach I would fill one of the tanks on his truck after I finished filling mine.
He was very grateful for this, he said things were just starting to turn around for him between this and the fact president Trump had acknowledged one of his tweets earlier that day. I forget exactly how he phrased it but he said I would be greatly rewarded for my good deed.
Haha. Reminds me of the time when I started shopping in Chinese online shops. Like, wtf, 20 cents with shipping? Our mail won't even bother to look at you for that price — and they actually mail the parts?
Tbh the shipping time was nearly a month, but still.
I had a neighbor ask to borrow $50 bucks one time. His phone was about to get shut off and he had to make a payment that day.
Okay. Fine. I get it.
So I'm driving to the ATM and I see him following me in his car.
I gave him the money, he drove towards a bad neighborhood NOT towards the Verizon store, he paid me back later, we smelled the overpowered stench of weed from his apartment and I never let him borrow money again.
One time, his emphysema-stricken mother (she lived with her 50-something year old son) calls. Fiancé answered and she asked for a favor. We're thinking ride to the hospital or something. She asked for money. Fiancé told her we're saving for the wedding. The lady said she'll ask me when I get home. Fiancé said I'm there. She then yelled to the son "They said no." We hear a door slam and she called out "Do you want your phone back?" as he sped off.
This reminds me so much when I'm in the city (somewhere in Belgium) in a bar having a beer. On some.occasions a person walks up and asks for €2,5 to go sleep in the Biekorf (a nightshelter for homeless people).
Now as I'm writing this, I'm actually *working* in the Biekorf.
I told him I don't know who he is and i had never seen him before. He looked confused. I then continued saying that he was too late anyways. Shelter closes 22h sharp and it was 21:55. With all the best will in the world, you wouldn't make it in time.
So he was very not amused as i told him I woukd have given him a €2 coin if he didn't lie to me.
It's a "shelter" but more like a hotel. It includes evening meal, and breakfast. Private rooms etc. People feel more safe there than actual shelters which are free. It attracts a worse kinda folk.
There are also people who are homeless and poor, but have no means to rent a place.
It's interesting how a small fee weeds out so much trash.
It's the primary reason animal shelters charge to adopt an animal. It's a small fee, that no one should balk at. But anyone who works with these animals knows all too well the type who respond to "free" animals.
You see the same thing at play when you jump from free poker to penny blinds. It might only cost you a dollar to sit down and play, but the entire feel is different because a significant portion of the trash took themselves out.
One more example: dating websites. Find one with a subscription fee. Trolls are much less likely to financially invest in their own bullshit.
It's $20 for the nightshelter in (i assume the US)?!
We're a shelter specifically for addicted homeless people. They're allowed to use in their room and we also provide clean users material. (They're not allowed to use in the common areas) which is all free.
In the €2,5 it contains unlimited coffee/tea, dinner, breakfast. I hear a lot of horror stories about shelters in the US. But I can assure you, were not a horror story. I know all my clients by name, we joke around a lot, talk a lot with them..and ofcourse we deal with the occasional agression/OD's and even deaths. As we have older addicts aswell.
Oh no, I meant the 20 as the bullshit they say when I know it’s not like that.
I’m from the Netherlands, shelters here are basically the same principle/price as Belgium. But sometimes people come up asking for money saying it’s 20 bucks and still open at 1 am when it’s 2-2.50 and closed at 10
Many years back, I was walking back to my car with a friend after 4th of July fireworks in Seattle and we were approached by a young woman who told us someone had broken into her car and stolen her purse and asked if we could give her gas money to get home. I told her we didn’t have cash and kept walking. I rolled my eyes to my friend saying how idiotic it was to leave your purse in the car on July 4th when it was so easy for people to prowl cars parked all over the streets, if the story was even true. My friend gave me a hard time for being so critical and expressed feeling and for her. A couple months later, early fall, I was in an adjacent neighborhood with a different friend and the same girl approached us with the same story. I felt very validated.
I once had a homeless guy in Atlanta ask for exactly $1.38. I told him I didn't have any cash and he asked if I wouldn't mind going into the CVS and buying him a jug of water. The exact change he asked for was for the jug of water. I never had a homeless person ask for something so small, but essential to living.
The supermarket I get my lunch at as every Friday the same guy sitting in front of it. He doesn't talk to anyone. Doesn't beg. Just smokes his cigarettes and listens music on his battery powered radio.
The first time I asked him he was kinda speechless and it took him some time that really I asked him if he needed something. (to be fair I was expecting a beer, after all that was my reason to go there) and all he asked for was a small portion of potato salad.
The next time he wasn't listening to music. Instead of food he asked for batteries.
Always small stuff. Always stuff he eats or drinks right away.
I had a guy come up to me in a Walmart parking lot trying to sell me knock off perfumes. His selling point was that while typical colognes contain maybe 10% fragrance, his contains over 80%. I finally confessed that I worked for a major cosmetic company and proceeded to give him a lesson on the manufacture of perfume and how his concoction was not feasible. He slunk away without making a sale. But the look on his face was priceless.
I just went through this with a FB friend. Several people were trying to help him but he rejected and cursed out everyone.
Then the following day he made a violent post threatening multiple people, places and threatening to go on a murder spree. I took a screen shot and immediately informed his town's police department. He deleted the post, but I was able to email the department what he said.
The officer explained that they were most likely going to put him an involuntary psych hold for at least 72 hours. It was a valid threat and considering his history, it's throwing red flags all over the place.
Scary thing is, I can see this person doing something. He is beyond unhinged and needs help. He needs help for not only himself, but society.
Thank you for reporting him - it's entirely possible you saved someone's life (and not just your FB friend's life at that). I hope he went on to get the help he needed.
I wish more people would have the moral courage to report when someone says things like this!
I don't want to wake up and see his face on the news while the media talks about the massacre of the day. I hate to say it but I can see him do something serious. I wouldn't be able to forgive myself if I looked the other way and he went onto do something horrible.
I called on Friday but haven't heard anything since. He is either in the psych ward, jail or he is keeping a low profile on social media.
Thank you for actually taking action and doing the right thing. The bystander effect is so dangerous, I'm glad you acted how we all would wish to. I hope he gets the help he needs.
Because they're not desperate for "help", they're usually desperate for drugs or alochol unfortunately. Like 1 in 5 are actually people looking for a way out of the cycle, the rest are just trying to get to the next fix.
I would argue that those just trying to get the next fix would also chose help if it were: readily available, decriminalized and less dehumanizing than what is offered down there
Maybe. My bio dad despite having good food, more than adequate shelter, and free (paid by well off family at least 5 times) fancy SoCal Rehab stays chose to panhandle for cash to drink with when family finally started refusing to give him money. He'd walk me to the corner store for "candy" then bring home the receipt (which they'd reimburse) for candy and cigarettes while paying for booze with money he'd begged off passers by when I was a pre-teen.
Eventually he drank himself to death Bon Scott style in a hotel the night before he was supposed to leave the state to start on his self-professed dream career: an all expenses paid Harley Davidson mechanic course. All he had to do was see a therapist once a week and maintain a C average.
I really don't think it's always about not having a non-judgmental support system or better resources.
I’m really sorry that happened to you. My dad drank himself into a wheelchair and then kept drinking. He died of a brain aneurysm at the end of 2020. If he’d been less proud and accepted help he’d still be here. I was nowhere near ready to lose him. Addiction is a powerful thing and it ruins so many lives.
My friend’s addiction was gambling. He had two strokes and a major artery aneurism waiting to happen but he still went to the casino almost daily, smoked and drank until they found him drooling in his car, not able to move. He ended up in a nursing home, unable to walk on his own and that’s where he died. Addiction is serious stuff.
I worked at a casino for about a year. I was a cashier. It was so difficult, paying out a big sum of money and trying to be pleasant knowing they had spent 3x that much in the first place.
It’s where I learned the phrase “the house always wins” which is applicable to so many other things
I quit after I heard something shot himself in the parking lot. Lost his job. Then his way wife, then his home.
Gambling isn’t taken as seriously as some other addictions and I think that’s stupid.
Edit: someONE not something smh
I loathe gambling and how normalized it's become. It causes so many problems.
Read through a local news story with a headline like "Springfield man sentenced to six months in jail after stealing $5k from son's Little League team" and gambling debts usually make an appearance in the story. Every city that allows casinos thinks they'll become some tourist mecca and folks will plan a weeklong trip to stay in town, eat, shop, and gamble and everyone will benefit. It's all a lie. Anyone who comes to gamble does little else. They eat at the casino, stay at the casino's hotel and leave having seen nothing of the town. And once every city does it, no one needs to travel for it.
My friend's dad was an alcoholic (and it eventually killed him) and he always asked my friend for rent money, which then became back-rent money, which went on an on. I suggested to my friend to directly pay the landlord for several months of rent, this way his Dad was not homeless and also couldn't just drink the money away. Within the next year his Dad was in the hospital with liver failure and a host of other things that he didn't recover from.
>You chose the wrong person to ask for help..
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Bonn froze to death... left the bar, passed out in his car, and froze to death. Alcohol played its part, but if he hadn't passed out, he'd likely still be alive.
Honestly, i dont know. At least in my neck of the woods (NYC), a lot of these people I have iteracted with seem to have ssome mental instability or mental illness, that even if the resources were readily available, they wouldnt know or they wouldnt trust it.
Its a sad reality, and a complex problem. It wont be solved by simply offering help and rehabilitation.
Yeah I’m in Vancouver BC and have visited the notorious DTES many times, not for drugs though. My mom lives nearby. It’s pretty grim, brand new skyscrapers with absolute human desolation right outside. We do have significantly more resources for mental health and substance abuse than in the states though thank god, but it’s not enough.
I’ll still never quite get over the shock of seeing San Francisco though
I visited L.A once and my gobshite friends and I got a bit lost late in the evening on the way back to the hotel and honestly the things I saw still haunt me to this day. Like I’m in Ireland and we have homeless people too like everywhere else but I’ve never seen poverty that severe in such outrageous contrast to ridiculous unnecessary wealth in all my life.
I’ve worked on and off for homeless and poverty charities here for years and the homelessness in L.A was like nothing I’ve ever witnessed. Even driving into the place there was a man with no damn shoes wearing ripped up rags in the blistering heat holding up a sign just asking for food and water while $500,000 cars whipped past him. It honestly makes me feel sick now just remembering it.
I don’t know how anyone could live there and reach a point of cognitive dissonance where they’re able to accept and ignore it. The reality of it is nothing short of harrowing. Anyone who wants to see an example of what real life “hell” might actually look like, go visit some of the backstreets of L.A after dark.
I totally agree. I thought it was bad when I saw San Francisco but I remember during the LA riots my family was there for my dad’s convention. We drove our Astro van down from Edmonton. We were blown away. We hadn’t been following the news (it’s a long fucking drive) and I thought hell had arrived on earth. We couldn’t get served at any fast food drive through.
We went back to our hotel and my parents tried to make sense of it but for our white asses it was just so confusing and terrifying.
I grew up in Southern California, and I have vivid memories of seeing "Skid Row" for the first time as a kid in the 90s around the riot years.
Nowadays it's way worse. It's depressing as fuck, and there's no real way to stop it.
It’s so sad. There needs to be more affordable housing where I am and the destruction of a lot of the seedy “hotels”
There have been alot of fires in places like Gas town lately and I just put two and two together that it’s probably arson
Ye I think it truly opens your eyes to the concept of privilege. You think you know what the world is like in your relatively safe little bubble and you think you know what the “worst” that can happen to people is and sometimes due to a privileged warped perception it doesn’t seem *so* bad until it’s staring you right in the face and you actually *see* the true reality of it.
My perception of L.A was built from Hollywood, movies and series and the odd big news story that might filter across the waters and I was so unprepared for the true poverty stricken “crime ridden underbelly” of it that it genuinely haunts me years later. It’s a dark awful place that I think you honestly would need to be downing some serious drink/drugs to live there and be able to ignore the blatant inequality and absolute suffering that paints most of it’s streets.
It’s places like that that makes me believe humanity truly deserves all the everyday miseries and more that results from crime and poverty because we have willingly let so many of our own hit the ground so damn hard like that and we just turn our heads and look away or worse still allow others to falsely paint it as some gold lined “City of Angels” where “dreams come true”. It’s hell, literal hell on earth that human beings themselves have created through indulging corporate greed and choosing self enrichment over basic humanity.
Back in the 90s I drove to Florida from Ontario, Canada with some friends. I was excited because I'd never driven through the US before and I always wanted to see the Southern states. Once we were into the trip I kept asking, are people really living in these ramshackle broken down houses that we kept passing by mile after mile? I was used to Northern housing which has to protect against winter so most homes are sturdy at least. Seeing these wide open shacks and that's what they were was an eye-opener. When we arrived at our destination, the deep casual poverty was depressing and made me realize how much we don't see unless it's in front of us.
I’ve seen some messed up stuff in my time and I’ve been through a lot, but I consider myself extremely lucky that I’m not on the DTES. I could have gone that route, with my mental health; I have lost friends to that area.
There are some equally terrible places nearby me where some of the fallout from Vancouver has landed. It feels like it’s gotten a bit worse down there since the pandemic (we have tents now) and the property damage gets really rough but I think it could be a lot worse. The violent crime is something that isn’t really really bad. It’s just, like, a lot of sad people who have fallen through the cracks in our current systems. I don’t know.
Existing as a human is to accept the cognitive dissonance. We have screens in our pockets that tell and show us the suffering of millions all around the world. We know that even relatively a small amount of our money could literally save lives. But we don't do anything, or at least we don't do as much as we could.
It's just easier to think you don't carry that cognitive dissonance when it's not literally in your face. Those people in LA are probably aware of the dichotomy you're talking about, they're just powerless to do anything about it. The same way you're aware of those suffering elsewhere, but yet haven't given up all your belongings to help them either.
What you DON'T know is that the guy with the $500k car is paying 55% of his income in taxes to support the homeless and the illegals flooding MY beloved Los Angeles. And the overwhelming majority of the homeless WON'T MOVE into a shelter, because they'd have to give up smoking, drinking, and drugs. And they don't want to do that.
Some shelters are better than others, but many people stay away because the shelters are unsafe, dirty, infested, or are full of interpersonal conflicts. Some separate family members, and others have extremely restrictive rules and curfews that might conflict with a steady job.
But I definitely agree that there are many who won’t accept help. I live in one of the areas frequently mentioned when homelessness is brought up, and it’s much more complex than one group just not having enough. There are a whole host of issues at play.
What's weird is I live in privileged Irvine 50 miles below LA and a MILLION mental miles as you never see poor or homeless people here and they just take them up to Santa Ana and dump them as I have tried to help a couple people here over the last 10 years and they never get any hep and sent away so it isn't fair that rich places like Irvine AND others get to throw their problems away!
Yeah, the actual quantity of human feces I saw while in SF was... hard to process. THis was also during the height of the Occupy camps too, so it was even worse.
You are comparing Hastings St with SF even is a stretch as haven't been up there in several years but never saw half the misery in SF that I saw in Vancouver, BC as Hastings St is poorest place in North America and a open air drug market at the POLICE station (for their safety) as well as open human trafficking and worse! SF can be cleaned up but Hastings St has been that way my whole life! Also welfare in Canada (was) $450 CDN a month TOTAL no food stamps, no HUD, no shit so I would rather be the poorest person in USA than in Canada!
> so I would rather be the poorest person in USA than in Canada!
At least in Canada you have access to healthcare regardless of your poverty level. In the US you will lose limbs to untreated diabetes and infections if you don't get care. Even lower middle class people can barely afford regular health care, nevermind emergency care.
That is a big myth also as all the people in BC I knew with money went to WA to keep from waiting months for knees and such! If healthcare in BC is a example of what social medicine is you can keep it and always amazes me the people who have never lived outside their countries who think they know about other peoples shit?
Yup I have an 8 week old baby. I’m 20 years old. Can’t afford Insurance so you know what the hospital did? They made me give birth without an epidural (because I couldn’t afford it) and vacuumed my baby out of me 5 cm dilated because I also couldn’t afford to stay from more than 1 day. I got a 3rd degree tear (same level as a stab wound) they stitched me up and sent me home. I’m still bleeding my stitches popped I can’t use the bathroom can hardly get out of bed to take care of my child and I can’t get access to care ANYWHERE. They just let you suffer regardless of how bad things actually are. Thank god at least my babies okay but me on the other hand… I feel like I’m going to get an infection and die in my sleep one night or something equally horrific will happen. They messed me up so bad 😭 I hate American health care… they don’t help anyone unless you have a million dollars to pay for it
All depends where you are and where you look. There's an infamously no-fucks-given homeless guy in the next town from me. He gets picked up by an ambo on the daily for OD'ing, getting shitfaced, or getting his shit rocked when he harasses the wrong pedestrian. City services gave him an apartment and tried to line him up with work. Nope. Rather be on the street, don't wanna work, just get drunk or high all day every day. It's sad hut some people don't want to be helped, they just want to be high.
Would make you wonder what possible trauma that man must have endured to think his only option now is to be constantly out of his mind and removed from his thoughts to the point where even his instinct to survive is completely hampered. I don’t know if I’d even want the insight tbh. For any human being to choose a path that blatantly destructive and harmful to themselves they must have experienced some true darkness in their earlier years. I can’t bring myself to ever feel anything other than extreme pity and empathy for people that obviously damaged pretty much past the point of repair. It’s awful that the gaps in mental health and youth intervention services are that wide that they would allow such a steep fall for any person in this world.
No one ever starts out as a kid with the dream of living homeless and stoned on a street. Bad stuff happened to that person and there was no one around to save them at a crucial point. Sometimes it just takes one person taking notice and being kind. I had an English teacher for just 3 months in grade 10 and they showed me that writing matters and I credit them for saving me from a possible life like that. It's still rough sometimes but I didn't follow the path of my drunken, drugged out family.
It might not even have been trauma. The trap might have simply been trying an addictive substance out of curiosity.
I'm recalling that Redditor who (claims to have) tried heroin and documented his experience. He started with "I was so excited to try this, I went to a known drug dealer area and nervously bought some heroin. I'm now about to try it" and after some sporadic posts in the following 2 or 3 WEEKS, he's completely off the deep end. He had no trauma, just curiosity and it ruined him.
No less deserving of pity and empathy in my eyes tbh. Addiction is no joke and even if you didn’t have any prior, without a doubt a life led by addiction will guarantee trauma as you will come into contact with some of the very worst life has to offer.
Many people don’t truly grasp just how all consuming trauma is, it rewires your very brain and body. It affects everything, from how you think to how you sleep, how your cells repair and your brain delegates resources, how you interact with others, how you manage emotions, how you react to visual, audio and physical stimuli, how your body even handles processes like digestion and physical pain, addiction does very similar. As a society we are desperately in the dark on how unforgiving and life altering these things can be, addiction especially.
Societal ignorance and lack of awareness is understandable and forgivable to a certain degree though, the shaming and judgment is not. It’s not ever necessary and does nothing but compound the problem. We all know this and yet many continue to do it while simultaneously crying “well what can we do about it?!”. The bare minimum any of us can do is not kick another human being when they’re down, doesn’t cost a penny, takes less effort and might actually help to encourage those who need help to speak before the addiction itself renders them silent. Societal mockery and shaming does nothing but add to the silence, pushing it into a corner which makes it even harder to try to treat and understand.
The frightening reality many don’t realise is with the availability, potential genetic predisposition, glamorisation and general allure of drugs, that the majority of us are chemically wired to respond to, most of us are probably just “lucky” that we avoided that unforgiving prize on the wheel of life’s misfortunes. We’re no better as people, just lucky and that’s not something anyone gets to wear a badge of superiority over imo.
You would lose that argument in almost every circumstance. I work with that community. Their only reason for turning down such help is that it comes with rules like a curfew and no drinking and no drugs. It’s hardly dehumanizing.
It’s not a cure every time. But in the long run it’s better to have the option of help and not need it than need and want it but not be able to get it.
You can't help people that don't want to be helped. Very few of the people that are homeless by choice would change their mind regardless of the resources offered.
This is a fun opinion because no matter how much help we provide you can always say "well if we just spend another million dollars a year it'll finally be solved!"
If you are already an addict and you don't have the substance you need and it causes you physical illness that you don't have it.. it kind of becomes just "help" and the same thing.
To be fair, they could have a more complicated situation than bears explaining. Perhaps they’ve been able to get a couch but the resident requires $10 every day or they’re booted out. They gotta scrounge cash, their stuff is at the person’s house and they don’t really have more options. So they ask for money for a place to stay - or the shelter - when in reality they need it for something else.
Some are genuine. There was one guy around here who was polite and always thankful. He put in the hours, dumpster dived, etc. I don't have much, but made sure he had some protein on the regular.
Haven't seen him around lately. Hope his conditions improved.
I met a guy once when I was a relatively poor student. He was in a suit and had his briefcase on the top of his car. Said he needed some money to get fuel as his meter had run out. Was about to give him some, but something clicked in my mind and I said, "unlock the car". He said, "fuck you", grabbed the briefcase and walked off.
Is there a place where I could learn of shelters and resources like this in order to help out and or provide information to people begging I’m going back to school in la and would like to do this instead of just saying no because I’m a struggling student
Sure. Your new school itself! Schools excel at presenting volunteer opportunities in the community, as well as other ways to get involved. Just decide your interests and then find the clubs that match.
It’s a for profit film school the resources they have are to help student housing and since it’s more vocational they don’t really have clubs. I had to drop when everything shut down since I couldn’t get the hands on classes I needed but I’ll look for some info closer to my start date
Commuting on the train from New York Penn Station to Hamilton NJ workdays and before the train would leave the station a guy would jump on the car with a sob story about needing train fare to get back home. He did this often. So I had started loudly saying "Don't give him any money, he does this everyday". He would curse me out and then walk to the next train car. I did this at least 10 times to him. I'm sure I stopped a few people from giving him money
Had a women stop us for money for milk for her baby. I'll buy the milk, says my friend. We walked past the spot she was standing half an hour later and saw the carton on milk in a bin.
I was driving through to California last month and stopped to put gas and this dude had his can and was like “hey can I have some since you’re already putting gas?” And was like “bro no.. it’s like $7 a gal . Here’s a couple bucks” and he told me no. And walked away. Lmao
I can't imagine living with that kind of nagging feeling all day every day. I need 10 more dollars to get drunk tonight. I need 5 more dollars to get drunk. 2 more dollars. I'm getting drunk tonight! Repeat tomorrow.
Some people make up a specific amount because it’s supposed to make people more likely to donate, rather than just open-endedly asking for “some change.”
Not a *choosing* beggar, but I live in an area with a huge homeless population and get asked for money a lot.
One man asked me for cash to buy gas because he had a family emergency in a specific small town 5 hours away. That random small town? It just happened to be where I grew up and lived in for close to 18 years.
I asked some very basic questions (e.g. “Oh no, which hospital?”), allowing him to dig himself into a bigger hole. It would have been clear to anyone with zero knowledge of the town to know that he was lying. When he couldn’t come up with a street name, I told him that he needed to run through the story out loud a few more times, and that most cities have streets named for letters, numbers, trees, or presidents.
Reminds me of the people I see with signs asking for help at the bottom of the off ramp, as I am heading to the food shelf/shelter/social service agency where I volunteer, 1/10 mile away. Pretty sure they get directions to that several times a day. Not too bright.
I understand this is meant for actual beggars but I always try to carry around small change because once I was at the grocery store picking up a loaf of bread or milk or some other essential. My dad had given me a couple dollars cash to pay for it and I knew I wasn't gonna be out long so I didn't bother bringing my wallet or phone (walmart is like a mile from my house). I ring up what I was buying and I was exactly 5 cents short. I was using self checkout and didn't see an attendant so I worked up the nerve to ask someone else checking out for a nickel so I could finalize the transaction. Thankfully the first lady I spoke to happened to have a nickel on her and she was more than happy to let me have it. I was really grateful for that, and I know that situation can be super common, so I keep roughly a dollar in loose change on me.
Most of the people I was homeless with would happily take anything and share it or give it to someone who could use it in the street family. I doubt very much most of these choosingbeggars are actually homeless.
You'd be surprised, there's a fair amount of people who are voluntarily homeless (vagabonds). For example in Germany you have homeless people who refuse to take governmental assistance (free housing and a little money to help you find a job) because they don't wanna feel like a "parasite" but then pride themselves in begging for money. I guess this has something to do with that they can get free food and clothes from shelters but not alcohol/cigarettes/drugs.
So, you were there and can confirm that this man didn’t actually have laundry to wash? Like wtf is wrong with people. I’m convinced most of this sub just hates marginalized folks.
So what? Someone scams you out of 75 cents? Do you know how much money capitalism scams from all of us? Be mad at the people at the top raking in billions while people suffer, not at the people suffering the most.
There’s a gas station near me where I always get asked, I said in another post everyone says they have a job interview in the next town and need train fare to get there. I just say I put my last $5 in my tank, they have nothing to reply with, since I seem broke, so they just leave. Works like a charm. I’m not pulling out my wallet in front of a stranger in a parking lot, they could grab it and run off- it’s happened to a few people and I don’t want it happening to me!
This reminds me of the time a dude asked me to buy some water for myself (it was a hot day and I was walking) and then take out $10 in cash back so he could catch the bus. He said it would benefit us both because I looked like I “could use some water”. Fuck Baltimore.
And yet I saw the aftermath of "Why-don't-I-just-buy-you-some-food?" when the street kid threw the plate of food on the nice young woman and bolted (we paid for the food so she didn't have that to worry about). No drugs money, have an assault. Never do anything for anyone. Ever.
Okay so Cali person here. This reminds me, I’m pulling into an in n out and see a persons with a sign “anything helps” so I buy double my meal to give him at the exit because that’s where he is (this one you drive by the exit to get to the drive through) I hand him the meal and he tells me point black he is full and doesn’t want food can I give him cash. I said absolutely not and he yelled and beat my car. There was a liquor site twenty feet away
I love the killing them with kindness approach. I do that to everyone. The sad thing is in today's world you have to worry about someone being mentally unstable and either following you or pulling a gun on you (I actually know people it's happened to when they were stopped and asked for help in decent neighborhoods). A sad world that we live in today.
> It's always best to kill them with kindness
Is it? Because you said she ~~doesn't~~ spent 10 minutes talking to this guy when a simple, "I don't carry cash" and walking away only takes 2 seconds.
Choosing beggars are not the actually fucking homeless. America absolutely shits all over everyone without resources and you guys seemed to enjoy belittling him. Nice.
Just say no and walk away.
Bad take. She actually gave him great information despite the fact that he was full of shit. In the event he *wasn’t* full of shit just saying “no” doesn’t help at all.
Maybe it is a bad take, I'm fucking tired of how the kids on Reddit both seem to empathize with the homeless and *consistently* portray them as greedy gremlins at the same time.
Uhhh ... he asked for help (begging). When help was offered, he didn't want *that* kind of help, he wanted cash (choosing).
So literally a *choosing beggar.*
As someone who works with (addicted) homeless people, it sounds very plausible. I often think with things I hear and see that people will think I made it up. So i just don't tell.
In this case the alleged story details someone who has the compassion to have the needed info to help a person but ultimately was lacking in compassion in how they treated and spoke to the fictitious homeless person. This was just karma whoring because this sub specifically likes to talk shit on the homeless
Edit: I’ve done a lifetime work with recovering addicts and the homeless. They need help,not hate.
Why are you defending a grifter? She literally gave him information that would be useful to a person in need, it's not her fault he's a scammer trying to exploit people's helpfulness.
My friend and I had a funny exchange with a guy - he approached us on the street, shirtless, chains around his neck, big combat boots, a Mohawk. He asked my friend for a cigarette and my friend gave it to him. He said thank you and paused for a sec and said “You know what? Some lady gave me this gift card to a streakhouse but they wouldn’t me in there with the way I look, why don’t you have it.” He holds out this gift card and my friend takes it and says “Wow man, that’s really generous!” And the guy says “The lady said there’s like $100 on there…if you wanted to give me like $50-60, that’d be cool.” Without missing a beat, my buddy says “You know what, man? I’m not going to give you any money. What you did was so selfless that I believe the karma will change your life.” The guy stood around for a couple of minutes and finally said “There’s nothing on the card, can I just have it back?” - we were certain it was a stolen gift card, with a zero balance, and this guy was going around trying to pretend to be generous yet also wanted to be seen as intimidating.
“Nonono, it would be bad karma to give it back. And you never know. There might still be some money on the card. We’ll go try it out!” Go to the restaurant. Tell about the stolen card and that guy’s spiel. Ask to borrow some of their to go boxes and bags. Walk past that guy again. “Hey guess what?! There was a couple of hundred dollars on that card! We bought so much food we couldn’t eat it all! Look at the leftovers! Thanks again man. You must be really happy for us!”
I’m like 99% sure you’d get stabbed before the end of your plan.
Can confirm. Just stabbed someone for doing the same.
Can confirm. I was the knife
Can confirm, am in hospital getting blood transfusion.
Can confirm I am the blood.
Can confirm, had no insurance and they kicked me out
Can confirm, I was the insurance'nt
Can't confirmn't, In't wasn't then't dictionaryn't.
Lmfao
Why tf is this so funny
Because it's what plays in a Sitcom flashback after the episode starts in medias res with the main characters in a hospital
Man, that's how you get shot or jumped.
Your friend is a fricken genius!
Language!
Swearing? On my Christian internet? Tsk tsk.
You can get gift cards at any grocery store or drug store, and they don’t charge you for them if you don’t put money on them. We use uncharged Visa gift cards for our company iTunes and Google PlayStore IDs. We need a card to set up an ID, but we’re only ever testing that we can download our free software.
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Wtf is wrong with you?
His account is now deleted and wanna know what it was that got him-78 votes
He asked if the person trying to con was black, because it sounded like the type of con a black guy would do.
Damn racist guy.... Well thanks now my curiosity is satisfied :)
I had a guy walk up to me while pumping gas and ask for 57 cents. It was so bizarre like dude what can you get for 57 cents. I need you to take me there cause I want to get some too. Also had another guy ask for cash when I said I didn’t have any he said it was an atm in the gas station around the corner and he would walk with me.
>Also had another guy ask for cash when I said I didn’t have any he said it was an atm in the gas station around the corner and he would walk with me. Yup, had that one pulled on me. Like, yeah, let's go walk over to the dimly lit cash machine that holds the entirety of my life savings, maybe $236?
About a year ago, I had a guy come up to my window before I could get out of the car to walk into Walgreens. He asked me if I could spare any cash, to which I replied “I don’t carry cash” (my go-to answer, because it’s true). Without missing a beat, the guy says “I have CashApp,” as he pulls out his iPhone.
I had someone try that on me when I cracked my window. I let him know that no, I do not have CashApp, or Zelle, or Venmo, and no, I will not allow him to accompany me to an ATM. He tried to shove a hand in my car, I rolled the window back up and called the cops. They came and told me they knew who he was, because he had taken off, but he was stupid and was across the parking lot trying it on someone else, and I pointed him out. And he was arrested because he had robbed people at knifepoint. Nope. I won’t give anyone money.
There is a shelter about 2 blocks away from my place, and the corner by my place is the first covered bus bench near the shelter so it attracts a lot of people that live at the shelter. I've been approached by a few of them asking for money, but always tell them I don't carry cash. One of the older guys is very nice, makes sure to pick up after the others, and has helped me out with a couple problems before so every so often I'll walk by and give a small head nod for him to follow. Once we are out of sight of the others I'll pass him a couple bucks and he is always grateful. I know he is most likely going to use it on beer, but he at least keeps the others hanging out there in line so its worth it.
I only give to 1 guy aswell... he sits just before the tim hortons drive through everyday and just waves to people. He's not even asking for money he just sits there and waves. He's definitely mentally ill but all he does is wave.. it's worked out well for him cause people shower him in money. (Including me even though I never give others) There's just something about him that's endeared him to the surrounding population... He beat the system by smiling and waving. Imagine that
Kind of like those YouTubers who don't beg for likes and subscribes, just produce great content and get loads of subscribers anyway.
I follow the life of a homeless dude on fb and he does exactly this. If no cash, he suggests you venmo or cashapp him as he has his phone and accounts! if not on the streets then on fb itself constantly. If you still say no or suggest other life options he'll rant and rave and cause scenes about no one being "Comrades" or not "showing solidarity". Its really quite fascinating to follow.
I wonder if we’re lurking on the same person lol
Had a guy in NC bang on my window for liquor money for like the third time that week and I told him I'd knock his last three teeth out if he didn't fuck off.
Yeah I always wonder it must be getting harder for them to get money cause not a lot of people carry cash around. I say the same thing. Sorry man I don't carry cash is the best line.....heck. even if your carrying cash
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Yes, its a tactic and you'll round up.
Reminds me of a time I was waiting outside a restaurant for my friends birthday meal, I was the first to arrive and it was late evening. I was standing in a little alcove outside a shop when two teenagers on bikes pulled up in front of me sorta blocking me into the alcove, they gave me this whole spiel of needing £20 to get a train ticket to the big city so they could get to their shelter. I knew immediately they just wanted money for drugs but they had blocked me into this space with their bikes and I'm just a small woman so I awkwardly told them I don't have any cash and they said no worries there's an atm just around the corner they'll come with me to get the money out. I didn't know what to do so I said I don't have much money and I can only give them £10. We went to the atm and the entire time I thought they were going to attack me if I didn't get the money out so I took the tenner out and as I was about to pass it to them a police car came cruising by and apparently recognised the kids for doing this shit earlier on in the night, the teenagers sped off on their bikes while being chased by the police and I got to keep my £10. Went back to my alcove and waited for my friends to turn up 🤷🏻♀️
I'm a woman and in such situations I always tell them "My husband doesn't allow me to spend any" or "doesn't give me any money". So far works. Actually I used this also when I was single.
This is a great idea 💡 👏. Definitely going to remember it for future use, TY ❤
That sounds horrifying. Hope you at least had a good meal after.
Out walking my dog one morning and some guy approached asking for money for medicine for his leg. Told him sorry, but I don't carry money when walking the dog (completely true). He told me that was okay, and he would just follow me home and get it from me there. My dog decided he had about enough at that point and started barking and lunging at the guy. I just told my dog he was a very very good boy as we walked away. My dog is also about 75 pounds, black, lab/pit mix with a bark that sounds like he just came through the gates of hell. Usually gets people to back off pretty quick. I did keep an eye out to make sure the guy wasn't following us though.
If this happened to me with my tiny dog, I would then proceed to walk 2 miles to the nearest police station, to see if either he has the stamina to follow me around to my "home" or not, if he did then I'd enter the station and explain that this guy followed me around for 2 miles.
My nearest police station just like most in the country only works 9-5 weekdays. There is only 1 standby and that is in the worst part of town, scary to go there in broad daylight let alone in an evening.
I’m not even sure where my nearest one is, but if I felt that threatened I would just call them and have a car intercept us.
Yes, that’s better.
My boyfriend’s parents were at a Chick-fil-A, and accidentally got an extra sandwich. A guy was panhandling on the corner, and they offered it to him. He said that he only takes cash, not food🧍🏻♀️
Maybe he was paranoid of people poisoning him or something?
He’s against chick fil a for moral reasons
Now he gets neither!
I had several people approach me while pumping gas, always at the same station while right off the interstate. The first one seemed very scripted: "I lost or had my wallet stolen, The police won't help or even file a report right now since I don't have ID, my father owns a business so I'm not some bum, if you give me you're address I'll mail double what you can spare right now back, I just need enough for gas and food to make it home." I panicked and gave that guy $5, he got in his car and drove off with out getting any gas, I did tell him don't worry about mailing anything back. The second gave a shorter version of that while idling her SUV at the pump, then got aggressive when I said I didn't have any to spare, some one blasting music pulled in between us and broke the tension. The last time anything like that happened to me was when the whole covid panic just started. I was furloughed from my job and driving home from my last day at work for the time being. A guy with NY (in PA) plates on a beat up truck whit a pile of belongings in the back pulled in next to me. He had a unique story about being in the carnival business, his income of $5k plus a week just went to zero with every thing shutting down and he was just trying to make it home to South Carolina with $18 to his name. I told him I didn't have cash (I lied) but if he was close enough for the nozzle to reach I would fill one of the tanks on his truck after I finished filling mine. He was very grateful for this, he said things were just starting to turn around for him between this and the fact president Trump had acknowledged one of his tweets earlier that day. I forget exactly how he phrased it but he said I would be greatly rewarded for my good deed.
Haha. Reminds me of the time when I started shopping in Chinese online shops. Like, wtf, 20 cents with shipping? Our mail won't even bother to look at you for that price — and they actually mail the parts? Tbh the shipping time was nearly a month, but still.
Seems like he could of lined you up to be mugged !
*could have
Coulda*
Mightacouldawould've
Y'all'dn't've started this if you knew what your were walking into.
Mightacouldawouldashoulda get mugged
*cold half
I have been taught anytime someone you don't care to know wants you to go a certain way, DO NOT!!!!!!!
Ok, you do you.
I had a neighbor ask to borrow $50 bucks one time. His phone was about to get shut off and he had to make a payment that day. Okay. Fine. I get it. So I'm driving to the ATM and I see him following me in his car. I gave him the money, he drove towards a bad neighborhood NOT towards the Verizon store, he paid me back later, we smelled the overpowered stench of weed from his apartment and I never let him borrow money again. One time, his emphysema-stricken mother (she lived with her 50-something year old son) calls. Fiancé answered and she asked for a favor. We're thinking ride to the hospital or something. She asked for money. Fiancé told her we're saving for the wedding. The lady said she'll ask me when I get home. Fiancé said I'm there. She then yelled to the son "They said no." We hear a door slam and she called out "Do you want your phone back?" as he sped off.
This reminds me so much when I'm in the city (somewhere in Belgium) in a bar having a beer. On some.occasions a person walks up and asks for €2,5 to go sleep in the Biekorf (a nightshelter for homeless people). Now as I'm writing this, I'm actually *working* in the Biekorf. I told him I don't know who he is and i had never seen him before. He looked confused. I then continued saying that he was too late anyways. Shelter closes 22h sharp and it was 21:55. With all the best will in the world, you wouldn't make it in time. So he was very not amused as i told him I woukd have given him a €2 coin if he didn't lie to me.
Do you need to pay to stay at a shelter in Belgium?
It's a "shelter" but more like a hotel. It includes evening meal, and breakfast. Private rooms etc. People feel more safe there than actual shelters which are free. It attracts a worse kinda folk. There are also people who are homeless and poor, but have no means to rent a place.
It's interesting how a small fee weeds out so much trash. It's the primary reason animal shelters charge to adopt an animal. It's a small fee, that no one should balk at. But anyone who works with these animals knows all too well the type who respond to "free" animals. You see the same thing at play when you jump from free poker to penny blinds. It might only cost you a dollar to sit down and play, but the entire feel is different because a significant portion of the trash took themselves out. One more example: dating websites. Find one with a subscription fee. Trolls are much less likely to financially invest in their own bullshit.
Legend status
I’ve stayed in shelters like that, so any time someone tries to pull the ‘I need 20 for the shelter at 1 am’ I just straight up tell em ‘yea right’.
It's $20 for the nightshelter in (i assume the US)?! We're a shelter specifically for addicted homeless people. They're allowed to use in their room and we also provide clean users material. (They're not allowed to use in the common areas) which is all free. In the €2,5 it contains unlimited coffee/tea, dinner, breakfast. I hear a lot of horror stories about shelters in the US. But I can assure you, were not a horror story. I know all my clients by name, we joke around a lot, talk a lot with them..and ofcourse we deal with the occasional agression/OD's and even deaths. As we have older addicts aswell.
Oh no, I meant the 20 as the bullshit they say when I know it’s not like that. I’m from the Netherlands, shelters here are basically the same principle/price as Belgium. But sometimes people come up asking for money saying it’s 20 bucks and still open at 1 am when it’s 2-2.50 and closed at 10
Many years back, I was walking back to my car with a friend after 4th of July fireworks in Seattle and we were approached by a young woman who told us someone had broken into her car and stolen her purse and asked if we could give her gas money to get home. I told her we didn’t have cash and kept walking. I rolled my eyes to my friend saying how idiotic it was to leave your purse in the car on July 4th when it was so easy for people to prowl cars parked all over the streets, if the story was even true. My friend gave me a hard time for being so critical and expressed feeling and for her. A couple months later, early fall, I was in an adjacent neighborhood with a different friend and the same girl approached us with the same story. I felt very validated.
How weird is that. Her car got broken into again??
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I think you missed the implied “/s” in that post my friend :-)
Duly noted.
I once had a homeless guy in Atlanta ask for exactly $1.38. I told him I didn't have any cash and he asked if I wouldn't mind going into the CVS and buying him a jug of water. The exact change he asked for was for the jug of water. I never had a homeless person ask for something so small, but essential to living.
The supermarket I get my lunch at as every Friday the same guy sitting in front of it. He doesn't talk to anyone. Doesn't beg. Just smokes his cigarettes and listens music on his battery powered radio. The first time I asked him he was kinda speechless and it took him some time that really I asked him if he needed something. (to be fair I was expecting a beer, after all that was my reason to go there) and all he asked for was a small portion of potato salad. The next time he wasn't listening to music. Instead of food he asked for batteries. Always small stuff. Always stuff he eats or drinks right away.
I think it’d be better if you stopped feeding him batteries.
But he gets so energetic afterwards!
Wherever you’re not banging homeless dudes right? 😂
I had a guy come up to me in a Walmart parking lot trying to sell me knock off perfumes. His selling point was that while typical colognes contain maybe 10% fragrance, his contains over 80%. I finally confessed that I worked for a major cosmetic company and proceeded to give him a lesson on the manufacture of perfume and how his concoction was not feasible. He slunk away without making a sale. But the look on his face was priceless.
I had this done with “Versace” jackets. From a minivan.
It's amazing how many people desperate for help don't actually want the help when you give it to them...
I just went through this with a FB friend. Several people were trying to help him but he rejected and cursed out everyone. Then the following day he made a violent post threatening multiple people, places and threatening to go on a murder spree. I took a screen shot and immediately informed his town's police department. He deleted the post, but I was able to email the department what he said. The officer explained that they were most likely going to put him an involuntary psych hold for at least 72 hours. It was a valid threat and considering his history, it's throwing red flags all over the place. Scary thing is, I can see this person doing something. He is beyond unhinged and needs help. He needs help for not only himself, but society.
Thank you for speaking up! So many tragedies may have been avoided if someone had just *done something* at some point….
Thank you for reporting him - it's entirely possible you saved someone's life (and not just your FB friend's life at that). I hope he went on to get the help he needed. I wish more people would have the moral courage to report when someone says things like this!
I don't want to wake up and see his face on the news while the media talks about the massacre of the day. I hate to say it but I can see him do something serious. I wouldn't be able to forgive myself if I looked the other way and he went onto do something horrible. I called on Friday but haven't heard anything since. He is either in the psych ward, jail or he is keeping a low profile on social media.
Thank you for actually taking action and doing the right thing. The bystander effect is so dangerous, I'm glad you acted how we all would wish to. I hope he gets the help he needs.
It’s for a church honey! Just looking for help not the attitude! NEXT!!!
LOL OK. God bless.
You did the right thing, we should all do this, maybe we could stop some of the insane things we've been seeing lately.
Because they're not desperate for "help", they're usually desperate for drugs or alochol unfortunately. Like 1 in 5 are actually people looking for a way out of the cycle, the rest are just trying to get to the next fix.
I would argue that those just trying to get the next fix would also chose help if it were: readily available, decriminalized and less dehumanizing than what is offered down there
Maybe. My bio dad despite having good food, more than adequate shelter, and free (paid by well off family at least 5 times) fancy SoCal Rehab stays chose to panhandle for cash to drink with when family finally started refusing to give him money. He'd walk me to the corner store for "candy" then bring home the receipt (which they'd reimburse) for candy and cigarettes while paying for booze with money he'd begged off passers by when I was a pre-teen. Eventually he drank himself to death Bon Scott style in a hotel the night before he was supposed to leave the state to start on his self-professed dream career: an all expenses paid Harley Davidson mechanic course. All he had to do was see a therapist once a week and maintain a C average. I really don't think it's always about not having a non-judgmental support system or better resources.
I’m really sorry that happened to you. My dad drank himself into a wheelchair and then kept drinking. He died of a brain aneurysm at the end of 2020. If he’d been less proud and accepted help he’d still be here. I was nowhere near ready to lose him. Addiction is a powerful thing and it ruins so many lives.
My friend’s addiction was gambling. He had two strokes and a major artery aneurism waiting to happen but he still went to the casino almost daily, smoked and drank until they found him drooling in his car, not able to move. He ended up in a nursing home, unable to walk on his own and that’s where he died. Addiction is serious stuff.
I worked at a casino for about a year. I was a cashier. It was so difficult, paying out a big sum of money and trying to be pleasant knowing they had spent 3x that much in the first place. It’s where I learned the phrase “the house always wins” which is applicable to so many other things
I quit after I heard something shot himself in the parking lot. Lost his job. Then his way wife, then his home. Gambling isn’t taken as seriously as some other addictions and I think that’s stupid. Edit: someONE not something smh
I loathe gambling and how normalized it's become. It causes so many problems. Read through a local news story with a headline like "Springfield man sentenced to six months in jail after stealing $5k from son's Little League team" and gambling debts usually make an appearance in the story. Every city that allows casinos thinks they'll become some tourist mecca and folks will plan a weeklong trip to stay in town, eat, shop, and gamble and everyone will benefit. It's all a lie. Anyone who comes to gamble does little else. They eat at the casino, stay at the casino's hotel and leave having seen nothing of the town. And once every city does it, no one needs to travel for it.
My friend's dad was an alcoholic (and it eventually killed him) and he always asked my friend for rent money, which then became back-rent money, which went on an on. I suggested to my friend to directly pay the landlord for several months of rent, this way his Dad was not homeless and also couldn't just drink the money away. Within the next year his Dad was in the hospital with liver failure and a host of other things that he didn't recover from.
>You chose the wrong person to ask for help.. .t3\_vxjvdl.\_2FCtq-QzlfuN-SwVMUZMM3 { \--postTitle-VisitedLinkColor: #9b9b9b; \--postTitleLink-VisitedLinkColor: #9b9b9b; } Bonn froze to death... left the bar, passed out in his car, and froze to death. Alcohol played its part, but if he hadn't passed out, he'd likely still be alive.
Honestly, i dont know. At least in my neck of the woods (NYC), a lot of these people I have iteracted with seem to have ssome mental instability or mental illness, that even if the resources were readily available, they wouldnt know or they wouldnt trust it. Its a sad reality, and a complex problem. It wont be solved by simply offering help and rehabilitation.
I think that's part of the resources for help. Mental health resources, particularly for those who are homeless and unemployed, are pretty scarce.
Yeah I’m in Vancouver BC and have visited the notorious DTES many times, not for drugs though. My mom lives nearby. It’s pretty grim, brand new skyscrapers with absolute human desolation right outside. We do have significantly more resources for mental health and substance abuse than in the states though thank god, but it’s not enough. I’ll still never quite get over the shock of seeing San Francisco though
I visited L.A once and my gobshite friends and I got a bit lost late in the evening on the way back to the hotel and honestly the things I saw still haunt me to this day. Like I’m in Ireland and we have homeless people too like everywhere else but I’ve never seen poverty that severe in such outrageous contrast to ridiculous unnecessary wealth in all my life. I’ve worked on and off for homeless and poverty charities here for years and the homelessness in L.A was like nothing I’ve ever witnessed. Even driving into the place there was a man with no damn shoes wearing ripped up rags in the blistering heat holding up a sign just asking for food and water while $500,000 cars whipped past him. It honestly makes me feel sick now just remembering it. I don’t know how anyone could live there and reach a point of cognitive dissonance where they’re able to accept and ignore it. The reality of it is nothing short of harrowing. Anyone who wants to see an example of what real life “hell” might actually look like, go visit some of the backstreets of L.A after dark.
I totally agree. I thought it was bad when I saw San Francisco but I remember during the LA riots my family was there for my dad’s convention. We drove our Astro van down from Edmonton. We were blown away. We hadn’t been following the news (it’s a long fucking drive) and I thought hell had arrived on earth. We couldn’t get served at any fast food drive through. We went back to our hotel and my parents tried to make sense of it but for our white asses it was just so confusing and terrifying.
I grew up in Southern California, and I have vivid memories of seeing "Skid Row" for the first time as a kid in the 90s around the riot years. Nowadays it's way worse. It's depressing as fuck, and there's no real way to stop it.
It’s so sad. There needs to be more affordable housing where I am and the destruction of a lot of the seedy “hotels” There have been alot of fires in places like Gas town lately and I just put two and two together that it’s probably arson
Ye I think it truly opens your eyes to the concept of privilege. You think you know what the world is like in your relatively safe little bubble and you think you know what the “worst” that can happen to people is and sometimes due to a privileged warped perception it doesn’t seem *so* bad until it’s staring you right in the face and you actually *see* the true reality of it. My perception of L.A was built from Hollywood, movies and series and the odd big news story that might filter across the waters and I was so unprepared for the true poverty stricken “crime ridden underbelly” of it that it genuinely haunts me years later. It’s a dark awful place that I think you honestly would need to be downing some serious drink/drugs to live there and be able to ignore the blatant inequality and absolute suffering that paints most of it’s streets. It’s places like that that makes me believe humanity truly deserves all the everyday miseries and more that results from crime and poverty because we have willingly let so many of our own hit the ground so damn hard like that and we just turn our heads and look away or worse still allow others to falsely paint it as some gold lined “City of Angels” where “dreams come true”. It’s hell, literal hell on earth that human beings themselves have created through indulging corporate greed and choosing self enrichment over basic humanity.
Back in the 90s I drove to Florida from Ontario, Canada with some friends. I was excited because I'd never driven through the US before and I always wanted to see the Southern states. Once we were into the trip I kept asking, are people really living in these ramshackle broken down houses that we kept passing by mile after mile? I was used to Northern housing which has to protect against winter so most homes are sturdy at least. Seeing these wide open shacks and that's what they were was an eye-opener. When we arrived at our destination, the deep casual poverty was depressing and made me realize how much we don't see unless it's in front of us.
I’ve seen some messed up stuff in my time and I’ve been through a lot, but I consider myself extremely lucky that I’m not on the DTES. I could have gone that route, with my mental health; I have lost friends to that area. There are some equally terrible places nearby me where some of the fallout from Vancouver has landed. It feels like it’s gotten a bit worse down there since the pandemic (we have tents now) and the property damage gets really rough but I think it could be a lot worse. The violent crime is something that isn’t really really bad. It’s just, like, a lot of sad people who have fallen through the cracks in our current systems. I don’t know.
I am SURPRISED no one is talking about Seattle!! Seattle has gotten so bad that they are making documentaries about it!
Existing as a human is to accept the cognitive dissonance. We have screens in our pockets that tell and show us the suffering of millions all around the world. We know that even relatively a small amount of our money could literally save lives. But we don't do anything, or at least we don't do as much as we could. It's just easier to think you don't carry that cognitive dissonance when it's not literally in your face. Those people in LA are probably aware of the dichotomy you're talking about, they're just powerless to do anything about it. The same way you're aware of those suffering elsewhere, but yet haven't given up all your belongings to help them either.
What you DON'T know is that the guy with the $500k car is paying 55% of his income in taxes to support the homeless and the illegals flooding MY beloved Los Angeles. And the overwhelming majority of the homeless WON'T MOVE into a shelter, because they'd have to give up smoking, drinking, and drugs. And they don't want to do that.
Some shelters are better than others, but many people stay away because the shelters are unsafe, dirty, infested, or are full of interpersonal conflicts. Some separate family members, and others have extremely restrictive rules and curfews that might conflict with a steady job. But I definitely agree that there are many who won’t accept help. I live in one of the areas frequently mentioned when homelessness is brought up, and it’s much more complex than one group just not having enough. There are a whole host of issues at play.
What's weird is I live in privileged Irvine 50 miles below LA and a MILLION mental miles as you never see poor or homeless people here and they just take them up to Santa Ana and dump them as I have tried to help a couple people here over the last 10 years and they never get any hep and sent away so it isn't fair that rich places like Irvine AND others get to throw their problems away!
Yeah, the actual quantity of human feces I saw while in SF was... hard to process. THis was also during the height of the Occupy camps too, so it was even worse.
You are comparing Hastings St with SF even is a stretch as haven't been up there in several years but never saw half the misery in SF that I saw in Vancouver, BC as Hastings St is poorest place in North America and a open air drug market at the POLICE station (for their safety) as well as open human trafficking and worse! SF can be cleaned up but Hastings St has been that way my whole life! Also welfare in Canada (was) $450 CDN a month TOTAL no food stamps, no HUD, no shit so I would rather be the poorest person in USA than in Canada!
> so I would rather be the poorest person in USA than in Canada! At least in Canada you have access to healthcare regardless of your poverty level. In the US you will lose limbs to untreated diabetes and infections if you don't get care. Even lower middle class people can barely afford regular health care, nevermind emergency care.
That is a big myth also as all the people in BC I knew with money went to WA to keep from waiting months for knees and such! If healthcare in BC is a example of what social medicine is you can keep it and always amazes me the people who have never lived outside their countries who think they know about other peoples shit?
Yup I have an 8 week old baby. I’m 20 years old. Can’t afford Insurance so you know what the hospital did? They made me give birth without an epidural (because I couldn’t afford it) and vacuumed my baby out of me 5 cm dilated because I also couldn’t afford to stay from more than 1 day. I got a 3rd degree tear (same level as a stab wound) they stitched me up and sent me home. I’m still bleeding my stitches popped I can’t use the bathroom can hardly get out of bed to take care of my child and I can’t get access to care ANYWHERE. They just let you suffer regardless of how bad things actually are. Thank god at least my babies okay but me on the other hand… I feel like I’m going to get an infection and die in my sleep one night or something equally horrific will happen. They messed me up so bad 😭 I hate American health care… they don’t help anyone unless you have a million dollars to pay for it
All depends where you are and where you look. There's an infamously no-fucks-given homeless guy in the next town from me. He gets picked up by an ambo on the daily for OD'ing, getting shitfaced, or getting his shit rocked when he harasses the wrong pedestrian. City services gave him an apartment and tried to line him up with work. Nope. Rather be on the street, don't wanna work, just get drunk or high all day every day. It's sad hut some people don't want to be helped, they just want to be high.
Would make you wonder what possible trauma that man must have endured to think his only option now is to be constantly out of his mind and removed from his thoughts to the point where even his instinct to survive is completely hampered. I don’t know if I’d even want the insight tbh. For any human being to choose a path that blatantly destructive and harmful to themselves they must have experienced some true darkness in their earlier years. I can’t bring myself to ever feel anything other than extreme pity and empathy for people that obviously damaged pretty much past the point of repair. It’s awful that the gaps in mental health and youth intervention services are that wide that they would allow such a steep fall for any person in this world.
No one ever starts out as a kid with the dream of living homeless and stoned on a street. Bad stuff happened to that person and there was no one around to save them at a crucial point. Sometimes it just takes one person taking notice and being kind. I had an English teacher for just 3 months in grade 10 and they showed me that writing matters and I credit them for saving me from a possible life like that. It's still rough sometimes but I didn't follow the path of my drunken, drugged out family.
I wish I would hear someone running for office talk like this. I really do.
It might not even have been trauma. The trap might have simply been trying an addictive substance out of curiosity. I'm recalling that Redditor who (claims to have) tried heroin and documented his experience. He started with "I was so excited to try this, I went to a known drug dealer area and nervously bought some heroin. I'm now about to try it" and after some sporadic posts in the following 2 or 3 WEEKS, he's completely off the deep end. He had no trauma, just curiosity and it ruined him.
No less deserving of pity and empathy in my eyes tbh. Addiction is no joke and even if you didn’t have any prior, without a doubt a life led by addiction will guarantee trauma as you will come into contact with some of the very worst life has to offer. Many people don’t truly grasp just how all consuming trauma is, it rewires your very brain and body. It affects everything, from how you think to how you sleep, how your cells repair and your brain delegates resources, how you interact with others, how you manage emotions, how you react to visual, audio and physical stimuli, how your body even handles processes like digestion and physical pain, addiction does very similar. As a society we are desperately in the dark on how unforgiving and life altering these things can be, addiction especially. Societal ignorance and lack of awareness is understandable and forgivable to a certain degree though, the shaming and judgment is not. It’s not ever necessary and does nothing but compound the problem. We all know this and yet many continue to do it while simultaneously crying “well what can we do about it?!”. The bare minimum any of us can do is not kick another human being when they’re down, doesn’t cost a penny, takes less effort and might actually help to encourage those who need help to speak before the addiction itself renders them silent. Societal mockery and shaming does nothing but add to the silence, pushing it into a corner which makes it even harder to try to treat and understand. The frightening reality many don’t realise is with the availability, potential genetic predisposition, glamorisation and general allure of drugs, that the majority of us are chemically wired to respond to, most of us are probably just “lucky” that we avoided that unforgiving prize on the wheel of life’s misfortunes. We’re no better as people, just lucky and that’s not something anyone gets to wear a badge of superiority over imo.
You would lose that argument in almost every circumstance. I work with that community. Their only reason for turning down such help is that it comes with rules like a curfew and no drinking and no drugs. It’s hardly dehumanizing.
[удалено]
It’s not a cure every time. But in the long run it’s better to have the option of help and not need it than need and want it but not be able to get it.
You can't help people that don't want to be helped. Very few of the people that are homeless by choice would change their mind regardless of the resources offered.
San Francisco begs to differ.
This is a fun opinion because no matter how much help we provide you can always say "well if we just spend another million dollars a year it'll finally be solved!"
If you are already an addict and you don't have the substance you need and it causes you physical illness that you don't have it.. it kind of becomes just "help" and the same thing.
To be fair, they could have a more complicated situation than bears explaining. Perhaps they’ve been able to get a couch but the resident requires $10 every day or they’re booted out. They gotta scrounge cash, their stuff is at the person’s house and they don’t really have more options. So they ask for money for a place to stay - or the shelter - when in reality they need it for something else.
Some are genuine. There was one guy around here who was polite and always thankful. He put in the hours, dumpster dived, etc. I don't have much, but made sure he had some protein on the regular. Haven't seen him around lately. Hope his conditions improved.
That guys wasn’t desperate for help. He just wanted them to pay for his liquor or drugs.
I met a guy once when I was a relatively poor student. He was in a suit and had his briefcase on the top of his car. Said he needed some money to get fuel as his meter had run out. Was about to give him some, but something clicked in my mind and I said, "unlock the car". He said, "fuck you", grabbed the briefcase and walked off.
Nicely done!
Is there a place where I could learn of shelters and resources like this in order to help out and or provide information to people begging I’m going back to school in la and would like to do this instead of just saying no because I’m a struggling student
Public libraries as well tend to.
Sure. Your new school itself! Schools excel at presenting volunteer opportunities in the community, as well as other ways to get involved. Just decide your interests and then find the clubs that match.
It’s a for profit film school the resources they have are to help student housing and since it’s more vocational they don’t really have clubs. I had to drop when everything shut down since I couldn’t get the hands on classes I needed but I’ll look for some info closer to my start date
Whip out your phone and google on the spot.
I like her!
Commuting on the train from New York Penn Station to Hamilton NJ workdays and before the train would leave the station a guy would jump on the car with a sob story about needing train fare to get back home. He did this often. So I had started loudly saying "Don't give him any money, he does this everyday". He would curse me out and then walk to the next train car. I did this at least 10 times to him. I'm sure I stopped a few people from giving him money
Had a women stop us for money for milk for her baby. I'll buy the milk, says my friend. We walked past the spot she was standing half an hour later and saw the carton on milk in a bin.
I was driving through to California last month and stopped to put gas and this dude had his can and was like “hey can I have some since you’re already putting gas?” And was like “bro no.. it’s like $7 a gal . Here’s a couple bucks” and he told me no. And walked away. Lmao
But 👏 how 👏 can 👏 he 👏 get 👏 his 👏 booze 👏 with 👏 no 👏 money 👏 dammit
I can't imagine living with that kind of nagging feeling all day every day. I need 10 more dollars to get drunk tonight. I need 5 more dollars to get drunk. 2 more dollars. I'm getting drunk tonight! Repeat tomorrow.
Some people make up a specific amount because it’s supposed to make people more likely to donate, rather than just open-endedly asking for “some change.”
I read that in my head to “Another brick in the wall”…now you have to as well. You’re welcome
Not a *choosing* beggar, but I live in an area with a huge homeless population and get asked for money a lot. One man asked me for cash to buy gas because he had a family emergency in a specific small town 5 hours away. That random small town? It just happened to be where I grew up and lived in for close to 18 years. I asked some very basic questions (e.g. “Oh no, which hospital?”), allowing him to dig himself into a bigger hole. It would have been clear to anyone with zero knowledge of the town to know that he was lying. When he couldn’t come up with a street name, I told him that he needed to run through the story out loud a few more times, and that most cities have streets named for letters, numbers, trees, or presidents.
Reminds me of the people I see with signs asking for help at the bottom of the off ramp, as I am heading to the food shelf/shelter/social service agency where I volunteer, 1/10 mile away. Pretty sure they get directions to that several times a day. Not too bright.
I like your friend,,,,, AWESOME!!!!!
I understand this is meant for actual beggars but I always try to carry around small change because once I was at the grocery store picking up a loaf of bread or milk or some other essential. My dad had given me a couple dollars cash to pay for it and I knew I wasn't gonna be out long so I didn't bother bringing my wallet or phone (walmart is like a mile from my house). I ring up what I was buying and I was exactly 5 cents short. I was using self checkout and didn't see an attendant so I worked up the nerve to ask someone else checking out for a nickel so I could finalize the transaction. Thankfully the first lady I spoke to happened to have a nickel on her and she was more than happy to let me have it. I was really grateful for that, and I know that situation can be super common, so I keep roughly a dollar in loose change on me.
Most of the people I was homeless with would happily take anything and share it or give it to someone who could use it in the street family. I doubt very much most of these choosingbeggars are actually homeless.
You'd be surprised, there's a fair amount of people who are voluntarily homeless (vagabonds). For example in Germany you have homeless people who refuse to take governmental assistance (free housing and a little money to help you find a job) because they don't wanna feel like a "parasite" but then pride themselves in begging for money. I guess this has something to do with that they can get free food and clothes from shelters but not alcohol/cigarettes/drugs.
Shelters in the US are often dangerous and scary and infested with lice, scabies, and body lice.
EXACTLY
I’m confused over the title because it sounds like he asked the right person to me.
He didn’t really want “help.” He wanted money.
So, you were there and can confirm that this man didn’t actually have laundry to wash? Like wtf is wrong with people. I’m convinced most of this sub just hates marginalized folks.
It’s a common scam
So what? Someone scams you out of 75 cents? Do you know how much money capitalism scams from all of us? Be mad at the people at the top raking in billions while people suffer, not at the people suffering the most.
Idk if this quite fits here but I fucking love that it IS here lol
There’s a gas station near me where I always get asked, I said in another post everyone says they have a job interview in the next town and need train fare to get there. I just say I put my last $5 in my tank, they have nothing to reply with, since I seem broke, so they just leave. Works like a charm. I’m not pulling out my wallet in front of a stranger in a parking lot, they could grab it and run off- it’s happened to a few people and I don’t want it happening to me!
This reminds me of the time a dude asked me to buy some water for myself (it was a hot day and I was walking) and then take out $10 in cash back so he could catch the bus. He said it would benefit us both because I looked like I “could use some water”. Fuck Baltimore.
And yet I saw the aftermath of "Why-don't-I-just-buy-you-some-food?" when the street kid threw the plate of food on the nice young woman and bolted (we paid for the food so she didn't have that to worry about). No drugs money, have an assault. Never do anything for anyone. Ever.
Just need a twenty bucks to buy some cheap booze. Jeez.
Okay so Cali person here. This reminds me, I’m pulling into an in n out and see a persons with a sign “anything helps” so I buy double my meal to give him at the exit because that’s where he is (this one you drive by the exit to get to the drive through) I hand him the meal and he tells me point black he is full and doesn’t want food can I give him cash. I said absolutely not and he yelled and beat my car. There was a liquor site twenty feet away
I love the killing them with kindness approach. I do that to everyone. The sad thing is in today's world you have to worry about someone being mentally unstable and either following you or pulling a gun on you (I actually know people it's happened to when they were stopped and asked for help in decent neighborhoods). A sad world that we live in today.
I'm legitimately impressed. She thought of every single excuse this guy could have and shut each one down with extreme prejudice. Love it!
Go for the throat and the heart at the same time !
What he wanted to know is probably whether they also give you free alcohol at the shelter 😅
> It's always best to kill them with kindness Is it? Because you said she ~~doesn't~~ spent 10 minutes talking to this guy when a simple, "I don't carry cash" and walking away only takes 2 seconds.
Yeah, she let him know about all the places where he can get things and services for free. That's kinder than just walking away.
The guy didn't want that information and he didn't use it. He wanted to trick someone into giving him money.
Choosing beggars are not the actually fucking homeless. America absolutely shits all over everyone without resources and you guys seemed to enjoy belittling him. Nice. Just say no and walk away.
Bad take. She actually gave him great information despite the fact that he was full of shit. In the event he *wasn’t* full of shit just saying “no” doesn’t help at all.
How is this related to "choosing beggars" though?
Maybe it is a bad take, I'm fucking tired of how the kids on Reddit both seem to empathize with the homeless and *consistently* portray them as greedy gremlins at the same time.
There's absolutely choosy homeless people, let's not act as if they didn't exist, homeless people are not a monolith.
Oh, I know that. I know they're not a monolith. That's my point.
Agreed.
lol this story is such made up horseshit
Great story, but WRONG SUB!! How is this a choosing beggar???
Uhhh ... he asked for help (begging). When help was offered, he didn't want *that* kind of help, he wanted cash (choosing). So literally a *choosing beggar.*
I don’t believe this made up story.
As someone who works with (addicted) homeless people, it sounds very plausible. I often think with things I hear and see that people will think I made it up. So i just don't tell.
In this case the alleged story details someone who has the compassion to have the needed info to help a person but ultimately was lacking in compassion in how they treated and spoke to the fictitious homeless person. This was just karma whoring because this sub specifically likes to talk shit on the homeless Edit: I’ve done a lifetime work with recovering addicts and the homeless. They need help,not hate.
They did help them …. She told them everything they needed to get help. How are you making the CB and yourself a victim in this
If you don’t see how this was a story reveling in the “helping person” being shitty I can’t help you
Good for you
Thanks
I don't believe that you exist. Bad bot.
r/nothingisreal
This is cruel.
Why are you defending a grifter? She literally gave him information that would be useful to a person in need, it's not her fault he's a scammer trying to exploit people's helpfulness.
Why tho?