What about the homeless guy that washes your windshield or car with a dirty squeegee at the intersection without your permission?

Frok said:

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What about the homeless guy that washes your windshield or car with a dirty squeegee at the intersection without your permission?

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I charge him $10

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Cumulative behaviors matter. A thousand people like you and you've just enabled that guys negative behaviors.

That goes for most small acts of kindness or selfishness. If I litter one cup is it really that big a deal? No. But it doesn't take too many people with that attitude to make a huge mess.

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I don't buy this at all. Almost all the contributors to homeless are worsened by stress and hopelessness. Mental illness, poverty, drug abuse are all products of these problems or those problems make this worse. Can you imagine a world where a hopeless, depressed drug addict goes around asking for help and almost everyone helps them? Hard to feel hopeless and depressed when it seems that every random stranger cares enough to give you whatever they can. I'd bet that most people in that situation would either use all that help to make their lives better or at the very least be more open to other people trying to make their lives better.

I think the Christian position is clearer. God's love for us is not judgemental or contingent, and our love for our fellow man shouldn't be either. I think buying someone a meal or giving gift cards for food is awesome, but there are lot of basic needs that don't include food. Toiletries, socks, underwear, a clean shirt, a bus ticket, etc. Money is just more practical. Not sure if it still happens, but the freakin Pope used to go down the poorest streets of Rome and literally handout money to beggars on a regular basis. The current freakin Pope has the same opinion on the subject that I do, give and then let the person and God sort it out. He makes a very good point about how much money we all spend on frivolous or guilty pleasures, while we judge those less fortunate for wanting to do the same.

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don't buy this at all. Almost all the contributors to homeless are worsened by stress and hopelessness

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IMO to end up on the street you have to burn through several safety nets of family/friends/charity. Addiction is the thing that can do that.

Ain't nothing wrong with giving money if you feel it in your heart to do so. Sometimes you can tell a person needs food or water and they are not simply panhandling.

Frok said:

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don't buy this at all. Almost all the contributors to homeless are worsened by stress and hopelessness

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IMO to end up on the street you have to burn through several safety nets of family/friends/charity. Addiction is the thing that can do that.

Ain't nothing wrong with giving money if you feel it in your heart to do so. Sometimes you can tell a person needs food or water and they are not simply panhandling.

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Yes, you can definitely tell that someone needs food or water. But they may need food or water because they are not spending their limited resources on food and water, they are spending it on something else.

That is why I prefer to ask them what they need, and go get it for them. That's what I have been advised by clergy to do as well.

If it's just some guy standing on the corner, begging for money, I'm not going to give it to him, unless, at that moment, I feel as though I am being told to do it. Which has happened, and I will obey. But that has been exceedingly rare.

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Ain't nothing wrong with giving money if you feel it in your heart to do so.

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The people, good people, Christian people, who work with this population day in and day out, categorically disagree.

Absolutely not.

To clarify, I wasn't trying to say you should give cash to beggers, I agree that it generally doesn't help them.

However I hesitate to make blanket statements because sometimes there is a situation where a discerning person can make an exception.