PJYoung said:
txags92 said:
dlance said:
PJYoung said:
Biz Ag said:
SnowboardAg said:
Getting gas today and homeless guy approached me saying he's hungry. I offer to buy him McDonald's and he says he prefers cash for groceries. I'm waiting for the homeless to start accepting CC payments.
PayPal or Venmo
In Austin some of them have the square attachment for their iPhones.
I ran into one with that outside Minute Maid a couple months ago. I said "All I have is Visa" and he whipped out his iPhone and plugged in the square. I was speechless, thankfully my buddy wasn't.
If they can afford an iPhone and accessories, they don't need a "donation" from me.
So my daughter works with a homeless population of about 50 that attend their Wednesday night church. It's interesting to say the least.
For almost all of them their prize possession is their smart phone.
They are socially divided into beggars and people who are actively looking for work. They also take up collections among themselves when one of them is in especially dire circumstances.
That is just the thing. Most in the population that are panhandling on street corners are not there because they have no other option (contrary to the cute little stories printed on their signs). Most of them are there either because it is a much easier way to make a few hundred bucks a day than working in a fast food kitchen, or because they are addicts who are unwilling to live in a shelter because the shelter won't let them drink or do drugs there. Neither population is truly homeless, they have just rejected the options out there that could put a roof over their head. As you say, most of them have a phone, many of them have plenty of other possessions they could sell or trade for things they need. They just don't want to do what the rest of us do, which is put on decent clothes and go be pleasant enough to somebody somewhere in order to get paid for employment. They have rejected that path and decided they would rather live under a bridge and drink or inject their life down the drain. I really don't see why anybody ought to feel like they should be handing out money to further those kinds of life choices. A truly homeless person with no other option can walk into any church in Houston and ask for help, and they will be taken care of wonderfully until they can get back on their feet. The "homeless problem" that all cities face these days is made up mostly of people who have plenty of options, but they choose for whatever their own reasons are (mental illness is a big one) to be where they are.