Do you give directly to the homeless?

[Basenji]

She loves telling this story (and I love sharing it) because it was the well-off commuters where the ones to ignore a young lady clearly in need of some help, and t was the homeless "bums" who stepped up and did the right thing.  Those homeless guys were likely homeless for all the reasons stated in this thread, addiction, alcoholism, mental illness, etc. They were still more decent than the "upstanding" citizens were that day.

It's pretty common for "upstanding citizens" to be complete jerks. When my daughter was a senior in high school, she decided the prom wasn't her thing - huge amounts of money spent on a couple of hours with the same people she already saw 8 hours a day for the last 4 years. So stupid. We made a deal with her - for less than what she would have spent on a dress, we paid her share for a trip for her and her gf to go to chicago for a weekend and stay with the gf's relatives for free.

Anyway, the two girls saw a homeless guy asking people around for help, prefacing it with "I don't need money, just help ..." and everyone was walking right past him. They stopped, it turned out he was trying to see his sick brother in the hospital across town, and just needed help with a map, figuring out how to take a bus across town. He wasn't looking for bus fare even, just "I need to see my brother in the hospital, help me figure out how to get there."

So they didn't know Chicago at all, but they looked at the map with him, and as soon as two decently dressed young women were looking at a map, within a minute, other people stopped to help THEM, even though they hadn't asked.   I mentioned in a wedding thread that my daughter had paid a homeless friend to help with serving at her wedding - I think the first trip there was a major event in her life in understanding how invisible homeless people are, and it really changed her mindset.

Beautiful, thanks for sharing this

[jeromedawg]

I've heard there are a group of leeches posing as "homeless" people with signs ("In need of money" blah blahblah) who sit at driveway entrances in various plazas in the city I live in (Irvine, CA) targeting unsuspecting victims. I've heard of these people making upwards of $200-300 a day. I've seen these people too - oftentimes carrying a child or infant and sometimes with *boxes* of food to-go piled up next to them because of the many people who decided to give them food rather than money. I've also heard of other city residents threatening these leeches with police calls only to call the police and find that the police will do *nothing* about it due to other "more important priorities" to tend to (though, I'm not sure what those would be given the city's 'astronomical' low crime-rates LOL). So the leeches have grown accustomed to the threats essentially being non-threats.

We also see quite a few solicitors sitting in front of major grocery stores in the city, looking for funds for the "homeless" - I'm a bit wary of those guys too. I'd much rather donate through well-known institutions rather than give money directly to an individual, unless I have an established relationship with said person(s).

[mandy_2002]

I've heard there are a group of leeches posing as "homeless" people with signs ("In need of money" blah blahblah) who sit at driveway entrances in various plazas in the city I live in (Irvine, CA) targeting unsuspecting victims. I've heard of these people making upwards of $200-300 a day. I've seen these people too - oftentimes carrying a child or infant and sometimes with *boxes* of food to-go piled up next to them because of the many people who decided to give them food rather than money. I've also heard of other city residents threatening these leeches with police calls only to call the police and find that the police will do *nothing* about it due to other "more important priorities" to tend to (though, I'm not sure what those would be given the city's 'astronomical' low crime-rates LOL). So the leeches have grown accustomed to the threats essentially being non-threats.

I go to a church pretty far off the beaten path, and we've had issues at the building.  There seems to be a that people are delivered to areas that the driver thinks will be cash cows (for us, a church) and picked up when the services are done.  The pastor of my church spoke with the family that was standing outside our church, and they were extremely secretive about what was going on, but it seemed to be a form of human trafficking.  The person who delivers and picks up gets a cut of the draw.  We were told in service to give any money we would to a local homeless shelter or food pantry (he didn't specify any so there wouldn't be favorites).  That week was the last we saw them.