If you want to sure.

If you're interested in helping homeless people I recommend talking to your local unhoused neighbors and organizing against anti-homeless policies and activities, including bans on camping, bans on feeding people, and cities "sweeping" (throwing everyone's shit away). And also organizing against housing commodification.

Of course one should also recognize that capitalism must be overthrown to solve the fundamental cause.

if you've got money to give, yea. maybe they literally do just go buy drugs with it. maybe (most likely) they don't. maybe they already have drugs and they buy food or a cot. $5 or $50 isn't going to solve their problems or turn them into a model citizen. but neither will ensuring that they starve or freeze.

I don't think its right or wrong to give them a tiny amount of money, regardless of what they use it for. If you're worried about that, I've bought them fast food before, and honestly, most of them seem more appreciative of that than getting money.

Also, the best thing you can do is of course, support laws and charities that feed/provide for the homeless.

Whenever I can, I keep a few fives in my wallet and give them out. Don't care if it won't solve the problem on a systemic level, and I'm sure that there are some horror stories out there, but I believe that the overwhelming majority of people who beg really are just in a shitty spot and should be helped unconditionally.

I used to, but I would also hand out extra snacks or food that I had with me since I don’t usually have physical cash on me.

But the usual guys who took whatever I had have gone somewhere else, and now it’s just a bunch of people holding up signs about fictional children dying from cancer or some shit. It seems like a whole ass team doing it - one corner does the dying kid routine, the other corner tries to sell me something then they switch when they’re tired and move to a different location.

Maybe you’re thinking “so they’re emotional manipulating people. So what? You gotta do what you gotta do to survive.” Okay, fair. But the thing is that this is 2024 and I don’t have cash on me all the time lol. But I usually have extra snacks or food, as previously mentioned. They don’t accept my food and either refuse it, throw it, or become hostile to me as if I insulted them.

The ones who I will not even consider giving money to are the ones who use actual kids. I don’t care if you think you can manipulate me with them, but this is the US where drivers are already reckless and now you’re forcing kids to run in the fucking intersection. Sometimes I don’t even see them until their little heads appear as they walk past my car. I could’ve killed someone. I don’t give a fuck about how poor you are, your bitch ass should be begging for money, not your 4 year old son or daughter. Usually the adult just stands there while their kids walk around the cars. You put their lives at risk and you risk ruining my own life had I taken my foot off the brake. Unbelievable.