I suppose there will always be a problem about genuine need and those putting it on. In the early seventies a new charity started called St Mungo's and they had a rather dilapidated house in Battersea. Anyway I was persuaded for two years to help with their soup run. Essentially it was the whole of every Wednesday night. Mothers Pride and the like would donate battered and unsellable bread, and Heinz and the like would donate battered tins of soup. We would basically heat up the soup in giant saucepans in the Battersea kitchens (all mixed together...woe betide if anybody was a vegetarian) and put the soup in giant flasks that could handle a ladle. There was an old van we packed into and we would set off around midnight...I was a young person at the time. The driver would know the places in central London where there were rough sleepers, Covent Garden (still a market in those days), Temple, Holborn, Waterloo, Embankment and all kinds of places. We would arrive and (probably wrongly) disturb the rough sleepers and offer them soup in a polystyrene cup, and bread, sometimes we had fags to give out, and we would have a chat, occasionally we would be able to persuade somebody to return with us to Battersea to crash...especially if they seemed sick, or had sores and suchlike. I simply went with the flow and that was my Wednesday nights for two years. It made an impression on me, and I do think it is a case of 'there but for the grace of god'. Yes there was an alcohol/drug issue, but these people were certainly not professional beggars who returned to somewhere cosy at night after conning people. I don't doubt that chancers exist these days though. Many were ex-servicemen who had not been able to handle life in civvy street, many had heart rending stories to tell which sent them on a spiral of decline, some actively chose the life of a 'tramp'. Other organizations that tried to help were the Salvation Army and individual churches dotted about, there is no doubt that it was for a lot of people I met who helped, a kind of active Christianity. I was a teenager and will not easily forget those times. So what is my attitude all these years later? I fish in my pocket to give a bit of money when I can, even knowing that the money might go on booze or suchlike, I try to work out the genuine needy from the chancers, but essentially I don't have a blanket attitude to all of them. I also sometimes think, as a runaway child myself, that it could so easily be me. There is a genuine dilemma in this phenomena, but it will not go away. I recommend George Orwell's book 'Down and Out in Paris and London', as it shows the issue of rough sleepers has been with us probably for ever.
Great post Seth. I was in a St Mungo's hostel myself for a couple of months many years ago.
i used to give and in particular to one guy who used to hold onto my dog while i went into sainsbury's. yeah the old " hold your dog sir " ploy, made me feel guilty coming out. so i used to give him something. stopped when i found out he lived in a flat on the same street as mine. now i'm just totally cynical, which i don't like because i feel there are some genuine people out there.
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Joke, joke!
Put them together and they make a joint.