I am always so conflicted by people asking for spare change. Living in New York City I am bombarded daily by subway beggars announcing trauma in the hopes someone will give them a dollar, some seem sincere while others: “I am not an alcoholic. I am not a drug addict. I am not criminal. I am a war veteran, with AIDs, and my house burned down, and I have 12 kids, and I am blind” seem a wee unbelievable.
Sorry, but when a “homeless” person giving this brilliant performance and is wearing shoes more expensive than mine I’m not going to give them anything. I mean , if you’re going to play homeless, please get a better costume.
I wish I could give money to all in need, but I don’t always know who is really in need. Sadly reports show, that more people are in need right now as we face this terrible economic situation. The homelessness rates and demand for emergency food are rising and homeless advocates fear that many cities were not equipped for the increase.
A survey by the U.S. Conference of Mayors showed that 19 of 25 cities saw an increase in homelessness in the 12 months to October, while four reported a drop and two cities lacked enough data for conclusive results. On average, the cities in the survey saw a 12 percent rise in homelessness. Homeless advocates say families are flooding homeless shelters across the United States in numbers not seen for years, camping out in motels or staying with friends and relatives following foreclosures on tens of thousands of homes during the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.-Reuters
For ways to help end homelessness, takepart and visit the National Alliance to End Homelessness at http://www.endhomelessness.org/
CATEGORIES: Ethics, Human Rights
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From a young age my being has been consumed by altruism and i have been taken advantage of over and over. i am now 34 and married to a vietnam veteran who is a bit older than me. THANK GOD!
All these things, global warming, homlessness, starving children, war prisoners and crimes, violence against each other, have kept me awake at night for most of my life, maybe because i am crazy, maybe because i know instinctivly that i am one with all these people i see suffering and the planet along with them, as well as my self as a result.
I have always been the one to stop and say hello and give change to the other person asking for it.
My husband and I were driving the other day. This man was holding a sign, ‘homeless veteran anything helps’. I wanted to give him something. I asked my husband if we could, my husband said, ‘he makes more money than we do.’
So to satisfy my curiosity we drove around the block and pulled up next to the man. I rolled down my window and said to him, you have a twenty falling out of your shoe, and the man bent down and looked!
Now I was shocked! That with all the turmoil and bad in the world already, this man could do that. There are children starving and homeless, FOR REAL, and here is this grown man, MAKING A LIVING by SITTING on a street corner being GIVEN OUR MONEY!
Then as i tried to sleep that night, i began to feel guilty, because i thought, how mean i had been for being deceitful and what if this man were really a veteran and he couldn’t work? what if he had some sort of mental disability?
The WHAT IFs were ENDLESS, and therein lies the problem with most of the people in our society.
We are willing to ask the questions and bombard ourselves with emotions over the answers but very few are actually willing to do anything about it.