Amsterdam alcoholics paid in beer for collecting litter

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-25548061

The Rescue Mission should have told the guy up front that they couldn't participate in the cash handout and left him free to find a partner that would. Their behavior in this situation makes me itch from the sanctimony. But given that the guy writing the NYTimes article admits up front that he hasn't had any direct experience with the homeless in the U.S., perhaps, just perhaps, he might take seriously the possibility that the homeless in a First World country might be of a different composition, on average, than the homeless in a genuinely poor country.

We do give to local charities that help the homeless in various ways. I am happy to give homeless people food (and have done so in the past, to varying reactions). But no, I'm not going to hand over money that I've worked to make for the sole purpose of allowing someone to drink or snort themselves into a stupor (or worse). I will defend to the death their *rights* to do so, but I feel no need to *fund* them doing so. If that makes me paternalistic, then oh well.

Yeah, the NYC homeless are a selected group for vicd behavior; unlike such as Syrian refugees who tend to be more modal.

Marion covered the territory... I will not be an enabler. I will not give money to someone who is going to use it to destroy his life. If he wants to do that, he can do so using his own resources.

But on the other hand, yes, the Rescue Mission totally hijacked the money. You really do have to be careful about charities, because a lot of the time, even when they mean well, they are ineffective -- they don't really know how to address the problem they are supposed to be trying to solve, and they spend money in ways that are ineffective. And that's putting aside the "charities" that are little more than free rides for the officers and employees, or the ones who spend most of the contributed money on political activism without disclosing that fact.

Will you not give them money in case they want to buy drugs or alcohol with it?

Correct. Such...distractions are a luxury and should be treated as such. Giving an alcoholic money just means that s/he is that much closer to needing a liver transplant.

How much would that cost? how many homeless people could be fed with that money? not to mention that there would be one less person on the transplant waiting list.

I tend to be a yes person. If you ask, it means you have a need, and I'll try to help.

I have learned over the years that people that love me act that way. But random people on the street do not - they ask, sometimes persistently and outrageously, purely to see what they can get. So strangers get an immediate no. It is deliberate and premeditated profiling on my part.

I donate to a well-researched charity based on its hand-up-not-hand-out philosophy, its willingness to effectively use local skills for local needs, and its Charity Navigator ranking.

It is a purchase like any other. If you are giving money to another person who asked you for it, you are purchasing something on their behalf. That alone is paternalistic, even if you put no conditions on it. (Note that this is entirely distinct from an unasked-for gift.)

"shut up and be a good donor." The explained.

I know people who have gotten burned by charities, that turn into scams at some point... more's the pity. Once a donor loses trust, they stop giving.

Hope that doesn't put this guy off of the good he could do.

I wish the Chinese billionaire would have found a way to give cash directly into the hands of the homeless people he wanted to help. Most of them probably would have used some of the money to find shelter and food somewhere else, which would have left the beds at the shelter open to others. Donating the money to the shelter probably did more to increase its rapidly growing wealth than it did to increase its capacity to accommodate the homeless.

I'm not any kind of rich man, but I like to contribute to homeless shelters. I've never spent the night in one, but from what I've seen of them, and heard from colleagues, homeless people and others who frequent them for one reason or another, they're better than nothing for someone who desperately needs a place to sleep and eat. Most of them are not particularly desirable places to hang around - unless you desire to buy or sell drugs or sex, get robbed, beat up, raped or otherwise abused for someone else's entertainment. They're magnets for the vulnerable, which makes them magnets for predators. They never have enough beds for everyone seeking shelter, so vulnerable people, including kids, end up at night on the predator infested streets around them.

Whenever I leave my house I put a $10 bill in my front pocket and give it to any homeless person, panhandler, crack ho, derelict or moocher who asks for a handout, no questions asked. It's not nearly enough to turn anyone's life around, but combined with whatever other handouts they get it might help with day to day survival, and maybe buy a little time until they decide, or find a way, to get better.

Most chronically homeless panhandlers are truly poor and desperate: most are disabled by mental illnesses. I know many are drug addicts and frauds. I can't tell the difference; and I don't have the time, motivation or means to sort them out or stand around listening to their sob stories, which are probably lies anyway. Rather than not share with the ones who truly need it, I'd rather share something with every one, and accept that some of my money will be given to frauds. You're faced with the same problem when you donate to charities.

Amy asks: "It seems poor people given money will often use it to good end. But what if they just want to drink? What if that's what alleviates their suffering and makes them feel good? Will you not give them money in case they want to buy drugs or alcohol with it?

I used to worry that my money might be used to buy drugs and alcohol. But then I decided two things:
1 - Once I put my $10 bill into someone else's hand it's no longer my money. It's their money to do whatever they want with.
2 - If some of them spend their money on drugs and alcohol, you know what? I don't care. If $10 worth of drugs or alcohol will add some small measure of tolerability or pleasure to their miserable, short lives, then let them buy drugs and alcohol.

This is my point of view. If you see thing differently I can certainly respect that. If it's important to you that money you give someone is not used for drugs, you can give them gift cards for grocery stores or fast food places. Gift cards for Target are good because they sell just about everything, including food. Drug dealers are not likely to accept gift cards for drugs since they can't easily verify that the value of the card hasn't already been used up, which it probably would be considering the nature of the people they deal with.

Amy, there was a large ad on this page that advertised "Beautiful young Asian women" seeking "mature men".

It had a picture of a gorgeous young woman, and a large blue and white button you could click that said, "FREE TRIAL".

Is that for real?! ;-)

Amy, did a comment get lost last night? I thought i was right behind Ppen.

If $10 worth of drugs or alcohol will add some small measure of tolerability or pleasure to their miserable, short lives, then let them buy drugs and alcohol. ~ Posted by: Ken R at July 2, 2014 11:09 AM

It's all good, until they return that alcohol, used, to your front stoop.

I don't see why it's anyone's business who I give money to and why. I'm with Ken; the money is a gift and I don't have the right to dictate what the recipient does with it. Hopefully they'll spend it on necessities, but you can't stop an addiction by withholding money.

Really, you have no better charity ideas than to give money to quite possibly mentally unstable addicts to spend on drugs and alcohol? Has it occurred to you that this might have effects other than to make the homeless temporarily "happier?" E.g, cause them to push a random stranger off a subway platform or assault them with half a pair of scissors (actual recent murders by messed-up homeless people)?

NYC turned the building next to mine into a homeless shelter (I'm on the upper west side, btw). And frankly, I'm happy that each of the homeless people next to me doesn't have another $300 to spend on drugs and alcohol to whoop it up all night. I assure you that's what 99.9% of them would do. Sorry, but very few of the homeless in NYC are comparable to refugees in other countries who have been driven out of their homes by war, famine, etc.

In NYC, by law, all homeless people who ask for one must be given a bed in a shelter (and, I've been told, food stamps as well). You don't even have to be from NY state, so we've become a mecca for homeless people from other states in the last few years. That's why the Department of Homeless Services opened up a whole bunch of shelters all over the city in the last couple of years. Believe it or not, it's a real profit center for the building owners, and a real ripoff for the taxpayer. The building owners get approximately $3500 per month in taxpayer money for each 8x10 bathroomless, kitchenless unit with two bunkbeds apiece. That's far more than they could make if they converted the buildings into luxury apartments. So landlords have been finding ways to drive rent control or SRO occupants out of their buildings so that they can turn them into much more profitable homeless shelters. (Don't believe me? New York Magazine and the NY Times, among other publications, have done articles on this.)

And for all that cash? The one next to me does not provide any treatment facility for drug users, does not provide job assistance, does not screen for criminals. (The police recently discovered that 10% of the residents were wanted on outstanding arrest warrants. They looked into it after there was a dramatic uptick in break-ins and other crime in the neighborhood.) The security is minimal at best. I've had to call 911 several times when I heard screaming coming from the building for hours), and there have been numerous assaults inside the shelter. No murders I've heard of in that particular building, but there have been several murders in some other shelters on the upper west side -- in each case, by a resident hopped up on drugs. Still think it's a good idea to make the homeless happy by buying them drugs?

Before the shelter went in, this was a quiet neighborhood. There's an elementary school on my block. Now I hear screaming fights practically every night, and there are frequently creepy drunk people hanging around my doorstep. One kindly told me what he wanted to do to my ass as I headed out for a run the other morning. And crime is way up.

Anyway. The shelters are horrible, but giving $300 to a homeless guy won't help any individual get out of them. You can't get an apartment for that in NYC! You could barely get a hotel room for the night. They get food stamps, so they're not going to spend it on food. And the drugs they buy just might cause them to kill or injure themselves or someone else.

What the homeless need isn't $300. They need a complete overhaul of the system that would actually get the mentally unstable and drug addicts some treatment, and put those that can work into some kind of useful employment and decent affordable housing. IMO, the $300 would just make things worse 99% of the time.

I give to some food pantry type places that have squeaky clean ratings on charity navigator, and I've given to some organizations that do stuff to get homeless people back on their feet. But I can't quite see the point in giving someone money to get drunk and throw up on my front steps, or possibly assault me as I head home from a dinner date.

Gail,

In a hilarious twist of fate, the lawyer responsible for enforcing that part of your State Constitution that clearly states shelter must be provided had his ring stolen by the homeless man he was representing.

Ppen-- I was feeling very grumpy, and you made me laugh! Thank you!

The irony of "charities" is that many of them are just 'selfish' businesses ... I used to deal with "charities" doing "philanthropic" work in poor countries, and was initially shocked but later just regularly repulsed by how many of them are run by people who are so greedily self-interested that they'd put even the most hardcore Ayn-Randian-capitalists to shame. And they are, make no mistake, businesses, run like any other business, competing viciously for the sources of charity funding (to pay their founders their oft-large salaries), and unfortunately the market dynamics are such that often the most ethically repugnant sociopaths rise to to the top and 'win' the most money (in poor countries I saw instances of corruption e.g. kickbacks 'under the table' to send big budget allocations for work to this or that 'non-profit' - worse, the work they get paid to do is often not even done - and they also sometimes lobby and bribe to get artificial constraints passed such as requiring that work be given to "non-profits", so local businesses in those poor countries are often forced out of the market, thus keeping the poor poor). It has left me with a deep cynical skepticism of charities, probably to an unhealthy level - I'm sure there are many charities who do good work - but I now distrust them by default. Probably not a good thing, I guess.

Regarding the Chinese billionaire case, I am not a lawyer, but wouldn't this qualify as either fraud or outright theft on the part of the charity? On the face of it, it sounds illegal.

True, lobster -- which is why I look into charities before I give to them. Always interesting to see what proportion of donations go to the work they're supposed to be doing, and how much goes to "administrative costs."

Maybe some people don't care what happens to money they donate, but I care very much.

Marion is exactly right:

"the homeless in a First World country might be of a different composition, on average, than the homeless in a genuinely poor country."