Nasty Lady

[ailbhe]

As we went into the supermarket today we passed a man sitting on a cardboard box on the ice, looking cold and dirty, with a blanket over his knees, begging. I got the kids into the warm and said "The first thing we do is we give that man some money." A woman popped up behind me and said "You shouldn't, he's smoking, if he can afford to smoke -"

I don't know what else she said because I got angry. I babbled something about knowing what it's like out there, and that people DIE of being poor and homeless. She went away. I gave the man some money. He was pathetically grateful.

And every time I saw her as we went around the shop I was a little bit frightened.

Who can look at a homeless person in this weather and not have the slightest bit of compassion? Who?

Comments

[nitoda]

Perhaps someone who has travelled on London rush hour trains and seen the same guys working them regularly ... with the same story ... I guess I don't know how to tell genuine needy cases from scammers and that makes it easier to shut down the compassion. If that makes me a horrible person, I'm sorry, but I can't help everyone that needs it, and I can't personally tell which beggars I *should* help, so I prefer to help via charities rather than directly. I'm also naiive enough (?) that I believe our welfare system should be able to help people who turn to them. I may be wrong in that, I haven't been there, and I hope I never will. I am willing to be educated on this.

[ailbhe]

I'd rather give a quid to someone who didn't need it than not give it to someone who does. There's no way to tell by seeing someone once that they are actually fine. I fainted on the street once and a woman told the two men who stopped to help me that they should leave me because I was probably on drugs. I wasn't; I'd been bleeding heavily for three weeks because of what I didn't know was a miscarriage. When I was homeless I used to make B&B bookings for other people because my accent meant no-one believed I was homeless - which meant no-one gave me any money, but the people who looked and sounded believably homeless couldn't get into safe B&Bs, only the horrendously dangerous hostels. So we'd partner up.

The welfare system only helps people who can prove they are deserving. In many cases, this means getting physically abused enough to qualify as battered - something very difficult for teenagers and women, and almost impossible for men.

Anyway, should isn't much use in the snow.

[nitoda]

Thank you. You've given me much to think about.

[clarahippy.livejournal.com]

Exactly. Whenever people complain that homeless folk buy booze/fags/drugs/whatever I always point out that if I lived on the street I would want to blunt that fact out as much as possible too!

Ailbhe, thank you for teaching your children some compassion. Even as a grown woman it makes me sad when my parents criticise me for giving (my own!) money to homeless people.

[ailbhe]

I did fantasise about going around the shop behind her and criticising the morality and health value of everything she bought.

[hitchhiker.livejournal.com]

Samuel Johnson too:

What signifies, says some one, giving halfpence to beggars? they only lay it out in gin or tobacco. "And why should they be denied such sweeteners of their existence (says Johnson)? it is surely very savage to refuse them every possible avenue to pleasure, reckoned too coarse for our own acceptance. Life is a pill which none of us can bear to swallow without gilding; yet for the poor we delight in stripping it still barer, and are not ashamed to shew even visible displeasure, if ever the bitter taste is taken from their mouths."
-- Piozzi, "Anecdotes of the Late Samuel Johnson"

[cabbagemedley.livejournal.com]

Damn straight. The guy is sat on his arse in the snow begging for money and we're pissed off because he's not making healthy choices? Right, I see, he should be putting his energies into kicking the fags. That'll improve his life no end, I'm sure.

[ailbhe]

I did fantasise about going around the shop behind her and criticising the morality and health value of everything she bought.

[cabbagemedley.livejournal.com]

I just... I boggle when I run across the mindset that someone on the street is clearly a lazy bastard taking the cushy option. It's kind of frightening, the degree to which people universalise their own experience. Like, I've always kept a roof over my head and money coming in and food on the table, so clearly everyone else can do the same.

Sure (to take my own example), I had a fantastic, secure, middle-class upbringing, and never knew what it was to go hungry, and my parents and grandparents between them more or less paid for my university education, and my family and friends all rallied round me and supported me through my mental illness until I was able to function again, and now I have a wonderful husband earning over £30K and he helps pay the rent on our (rather lovely) house and so I've been able to save enough of my salary to keep me going in a real emergency... but apart from that, it's not like anything was handed to me on a plate. Right? Right?

[ailbhe]

Hee, yeah. It's like admitting sometimes working hard isn't enough == negating all the hard work people who *are* well-off have done.

[tasseltip.livejournal.com]

I'm reminded how hard any extremes of temperature/weather can be for homeless and marginalised people. Thank you for helping to make someone's life a bit easier.

I am sorry also to hear of someone in your community with such disabling lack of empathy.

[1ngi.livejournal.com]

I don't know, I'm always stunned at that when I come across it. Mean spiritedness shocks me too.

I'm so glad you showed him compassion and kindness.

[the-changeling.livejournal.com]

I always buy them food. I did once run to John Lewis and buy a warm pair of gloves, and take it back to the man with the blue fingers.

It's not that I object to them wanting smokes or booze, I've bought both too. But I want them to have food.

If there is a dog, I'll buy dog food too.

[ailbhe]

It depends on how much time and energy etc I have. Also, they do need cash money, especially in bad weather, to pay for the hostels etc. But I feel awful giving cash money to obvious drunks, so I tend to buy them hot sweet tea, for starters... and chips.

[auntysarah.livejournal.com]

Thank you for doing that.

[rosefox]

Good for you for getting angry!

(I had a dream last night where Linnea was being treated unfairly and you and I together shouted down the horrible people being unkind to her. It was very satisfying.)

[ailbhe]

Hee! that's splendid.

[dmwcarol.livejournal.com]

someone who has never been there and never expects to be there and who doesn't want to think about the situation in case it makes them feel guilty about all the expensive little treats they are slipping into their shopping.

[86nikki.livejournal.com]

This. x

[ailbhe]

I did fantasise about going around the shop behind her and criticising the morality and health value of everything she bought.

[haggis.livejournal.com]

Someone who is terrified of ending up there so is desperately trying to maintain the belief that poverty and homeless only happen to people who deserve it. A small-hearted, small-minded scared person.

[cyan-blue.livejournal.com]

I'm glad there are people like you with generous hearts.

[taimatsu]

He was quite possibly given the cigarette anyway. Grrrrrr.

[taimatsu]

Also, there's a startling jump between simply not giving him anything onesself, and actually trying to discourage someone else from doing so. A lot of people do the first one (me too sometimes, I'm ashamed to admit) but the second is a but unnerving. Yes, scary.

[helenprev.livejournal.com]

This, absolutely this.

Thank you for ignoring the nasty lady.

[hitchhiker.livejournal.com]

yeah, precisely! how meanspirited do you have to be to do something like that?!

[ailbhe]

How meanspirited and RICH?!

[ailbhe]

Yes, cigarettes are very very often free, on the street - the ground near bus-stops, bins, passing generous strangers, whatever.

[ai731.livejournal.com]

He was quite possibly given the cigarette anyway. Grrrrrr.

Indeed. When I smoked, I always gave cigarettes to homeless people who asked for them. When I quit smoking, I started buying them hot drinks and/or food instead.

[ljgeoff.livejournal.com]

Thank you for helping. All together, eh?

[ailbhe]

Kind of wish I'd punched her in her well-fed face. (By which I mean well-fed, not fat, though I honestly can't remember whether she was fat or thin. She'd certainly never been *hungry*. Grr.)

[divulge.livejournal.com]

Thank you. This would have completely shocked me and I think I'd have just given her a blank stare. Not only the lack of empathy, but thinking she has the right to tell others they should share the same viewpoint. Grr.

[trizia.livejournal.com]

What a horrible woman, and I'm so sorry that she frightened you.

[nakedfaery.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry she upset you, I find it difficult to bear people like that too.

[the-xtina.livejournal.com]

Them: But they'll just buy alcohol with it!
Me: That six-pack you're carrying is making this conversation reeeal hilarious.

I'll usually give cash if I have it, buy them food if I have the time, things like that.  Though it never occurred to me to buy dog food for the dog-owner folk.  *is slow*

Homelessness

[(Anonymous)]

In Leeds we have St George's Crypt which will ALWAYS provide food and shelter for any homeless person. I went to a talk given by a lovely man who helps to run it - he said that if you're worried that giving money will encourage booze or fags, then give homeless people in Leeds directions to the Crypt where they will always give them a hot meal and a bed for the night - and hurrah for that! If I have time, I'd tend to give food: if I don't I will give money, especially in this weather. Daphne