Beggars

For most of my life I've been willing to help a stranger who told me he or she needed help. If a stranger walked up to me with a "sob" story and told me he or she needed money, I would open my wallet. If a man told me he needed ten dollars, I gave him ten dollars. If a man told me he needed five dollars, I gave him ten dollars, too.

I recall one time when I was just 18, a girl stopped me on the street and told me a story about how she needed money, so I gave her a small amount of money. I watched her run away, cross the street, and run into a park. She ran up to a young man standing in the park and handed him the money I had just given her. Obviously, he was using the girl to beg from strangers, probably assuming they were more likely to give money to a young woman than to a man.

But I continued being generous because I felt that it was the right thing to do. Then I found out that the police say citizens should not give money to beggars. Many of them spend the money on illegal drugs.

But I found it difficult to say "No" to people. My nature is to help someone who needs help. But the police are right. I don't know what that person is going to do with that money. 

A few days ago, my lady friend, Nuria, and I were leaving a restaurant and walking down a long paved path to the parking lot when a woman approached us with a sob story. It began with her explaining that she had two young children and no job and she needed money.

"That's what the government is for," I said, and Nuria and I continued to my Jeep. The woman gave us a mean look and walked toward the restaurant's door, then turned and looked back at us, as if she could not believe she had been turned down.

"That's incredible," Nuria said. In her country, Costa Rica, there are many beggars. She encounters them whenever she leaves her home and goes downtown. But encountering a beggar in America, even a well-dressed beggar, seemed incongruous to her.

When I told the beggar "That's what the government is for," I was referring to the many government programs designed to help people in need. There is subsidized housing and public housing, there is Medicaid (health care for low income people) and CHIP (Child's Health Insurance Program), there is SNAP (food stamps), there is SSI (Supplemental Security Income), there is TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families), and there are others. But for this woman who needs money for her two babies, before I open my wallet for her I want to know where is her children's father? The baby daddy is the man who should be taking care of them before she approaches random people on the street.

My days of opening my wallet and giving money to strangers just because they ask me for it are over.  It seems mean, or at least stingy, to deny my money to someone who claims to need help, and I'll probably never be able to do it without feeling at least some amount of guilt, but maybe "No" is exactly what they need to hear.

What do you do when a stranger asks for money? And, does it make a difference if the beggar looks like a hobo or is well-dressed?