Giving money to beggars

atreic and friends are discussing that middle-class thing of buying beggars the thing they say they need money for (food, transport tickets, shelter) instead of just giving them money. The idea, of course, is that you help people who genuinely need help, but thwart scammers who are just making up a story to get money out of you for presumably unworthy purposes like buying drugs.

( lots of opinions )

It may be that the best solution is to just routinely give 50p to everyone who asks. No matter what story they tell or don't. It's probably not going to add up to a whole lot of money in absolute terms or a big bite of my charity money. It probably does some minor harm (more money flowing into the hands of drug dealers, encouraging people to importune passers-by) and some minor good (beggars getting slightly more money for things that make them happy, and a somewhat enhanced sense of being respected and treated as a fellow human.) I definitely have phases of doing this, and phases of not giving directly to street beggars at all for all the obvious reasons. But I'm not sure that offering to buy someone a cup of coffee, a train ticket or a night in a shelter or B&B but refusing cash is really better than either option.