Giving money to beggars

[liv]

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.

I don't think this an entirely stupid or evil way to go about being charitable, but I have reservations. First of all, it seems at best patronizing to decide what a stranger "should" be spending money on. Personally, I'm no fan of mind-altering chemicals; I am not even all that fond of alcohol, and if I ever need to count pennies alcohol is the first thing to be cut from the budget, because I don't enjoy it that much more than tasty soft drinks and I resent spending so much money on vice taxes when I am short anyway. It's not good value-in-terms-of-pleasure for money. I do consider it morally problematic to drink enough alcohol to seriously impair judgement or harm one's own health. I don't smoke, I have no interest in smoking, and I don't approve of smokers inflicting their harmful chemicals on other people around them. But I don't go around moralizing about it at people of my own social class, I recognize that the cost/benefit is different for different people, so why should I set myself up in judgement over beggars? After all, they likely have much harder lives than lots of my friends who consider alcohol an integral part of socializing, or who smoke as a way of taking regular breaks from work and intense social situations. And lots of the pleasures that I think of as cheaper and safer than alcohol and cigarettes aren't readily available to homeless people.

As for illegal drugs, again, I just don't partake, because I have too much to lose, because from what I know of myself I suspect I wouldn't enjoy drug-induced highs or trips very much, because I am scared of becoming addicted, and because the drugs trade causes harm I'd rather not contribute to. Do I think it's a good idea for homeless people to use drugs? No, of course not, for a large number of obvious reasons! But if someone asks me for small change for food and actually goes and spends it on drugs, I'm not sure that that is such a terrible outcome that it's worth expending lots of effort to prevent it. Sure, I don't like being lied to, and I don't want to encourage scammers. And I don't particularly like the idea that my money might be contributing to the profits of drug dealers and propping up the drugs black market. But we're talking very small amounts of money here, and I'm not convinced that it's so much worse in terms of financial support of violence than, say, buying clothes or electronics made in unethical conditions, or even just being part of international finance through things like having some of my salary paid into a pension fund.

The thought occurs to me that in terms of relief of suffering, I might actually be doing more good if my money goes towards buying drugs than something worthy like food or shelter. That money could be helping someone who's addicted, or for whom life is so bleak that they really need the escape, or who is using drugs to self-medicate for major mental health stuff, or could help them to pay off their pimp or drug dealer so that they are less likely to get beaten up. And because our society is really moralistic about drugs, and about poor people spending money on their own pleasure, it's very unlikely that any public programmes or charities are going to be helping people to buy cigarettes or booze, and it's really hard to access support in dealing with an addiction to drugs.

Realistically, if I self-righteously refuse to give money to people who I think might be dishonest, all I'm doing is diverting my help to people who are better at coming up with polished stories. Honest beggars, the kind who don't use any sort of social manipulation to get money out of people, are basically the ones who just sit there on the pavement with signs saying that they're homeless. I'm pretty sure they already get less money than the ones who are willing and able to accost passers-by, and the ones who come up with a plausible story get more than the ones who simply ask for spare change. The whole reason people even tell these stories is precisely because their marks are more willing to support a "good" cause, a worthy recipient, than someone who's merely desperate. And also, so I'm "cleverer" than the scammer, I saw through their trick, aren't I brilliant? Well, I've had quite ridiculous amounts of education, and on top of that I eat regular, nutritious meals and I'm not in imminent danger, it's hardly amazing that can outwit someone living in a highly vulnerable situation who has none of my advantages.

Since squid314 is part of the Less Wrong crowd, the issue of efficient / rational giving comes up in the discussion on his post. OK, so giving 50p to beggars whenever I happen to encounter them is inefficient compared to giving the same money to charities that help homeless and vulnerable people, and definitely inefficient compared to making a reasoned decision about how much I want to give to help indigent people and setting up regular donations. And then we get into, well, is it efficient to give to beggars at all, when even the poorest in the UK are in some ways materially better off than poor people who live in poor countries, not to mention that economic inequalities mean you can help many more developing world poor people for the same money. That's not a calculation I really care about very much, but it may be a reason for some people not to give to beggars at all, no matter whether their stories seem plausible or not.

I think part of the point of giving small change is not that it's perfectly financially efficient, but that sometimes there's some worth in showing a beggar that you see them as a human being, that you care about the hardship they're going through. Making eye contact, listening to them, showing empathy rather than seeing an obstacle or an embarrassment to be avoided. Actually, that's quite a tough thing to do; in some ways it's much easier to say, oh, they're probably just a scammer, they're probably going to spend all the money on drugs. A lot of the reason I often don't give money to beggars is not because of any of the high moral reasons I've listed here, it's because I'm just plain physically scared of unkempt, dirty, often incoherent or erratically behaving strangers. I don't feel proud of myself for being scared; I know intellectually that indigent and mentally unstable people are more likely to be victims of violence than perpetrators. But there you go.

This leads on to another aspect that's been raised in the discussion: why are people in fact more willing to help middle-class people who are stranded and need some cash to get home than actually needy people? Why does the latter have a better chance of sympathy and cash if they pretend to be the former? I think it's partly that, well, if you give the stranded middle-class person (assuming they're genuine and not a scammer) a tenner, you've actually fixed their problem and avoided the misery they're dealing with! If you give even ten times that to a homeless person, they're still homeless, they still have all the problems which led them to become homeless, their life has been only very temporarily improved. And if you do make a connection with them, even a temporary minor connection, to an extent they start to become your responsibility. I know I'm nervous in the back of my mind that if I help a beggar with anything more than throwing 50p into their hat (which when you think of it is a pretty dehumanizing thing to do), I'll be faced with problems that are way too big for me to fix.

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.

Comments

[liv]

Rikskuponger is a really good idea, because unlike food vouchers etc, they're not stigmatized or only accepted in special charity places, "normal" people use them to purchase food in normal outlets. I think with that I would still be worried that if the person was inclined to scam (eg if they were lying to me about wanting money for food), they'd just sell the coupons. Train ticket scams are just sad, though I suspect getting less common as nearly everybody just uses Oysters to pay for everything.

[vatine]

Based on the fact that the majority (slim, from recollection maybe 55%) of them cursed at me or refused to accept the (free!) food coupon, I think they really wanted something that wasn't food.

One of the reasons I thought it was a good idea is that value honesty and if they accepted the (free!) food, I had no reason to believe they were lying, but if they didn't, I could be pretty sure they were.