| Jian,
Begging is a parasite life. They contribute nothing but feed off of others. The more beggars receive, the less incentive they have to get work that contributes. Giving coin to a beggar is wrong. You might feel good about doing so, but you're not helping them. In fact, you are helping keep them as beggars. If you want to help beggars, do not give them coin but help them find work or connect them with a social program that doesn't breed dependency but encourages them to find work. If you really wanted to help them, you would take them there by the hand and help them get into those programs. You would learn how those programs work inside and out to give the ones you're helping the most benefit of them. You would also introduce them to employers, employment agencies, and friends that might either employ them or know who might. Or would it just be so much easier to toss a few coins in their cup? Which really helps them? And which only a cheap way to turn a blind eye to their plight? However, taking them by the hand and getting involved in their lives is a lot of work. In fact, it is full-time work that social workers do for a living. I am not expecting you to do it. Even if you did do it, there would be only so many you could do this for and there will always be more that would benefit from your help. However, there is something relatively quick you can do that is far better than giving them coin. It is something a friend showed me many years ago. What she did and still does to this day is give any beggar she meets in her city a folded business card. The business card has printing on both sides. On one side, lists zero/low-requirement employers and employment agencies. On the other side is a listing of the social programs available in her city that will help them. However, she doesn't list all of those social programs since some breed dependency. She only lists the ones that encourage people to build a better life for themselves and doesn't list ones that just gives hand-outs. She does list both government, non-profit, and religious organizations. On both sides, the listings contain not just their names and addresses but walking directions from the nearest major landmark. When she encounters a beggar, she asks, "Do you want help or coin?" If they say "help", she asks if they can read. If they say they can read, she hands them the business card and takes a moment to explain it. She doesn't go through it line by line with them, but explains what the two sides are about, asks if they have any questions, answers those questions, and wishes them luck. If they say they cannot read, she still gives them the card but then reads it to them, tells them which they should go to first, and tells them to ask others to read this card to them again. This way while they cannot read the card, they have something that can be read to them to remind them what they can do, get people to help them with directions to the places, and so forth. Now if a beggar says they just want "coin", she says she doesn't help beggars remain beggars but can tell them where to look for work and where there are good social programs that can help them get work. She asks if they would like that information and if they say "yes", she does the before-mentioned education. If they say "no", she says if they ever change their mind in the future, they only need to ask and she'll give them the information then. She then ends the negative encounter by offering the folded business card and saying, "All the information is on this card. Do you want it?" If they say "yes", she gives it then explains it if they seem like they want to hear it or if not, just leaves it with them. She never gives them coin. If she sees them begging in the future and they had asked for the card, she asks them what went wrong. Sometimes it was not understanding the directions, losing the card, or being turned away by one organization and not then trying another on the list. If this is the case, she explains the directions again, gives another card, or encourages them to try another of the organizations. However, it isn't uncommon that they simply don't want to "work that hard". In other words, they want the lazy life of a beggar. To those, she says that's too bad and that she thought they'd want to live a better life than that. That statement is to get them to think. She never gives them coin. And the above is what she tells her friends and co-workers to do. She gives them a good number of such business cards to hand out and also gives them a slip of paper that tells about her printer that always has a box of such cards to sell behind the counter to anyone that comes in and asks for them. Since she paid for the original box, the printer has lost nothing by doing this and sales of the box simply pays for the next box. Oh, and the printer is very much in favor of helping do this and pitches the cards to a lot of people that come into his shop that he thinks might be up for such an idea. If she encounters a child beggar, she doesn't do the above but calls on her cellphone one of a couple charities that helps such children and their parents. She goes through the list of charities that are on her speed dial numbers until she gets one that says they'll immediately come and help the child. The final one on that list is Social Services, which is a government program here in the US. If she has time, she'll tell them that she'll wait for them to arrive in case the child beggar moves off somewhere. If she doesn't have time, she gives them a good description of the child, the location, and anything else they might need to know. Since meeting her, I have done the above. It isn't always a positive experience. You quickly learn that many beggars have no desire to get work or be anything but a beggar. Many just want money to buy booze or drugs. It is quite surprising how many of them get angry at your offer to help and reveal what they really want the money for. However, I've never had someone get angry with me when what they wanted was something to eat. If they say that, I point out that three of the social programs will feed them the moment they set foot in their door if they tell them they're starving. I don't give them coin so hopefully hunger will get them to take the next important step. As for trying to get the no-begging rule removed from your metro transportation system, you would not helping beggars if you were successful in doing that but, as explained above, you would be actually doing them harm. I would recommend instead that you pass along what I've written above to your metro transportation system and lead a small campaign (such as here on your blog) to get others to pressure your metro system to do the above. To get the metro workers to have these cards in one of their pockets while working and to give the cards out to the beggars as the workers are expelling the beggars from the premises. That actually makes the no-begging rule really helpful since the metro isn't contributing to a parasite lifestyle but disrupting it while, at the same time, giving information to the beggars on how to make something better of their lives. In fact, give me their email address and I'll tell them this. Giving coins to a beggar is a cop-out. Nothing more. Nothing less. The above isn't a cop-out. It requires time and effort. It forces you to interact with the beggars for more than the second it takes you to toss a coin into their cup. However, it actually helps them move up in life instead of keeping them down. |
No Baggars Premitted on Metro?