While in San Francisco, I've noticed a HUGE amount of people busking and begging on the street. Many, many more than Sydney. I am told that the Sydney councils take steps to remove buskers and beggars from the street; which is not the case here.
However, I have noticed common behaviour in the two cities: everyone ignores them. If a homeles person approaches you on the street, should you not have the decency and respect to acknowledge their presence? A person living on the street is still a person - they have just fallen on hard times, and rely on the charity and generosity of others to help them get back on their feet.
Ignoring bums is a learned behavior. When you do acknowledge them, they will hound you for money. I don’t have the emotional energy to tell 20 people “No, sorry I can’t help” every day of my life.
Do you think that behaviour is “right”? The way is think of it is: I could be in that position one day. A small amount of money would mean a great deal more to them that it would to me. Feigning ignorance only shows a lack of compassion for another human being…
Of course, giving money to beggars doesn’t really solve the problem, but I think it can ease the pain, somewhat.
Interesting perspective. I’d definitely agree that there seem to be more homeless people on the streets in the US. It’s a social problem both here and there, but I don’t really agree with your solution.
Would you still give a homeless person money if you knew she was going to go and buy a bottle of alcohol with it, rather than food? Similar to failed efforts to help countries in poverty, I think donations of money are often abused and make the situation worse.
Yes, I do see a problem when a homeless person is going to go out and buy alcohol with the money given to them. I’m not suggesting that giving money is any sort of solution to help people get off the streets - rather, I think programmes like Just Enough Faith, which provide shelter, food and training to the homeless, are a far better solution. Rather than acting as a band-aid, such programmes try to be constructive.
Hey Jeremy,
I agree with you.
You can’t ignore homelessness, most especially when it becomes increasingly inconvenient to do so. As soon as you are okay about ignoring the suffering of an alienated class of people you should probably ask yourself what else you’d be willing to think was okay, so long as it didn’t happen to you or your friends.
The weird thing is knowing what to do about it. Sometimes I give money, sometimes I don’t. I’ve also watched homeless people abuse the scenario … that’s a given.
But in modern society there’s always going to be fallout. I think it just gets down to how much sympathy you’re prepared to keep. Hopefully, Australia will maintain a human amount of it. I was pleased to see Howard’s migration bill fail in Parliament.
Nick
Hey Nick! - nice of you to pop in.
I too, hope Australians maintain the ability to sympathise with those less privileged than them.
I haven’t heard much about that migration bill, but will have to look into it now…
Jeremy
I agree that you can’t ignore the problem as a whole but I don’t have a lot of sympathy for an individual that *chooses* to not work and sponge off other people. The people they are begging money from are getting up at 7am, dealing with a-hole bosses, sitting in traffic, etc.
I don’t believe that it’s a matter of good luck or bad luck. I truly believe that in America anyone can “get by” by putting forth very little actual effort. Most of the homeless in SF are choosing not to do that.
I think if they have mental health problems then they should be taken care of but if they are just deciding they don’t want to work. Then f–k them, they deserve to be treated like animals. I saw a homeless guy taking a piss on the sidewalk in downtown in broad daylight the other day. How can you be expected to be treated like a human being when you act like that?
Hi Ryan,
If you are ignoring these people, how do you know they’re *choosing* not to work? If people are so easy to disregard and ignore them because of their appearance, would you also expect a business owner to employ them? I think not.
Regarding being able to “get by” without very little effort, I could say the same for Sydney. Compared to many countries, the standard of living is extremely high. However, I do believe that people can fall into bad times, make bad business decisions or waste their money. People make mistakes, and that’s something everyone has in common - living on the street or not.