The Belfast Welcome Organisation and DePaul (that’s presumably what once was the St Vincent de Paul charity organization) are launching a major campaign. No, Virginia, it’s not about getting the public to cough up some more money: it’s to get people to keep their hand away from their pockets. The next man or woman you find sitting on the pavement with paper cup, do what the song says: just walk on by.
Counter-intuitive or what? No, no, no, the BWO and DP say. They can explain:
- Someone begging isn’t necessarily homeless – there’s no real link between the two. Lots of people begging aren’t homeless and lots of people homeless aren’t begging.
- People begging are generally addicted (presumably to booze or drugs, as distinct from chocolate or EastEnders).
If you give them money, they’ll just (presumably) feed that addiction, and won’t seek out the services they need. People should give to a registered charity (for example but not necessarily BWO or DP) – that’ll be far better for the people on the street.
I’m sure BWO and DP know more about begging and poverty than I do. But I find a queue as big as a migrant crisis lining up to be answered.
- How does giving on the street prolong problems of addiction, mental illness and social isolation, which the two organisations tell us these people suffer from?
- You think these people with the paper cups are making a killing? In that case, why not have a go at squatting on a pavement for a week and see how much you make?
- Are BWO and DP saying these people are begging but don’t need to? Or is it that they are in need but will spend the money unwisely? Both of which come back to the old tight-arsed Victorian notion of the Deserving Poor. Don’t give loose change to that Stout Beggar, he’ll only spend it on the demon drink.
- Is it fun sitting begging on the street? I suggest not. I also suggest that BWO and DP are making into an either/or what could easily be an and/and. You could give money to a registered charity and give to the person begging, couldn’t you?
- But they’ll only spend it on their addiction – drink and/or drugs? In which case, let me tell you a little secret. If I were driven to a state where I was sitting on a pavement looking for the dear hearts of Belfast to give me money, I’d be feeling pretty rotten. And if I were feeling rotten, and I did get a bit of change, I’d head for the nearest supermarket or drug-dealer so fast, in the hope of forgetting even temporarily the mess my life was, I’d make Shane Long look lethargic.
- There were representatives of BWO and DP on Raidio Uladh/Radio Ulster this morning, and one (or both ) of them suggested engaging in conversation with your neighbourhood beggar, maybe buy him/her a cup of tea, show you are concerned. But don’t give them money. And that’ll make us both feel better?
- Are BWO and DP implying that by not shelling out, citizens will help force these beggars to turn to the authorities and charities for help? That seems to me a shaky notion. Deprived of funds to feed your addiction, mightn’t you be at least as likely to head for the River Lagan or an M2 fly-over with a death-dealing drop?
To sum up: I’m not sure the logic of the BWO and DP is solid. I am reasonably sure the amount of money the average beggar gets from Belfast’s citizens is unlikely to keep them high or pissed for too long. Meanwhile, God save us from judgemental do-gooders who urge “Don’t give him/her money, s/he’ll only spend it unwisely”.
welcome and de.paul are looking a wage increase[give us not them]i always give a few local lads a few quid and say here that ill get yis a drink people say thats not helping them but they must never have been sick with the drink shakes ect.never look down on anybody unless your giving them a hand up.
Does DP spend donor’s money wisely? I note, from personal observation in the small town near where I live, that DP shells out money on Sunday mornings to the habitual drunks who have drunk their dole and have nothing left to feed the children. The children head for the takeaway for chips and the parents go to the off-licence to top up their supply of alcohol which they openly carry home.
I can excuse drunks who have to deal with hangovers as well as hungry children. However I note that DP also makes substantial provision for local traveller families who use them as an ATM machine. For example, DP provides them with vouchers to pay for diesel for their shiny new 4 wheel drive vehicles. At the pump they ask for 20 euro diesel and the remainder in cash. I was next in the diesel queue the other day and overheard one of these transactions. When it was my turn at the pump, I asked the attendant if anyone ever reported this abuse to the DP. He shrugged and said, “Nah, sure they all do it”.
I stopped donating to DP years ago, preferring to keep my pension for my own use. However I do give handouts directly to the addicts I see lining the access to Connolly Station whenever I take a trip (using my free transport pass) to the big city. Especially I hand money to begging women whose predicament moves me deeply. They are victims of a society that has exposed them to deprivation and abuse. If addiction helps them cope, it is my role to enable their addiction as much as I can afford to.
Mary Jo’
Take a trip up to the Antrim Road Belfast HQ of St, VDP to the bi-monthly Wednesday nite meeting of the ‘great and good’ on the management committees and observe the BMWs Audi’s, and Merc’s in the car park.
I have personal friends who work there- full-time -and even they ‘wince’ at the overindulgence in the way donation monies are distributed in this mini ‘corporate fifedom’ particularly in the way of salaries and expenses.
Unaccountable self serving hypocrites. No published accounts. No Salary details.
I have been trying for years through emails etc, to gain access to details of Executive and non-Executive directors salaries and expenses of many of these organisations including N.I Hospice and others – and have NEVER even had an acknowledgement,- never mind a reply.
What does that tell you MJ?
You can bet your ‘bottom dollar’ that none of them, reading this, will be forthcoming with a reply that tells me their salary.
Homeless charities generally seem to give this sort of advice.
Admittedly it feels like a kindness to give someone a bit of change on the street, but probably we are only doing it to make ourselves feel better.
It is not actually helping them in the long term.
We wouldn’t hand them some drugs so we should probably not hand over the money which will be used to buy drugs.
To dismiss organisations who actually work with vulnerable people and have actually done the research, as judgemental do-gooders is inaccurate and lazy.
There are two types of ‘beggars’ on our streets at the moment.
The ‘deserving’ – and the ‘parasites’.
The deserving sit with plastic cups and ask you for 50 pence.
The Parasites shove a direct debit form in your face and ask for a signature that gets them £60 a touch and keeps their boss driving his BMW.
There is a problem with ‘street beggars’ at the moment and its getting worse. Drive past St Annes’ and in through the Cathedral quarter any nite of the week and you’ll encounter swathes of immigrants in sleeping bags asking for money.
The problem isn’t that they’re begging. -The problem is that they should not be in this country.
These people are the by- product of the Corporate monopoly EU immigration project. Its intention being, to undermine the economic stability of every European nation, create low wage economies, and socially dilute national identity, so that borderless political entities remove any attachments to the land. – European Corporate governance by stealth.
We should be talking about resolving the ‘street’ problems of our own Irish people who are the ‘unfortunates’ – and have what are usually ‘mental health’ issues rather than monetary issues.
Our own country comes first and foremost.
As for the parasitical middle-class parasites in BWO , DP. and the other disgusting plethora so called ‘gangster’ charities……..
Their ‘modus operandi’ – the more immigrants and beggars.. the better !
One of the well known charities admitted that they need 1.6 million GBP for wages etc. per year before they start to pay out to the needy. The point is that it’s the government’s job to stop people starving and being homeless. They are bound to support these people. If the needy are not due support they should not be here. It’s no good saying that migrants families will not get any benefits for two years or whatever. Do not admit them without job prospects. How do you think they are going to survive?
I happen to think the organisations which work with the poor, homeless and broken do a fairly decent job and there are plenty of individuals who have been brought back from the edge will attest to that fact.
It is very easy to knock these organisations because they are dealing with a problem that is not going to go away and has been around since biblical times. We all know a story of someone/ group who exploit the help and support that these organisations provide as we know people exploit the benefits system but they are a very small minority compared to those who utilise the system fairly and benefit from it.
Are we falling in to the Nigel Farage trap of labelling all with the sins of a few?
Should we shut down all rape crisis centres because Ted Bundy was once a volunteer?
I am sure these organisations thought long and hard about issuing this appeal to the public before doing so and I doubt it is because they are looking for a “pay rise” and want people to give the money to them rather than an addict because that is unlikely to happen and they know it.
They are going to be dealing with these unfortunates whether you give them money or not but I have no doubt that they are faced with the same problem as the accident and emergency department of every major hospital in the country – is it easier to deal with someone who is sober or someone who is drunk/ stoned?
Is someone more likely to seek help if they are stoned or drunk?
Is someone more likely to seriously hurt or injure themselves if they are stoned or drunk?
Is someone more likely to harm someone else if they are stoned or drunk?
Is someone more likely to get accommodation or shelter if they are stoned or drunk?
Is someone more likely to attempt to take their own lives if they are stoned or drunk?
Addicts need an enabler and if that is what you want to be you are free to choose.
Jude, I think that anyone who argues that it doesn’t help a person in need to give spare change is seeking an excuse not to give at all. So what if an alcoholic goes and buys a bottle with your change. Allow him that small amount of pleasure. Heaven knows he may have little else.
We have organised gangs of people clutching a copy of the “Big Issue” but never wanting to sell it; they only want your change. One gentleman of my acquaintance does the rounds of the churches on Sundays and on Saturday past I saw him plant himself down outside a shopping centre, take a handful of change from his pocket and throw it into a cap just to encourage the mugs into giving him something.
Then we have the ones who hang about Castle Street, sometimes aggressively who way lay you as you go about your business, and who sometimes indulge in a bit of shoplifting to supplement their income. These people are also in main receiving benefits.
I don’t need SVP to tell me to keep my hands in my pockets you would have to be blind and senseless not to see what is going on.
does the rounds of the churches on a sunday…….sure arnt the churches handing the plate round on sundays just to encourage the mugs as you call them into giving something.same difference except the oul man down on his luck hasnt a shed load of oil paintings worth millions were he could sell the odd one to pull him out of a hole.at the end of the day its only a couple of quid no good being the richest man in the graveyard.
This guy isn’t down on his luck he is a professional beggar and you will often see him in the town collecting money from the Big Issue “sellers”.
“Then we have the ones who hang about Castle Street, sometimes aggressively who way lay you as you go about your business, and who sometimes indulge in a bit of shoplifting to supplement their income. These people are also in main receiving benefits.”
I know exactly who your talking about Belfastdan. My mother was in the Tesco just around the corner from St Mary’s Chapel when two Romanian women were closely following her and she instantly became suspicious. When my mother was bending over to pick something from the fridges one of them put her hand in my mother’s handbag and all hell then broke loose. My mother reported them to the security at the entrance and the PSNI was called but the two women, refusing to speak English, rushed out. This happened about 3 years ago. But these women are seen begging in Castle Street sometimes and people have seen them being collected in a Mini Bus many times around 7-8pm. My mother worked in the Town at that time and often gave them money, that obviously stopped after the Tesco incident but my mother seen them being collected by a blue Mini Bus many times. They also say things like “My baby, my poor baby, money, money”. I don’t give them anything, the wee wineos get my money, I know they are legit.
Most people don’t realize that begging attracts more money than you think. My two half sisters did Busking (I know its not begging but its kind of similar) a few years ago in Dublin, they played instruments (they’re part of an Orchestra) and in one day they made over 400 euro. Singer Ed Sheeran (who is half Irish) said on the Late Late Show he did Busking while in Galway visiting relatives before he became famous and he made over 500 euro in one day…..
Aye the great and the good urge us not to give to the poor beggar on the street as they might waste it. Call me a cynic but some would argue that we shouldn’t give to the official charities either as they DO waste it…..on their wages. Fraud Geldof didn’t get his millions begging on the street that’s for sure.
WT.
You’re right.
He begged on national TV -then pocketed a few million quid commision and fees for his troubles.
Shameless ‘trailer trash’ who besmirches everything Irish.
wolfie
Yeah we should shut down all those bleeding heart do-gooder charities immediately.
I am sure the most vulnerable in society will be just fine without them.
Good idea.
Yeah yeah Gio whatever you say.
We recently had a director of the BBC leave his lucrative job to start up a charity with your woman with the multicoloured outfits. They were paid lucratively to run this charity but it turned out they were fiddling(pardon the pun! Shouldn’t say that when talking about the BBC) with donations. Some of these donations were given by the tax payer via yentobs friend David camoron and his prime ministers office.
Alas useful idiots like Gio will claim fraud Geldof and yentob are decent folk who really do have the disadvantaged at heart and excuse the millions they earned as simply ‘well they have to eat too’! More to be pitied than laughed at.
wolfie
I make no such claim about Geldof, stop putting words in my mouth.
Also calling me an idiot (even a useful one) is a bit rude, but I expect you will get away with it ok.
You are making a case for better oversight of charities rather than abolishing them.
I always give money to beggers when I’m in the Town. The reason I give them money (usually £2, £1, 50p or any loose change I happen to have) is obviously because I feel sorry for them and imagine myself being in that position (God forbid). But do I think my money is being spent wisely? Well, most of the time no but sometimes yes. There is wee “wineo’s” down in Castle Street that I always give money to that I know will be spent on alcohol because they are usually laying around drinking as they beg. So why do I give it? Well they have an addiction and addictions need fed, its not wise but still, an addiction is an addiction. Its also motivated mostly by pity, of course.
I think its a disgrace that in this day and age homelessness and poverty still exists. I’m not saying every single person should be entitled to a brand spanking new house and a 5 star breakfast, lunch and dinner every day but the Technology and Wealth is there to at least provide everyone with decent housing, healthy meals, education, etc. But life is never that simple and the sad reality is that most people cant look after themselves. I’ve seen this with a few relatives in my own family who are absolutely terrible with money management (they don’t have addictions or anything, its just sheer incompetence) and many of these relatives are 20 or 30 years older than me but without me and a few other competent relatives they could’ve possibly have lost their homes, gone bankrupt, gone hungry, etc.
As a kid I use to always think that poverty was widespread because there just wasn’t enough money. I now know its a lot more complicated than that. I live and grew up in West Belfast that has the 2nd highest child poverty rate in the UK (another one of those “Benefits” of the Union…) but do I believe that money alone will solve issues of poor health, lack of housing, lack of jobs, etc? No, it would definitely help but its not the only ingredient to solving issues here. The people themselves need to change in some ways and work harder at education and acquiring new skills in Science, Technology, etc and then actually STAY HERE in order to attract jobs. But we also need help from Stormont that simply isn’t coming.
So yes, I understand in some ways the logic behind what these charities are saying. Money is important but HOW you spend money is even more important…..
25 years ago I used to be in Castle St regularly. There was an elderly gentleman named Oliver begging there. He was an alcoholic. I always gave him50p or 1 pound. One day I was with my 6yo son I had not a penny on me and was making my way to the nearest ATM. I told Oliver this and said I would see him on my way back. Having walked about 50yards away I heard him shout me….” mrs mrs here here” I turned back to see him hirppleling up to me in front of a crowded street and hand my son 20p!! I was so humbled and at the same time (to my shame) embarrassed by his kindness. I always give to down n outs thinking there but for the grace of god……and me a confirmed athiest!! If I give money to my family I don’t dictate what they should spend the money on nor would I do so with people who are less fortunate.
It’s the unknowns that cause me not to give to people begging on the street.
I don’t know if they’re genuinely homeless or just professional beggars.
I don’t know if they are going to spend money to pay for rent, food, clothes or spent on drink and drugs.
If giving beggars £100 would get them of the street and into a good home and give them a stable life, I would do it with a heart and a hand, but I’m not convinced that everyone on the streets aren’t begging to Help them survive, but simply to make money.
It’s impossible for me to tell the difference, so it makes me reluctant to give money to people on the street.