How much help should the needy be given?

Z

zanket

Human
Valued Senior Member
The food banks (like supermarkets that give away food) in my area complain every year that the need from the homeless and those out of work etc. is ever growing and that they can’t keep up with the demand. Even when the U.S. economy was going gangbusters the food banks claimed that, somehow, the need was higher than ever and kids were going to bed hungry because they (the food bank) doesn’t have enough money to feed them. These food banks have grown over the years to be supported by giant distribution centers having an operational budget of many $US millions.

Yet in the desperate plea for donations the pictures and video of the food banks show a line waiting to pick up their free food that invariably includes many overweight and well-dressed people. The food is high quality and if I were a bigger miser than I am and less ethical I might well be tempted to move to be near a food bank and use it as my regular supermarket. That would be possible because the food bank doesn’t verify anyone’s income or lack thereof; it’s an honor system.

Do you think the food banks encourage people to become “needy?” Should the food bank verify need? How? If someone applies for free food and says they are hungry because they refuse to work, should they be approved? If someone applies and says they can’t get a job because they’re obese, should they be approved and given bacon and sausages?
 
The problem with food bank is that the food gets taken by people who can afford food on their own. They are just being cheap.
 
The needy should probably be given as little help as possible, in order to motivate them to change their situation. When help is given, it should be primarily help getting jobs, fixing the problems they have that keep them from working, etc.

I'm not saying that the poor should be left to die in the gutters, however, the help we give should be the sort that fosters independance, not dependancy.

Although I realize this is easier said than done.

As for food banks, they should definitely prove income. I had a roomate once who would go to the local food bank when he wanted to save on groceries. He was in no way poor. I know that proving poverty is degrading, but that cannot be avoided. Fuck knows watching my mother do it has kept me from ever putting myself in a situation where I needed to do that!
 
We're all needy

The needy should probably be given as little help as possible
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We're all needy. Or should we just limit this idea to the financially needy?

thanx,
Tiassa :cool:
 
I only help people to help themselves, and I only help those who can help themselves.
 
Why i dont trust homeless people:

1) As my mom and i were leaving a gas station once... a car pulled up into the gas station and a bum on the corner ran over to the car. He pulled out a wheel chair and then wheeled his ass back to the corner.

2) My cousin gave this dude $5 once. The next week she saw him in a bar wearing a very nice suit. Then the "bum" bought her a drink... my cousin then realized that the guy was the bum that she had given money... needless to say: she slapped that bitch.

3) My mom saw a car pick up bums and then "rotated" their positions every afternoon.

4) Bums buying beer

5) My mom is an accountant for a church. (i am an Atheist- think o the turmoil) Anyway, the preist gave away these vouchers that the bums could use at supermarkets and gas stations. Then one day the preist was at a supermarket and he saw a bum with the voucher buying a carton of 100 cigarettes. Also, the bums spread the word of the food vouchers to all of their bum freinds and they stormed the church.

6) I was a painter at a church over the summer. The first three weeks that i worked there, a bum went into the "praying room " (i dont know these words) with a bent clothes hanger and stole money from the donation box. FROM A CHURCH

7) In a news report, police found a dead bum in Los Angeles that had $40,000 in his wallet.

8) A bum refused my offer to buy him lunch at a restaurant, but we he would take plain cash.... cmon

9) As i drive to school everyday, i see the same bums smoking on the corner WHILE asking for money.

10) The word "bum" says it all... they are worthless lazy people who fucked up early in life.


If you offer a bum a job, chances are that he will refuse. Bums make good money everyday... most of them make twice as much as minimum wage (is the US).

I have many more stories about worthless bums.... however, there are a couple who i legitimately trust because i have "scouted" their life styles. I help them out sometimes, but for the most part, they are scum.
 
I agree on a lot of this. Much charity does more harm than good. I think to be truly long-term needy in the U.S. you must be disabled. Anyone down on their luck can get a change of clothes, a shower, and a haircut. Unless severely disabled, they can then get work. I think the charities have become blind to this because it provides the staff a living. My mom told me that during the Great Depression hobos in her town would take food only in exchange for chopping the wood or some other chore.
 
I dont like to help old homeless people. I understand helping them find a job and such, but giving them money? No. Now the children I would give more. They deserve a place to live, food to eat, and toys to play with. They are children and didnt have a choice of whether or not they were going to be rich or poor.
 
question, how many people here have ever needed the help you are talking about?

I just wonder while you are judging homeless people, if you are living a comfortable life?

Slacker47, people like you make my stomach turn. Do you know what kind of people end up on the streets? I'll tell you, children are the highest percent of homeless people in the US. And no the adults on the streets, the majority aren't people who have stuffed up early in their lives. They are people who had jobs, a home, everything, only to lose it all.

Xev. A lot of places around the world do help the people to sustain their own lives. These places can't handle people depending on them constantly.

I have a friend who was on the streets for five years, from 10 years old, until 15 years old. and not one slimy piece of shit in NY stopped to help him, no matter how much he begged people for help. Only when he was 15 did ONE person help him, adopted him, and gave him a home. And Slacker47, believe me, the kinds of things he did in that 5 years would make you sick.
 
RichardJA – I haven’t needed the help we’re talking about.

I think the basic needs of all kids should be provided for. There are many tough issues. For example, if you give the kids Christmas presents then the parents have no incentive to buy them. They will take advantage. I knew a woman who got gift baskets for kids from five agencies every year. She’d return the excess gifts for cash. Another couple I knew bought expensive entertainment gear with the aid they got for their disabled kids. The parents need to be closely watched and face criminal charges / lose their kids if necessary.

About the 10 year old on the streets of NY, why didn’t the state provide for him? I’d think they’d be obligated by law to put him into foster care. I realize some kids fall through the cracks. I used to work at a teen homeless shelter which was all-volunteer; the budget was scarce. The taxpayers should be aware that it is cheaper to provide for kids than otherwise.

The people who had jobs, a home, everything, only to lose it all, by and large made major financial mistakes I think. It’s no secret that a lot of people who have “it all” live from paycheck to paycheck, refusing to save a penny. Nothing beyond minimal, temporary help should be given to adults who had all the chances to avoid their plight. Why should I subsidize somebody who bought toys galore in their twenties and thirties, didn’t learn a skill, or didn’t buy insurance? Truly hard luck cases exist but I think very few.
 
Food Banks, what an excellent idea. We should have them everywhere, food should be free.
It a step in the right direction.

 
Richard:
Welcome to Sciforums.

question, how many people here have ever needed the help you are talking about?
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Food banks? Yup. Haven't been truely homeless since 14, and that was only a short stint, so no doing there.

I just wonder while you are judging homeless people, if you are living a comfortable life?
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Fairly. I work, I'll eventually go back to school, I provide for myself (albeit with help from the paternal parental unit).

Xev. A lot of places around the world do help the people to sustain their own lives. These places can't handle people depending on them constantly.
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My point exactly. Charity is simply a way of allowing people to get off on a pity trip. If you really want to help, help those willing to help themselves. Otherwise, you're pretty much in the same boat as those who don't help at all.
 
Hi Zanket,

The 10 year old is a complicated case. He was kicked out of home. put in state care where he was raped, again in foster care where he was molested by the foster parent and friends of the foster parent. So he ran away. Unfortunately picked up by a pimp. And that is the problem. Where does someone turn for help when their clients are law enforcement officers, politicians, priests, lawyers, teachers, doctors, businessman, etc. Shelters back then wouldn't take child prostitutes, a lot still don't. That was about 18 years ago. That 10 year old is now a multi millionaire. He works damn hard to fight it, and sadly it still happens, kids are just numbers on folders, and slip through the cracks. Thankfully some states are starting to fix a small problem where they got more money for the amount of kids in their care, which made it more beneficial for them to keep them in their care rather than put them in good homes. But tonight, think of one thing. In the US alone there are over 300,000 child prostitutes. People, imagine for just one moment how you would feel if it was one of your children.

Personally I feel that people who come to food banks that aren't homeless should be given vouchers that are only able to purchase certain budget foods, and also be given a few packets of seeds to grow. They should be given free budgeting assistance. Actually, I've always believed that those who are getting help should be required to get budgeting assistance, and required to stick to that, and prove where all the money goes.

But it's not the rich who went out and spent everything that are mostly on the streets. It's the families where the parents work damn hard to put a roof over their heads that lost their jobs, got kicked out of their homes that are on the streets. Truly hard luck cases are more common than you would realise.

Xev. Thanks. I was just potting around reading some of the posts. Mostly I prefer to hang out in my yahoo group, an alien abduction one :0) But I am glad you are no longer homeless. You know one of the most beautiful stories I have ever watched? It was a news story here (New Zealand) a few months back where a reporter went to one of the villages in Ethiopia that New Zealand money goes to. And what it went to was setting it up so they could take care of themselves, grow their own crops, education, running water that they don't bathe in or use for a toilet. Really, people don't realise how good they have it. But in too many places Charity has become a business. I think it was CCF. A reporter was doing that whole business of a dollar a day. Then went over to visit with the child his money was going to, only to find out the child had died before he had even joined up with CCF to donate money.

The main problem I have found is it is the people who don't need the food banks or the support that are abusing it.
 
RichardJA – That’s sad about the kids. That’s one of the U.S.’s biggest failings. If only the taxpayers realized how much they’d save by taking better care of them.

Agreed on the vouchers and budgeting assistance. Nobody should get free bacon.

I must be biased about the hard luck cases. In newspaper stories it is usually apparent in the accompanying picture where the problem is. For example, a single mother who couldn’t make ends meet. In the picture her living room was filled with designer furniture. Newsweek did a big spread on a poor family. A picture showed what food their limited budget could afford. Most of it was junk food and name-brand items.

When I made $US 800 a month (today’s dollars) I lived like a king. A king who ate inexpensive but healthy food, had roommates, and didn’t splurge. Nowadays people think they have a God-given right to fund Christmas with multiple credit cards.

On every street I see hordes of future homeless people driving their $US 50,000+ cars.
 
zanket, the biggest failing for these kids by the government is that if the US changed a law they made that is seen as the reason for child prostitution then a hell of a lot of those children wouldn't be out on the streets. And that should be everyone's fight. If you have children, then you should concern yourself with the possibility that someone could take your child and put them into this business. A business where children have sex with adults, other children and animals.

I agree, there are people where it is easy to see where they are wasting the money. Things need to be changed. Budgeting needs to be taught in schools. Parents should have to take courses before having a child. People are just stupid, and banks should start acting responsible, not giving people so many credit cards or giving them a limit too far above what they have in their savings.
 
Child prostitution was not a real problem in the United States until the late 70's. In 1974, Congress passed the Juvenile Justice Delinquency Prevention Act that prohibited the secure detention of runaways. That meant that the police were prevented from arresting children for running away from home. Consequently, children were left on the streets to fend for themselves. Since 1974 children have been allowed to live on the streets and they need to support themselves.
 
Didn’t know that. I’ll research that. At the teen shelter I worked at that most of the kids had no interest in returning home, or even calling home, for whatever reason. I wouldn’t arrest them for running away.
 
There are a lot of reasons why people run away, between 1 million and 1 1/2 million kids in the US run away from home each year. The majority of those are from a disagreement, some go home by themselves, others when they do get picked up for help go home. The real problem are those running away from home because of abuse, or those kicked out of home for being gay. The whole system needs to be changed to deal with this all correctly.

But let me put it this way. If a 10 year old is on the streets late at night, then I would rather have the police pick that kid up and have him put into the system (which needs to be fixed) than the boy be left on the streets.
 
That meant that the police were prevented from arresting children for running away from home. Consequently, children were left on the streets to fend for themselves. Since 1974 children have been allowed to live on the streets and they need to support themselves.
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So children should be punished for fleeing abuse? That's a bright idea.
 
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