i give money to beggers

but not the drunk ones

usually the ones with babies in their arms

"Don Karnage" wrote:

"MuslimSisLilSis" wrote:

usually the ones with babies in their arms

I've never seen that in England... is this homeless street children thing pretty common in the UK and USA and I was just not aware?

its very very rare

u get homeless guys in some areas - drunk ones

they dont get no sympathy or money of me

"Don Karnage" wrote:

they dont get no sympathy or money of me

Why not?[/quote]
cos they are drunk

if they really are hard up

how comes they have money for alcohol?

plus - we have shelters for such people

why aint they in shelters?

erm Dave

if ur hard up - im pretty sure

food

clothes

shelter

wud be at the top of ur shopping list

If you're an alcoholic your prioroties are:

alcohol

alcohol

food

alcohol

this is why, if i have food on me, i'd prefer to giv them that instead of money.

"Ya'qub" wrote:

this is why, if i have food on me, i'd prefer to giv them that instead of money.

thats a good way of thinking

when i went umrah with dad - he'd also offer to buy lunch to the homeless

he wouldnt give em money

unsuprisingly - many refused an offer of a BigMac

Several times I've been a bit miffed when offers of food are rejected. The last time, there was someone asking for change outside Sainsbury's in Chalk Farm so while I was there I got him crisps and a sandwich and a bottle of water. When I passed by fifteen minutes later he had moved on and left it all behind. :?

A lot of people including the Big Issue founder argue for not giving handouts. It isn't about stinginess, it is about there being other options (eg Big Issue) and the likelihood of people using the handouts for self-destructive behaviour.

I get the most annoyed by people who have a whole story about missing the last train and not having change for a bus or somesuch. Every once in a while that's true (it was for me once), and it saps goodwill. Unless I choose to stop and chat with someone just to cheer them up, my default position now is not to be stopped.

I do not think there are many homeless up here around manchester.

Besides I think most are provided for by the state, so it is duifferent in the UK.

I do not think we should encourage such behavious in the UK.

Elsewhere where there is no welfair state it is a different thing - but even there it can go out of hand.

For some begging can become a way of life.

"Mr Honey's Day Out" wrote:

Several times I've been a bit miffed when offers of food are rejected.

theres a really funny episode of Seinfeld where the guys realise that everyone prefers the tops of muffins than the bottom part of them. So they decide to start a business selling JUST muffin tops. Its really successful but they end up with loads of the bottom parts of the muffins, and they don't want to waste them. So they decide to be generous and give them to the local homeless shelter. But the homeless people there are furious! they pelt the guys with the muffin-bottoms shouting "we don't want your reject muffins! **** off!"

i guess beggars CAN be choosers...

I've seen a few homeless people around in my area. A few years back I saw some Bosnian women begging in a market and you could blatently (if that's a word) see that they were wearing expensive clothes underneath their jilbab, and wearing gold jewellery. They still managed to make a few quid that day. When they saw that begging 'normally' wasn't working they resorted to carrying children around with them and made that desperate look whenever someone looked at them.

I've also seen some people (whether they were homeless I don't know), but they were asking people for money, and as usual most people said sorry I only carry cards or whatever. When people said no they abused people verbally and even followed some around, how scary is that!

I agree that homeless people are becoming more picky. My psychology teacher told me this story. He used to work as a waiter (in london's west end) and they had a party and after it ended there were loads of sandwiches leftover. The boss wanted to throw them away but my teacher insisted that it would be better if he could give them away to the homeless. So off he went and found this guy sitting on the pavement looking hungry and scruffy. The homeless guy asked him if the sandwich had tuna inside, my teacher replied no and the homeless guy refused to take the sandwich.

So if you see a homeless guy and wanna give him food....don't! Ask him what flavour crisps he would like, chicken or prawn cocktail, and what drink he would like, coke or fanta.

"Mr Honey's Day Out" wrote:

I get the most annoyed by people who have a whole story about missing the last train and not having change for a bus or somesuch. Every once in a while that's true (it was for me once), and it saps goodwill.

A guy came up to me in the wudhu area of the mosque with some story about having to get to Cambridge or something urgently and needing some money. Its my duty to believe another Muslim brother however unlikely his story seems. So I gave him some small change and that was that. A few days later he approached me again (he didn't remeber me or recognise me from before) with a completely NEW sob-story and at that time I didn't have any money on me, so Alhamdulillah, I wasn't really obliged to give him any.

I was really upset though. This guy is a Muslim and he his LYING in a MOSQUE just to get MONEY which is actually rather horrific, it is SO disrespectful to Allah (swt). If he asked me honestly that 'he is a bit short of money and may he have some please' I wouldn't mind, but the fact he is making up stories so as not to lower himself to the level of a beggar shows some sort of vanity aswell.

My friend had his laptop nicked from the same mosque while making wudhu. I think thats completely horrible. Of course, we are under the watchful eye of God (swt) wherever we are, but in a place of worship, you expect people to have some sort of Taqwa (and at least wait til they're outside to continue their robbing spree). How can the man pray (presuming he does) in the knowldege he just stole, especially from another Muslim? The worst thing is, the guy whose laptop it was has only been a Muslim for a few months, and it doesn't exactly give him confidence in coming to a mosque in the future. May Allah give him patience. Ameen!

I generally dont give money to beggars as they are being provided for by the state. I especially dont give money to drunks... why coz he's prob just sobered up to realise he needs money... to buy more alcohol and as a personal rule i prefer not to have anything to do with alcohol buying/selling watever.

I would however say i feel a little more obligated to give to beggars who ask for money in the name of Allah (swt) and use the muslim card. There was this one time this guy said he needed money to get to London bcoz of some reason or other and he was ing in the name of Allah(swt) please help me out. So i gave him enough money to buy a coach ticket to London. I dont know if he actually was telling the truth or not or if he even went to London. But since he did say in the name of Allah (swt) i cant really ignore that.

Theres some Kosovo women around Oldham that go around begging for money when its clear they're being helped out by the state but still they beg... why becoz in certain countries begging is an actual occupation these guys hav unions they're all organised and everything. I heard that some of these asylum seeker kosovo women went into a asian clothes shop and then beat up the woman at the counter before robbing the place. So im a little less sympathetic to them and usually just ignore them.

How do people feel about illegal immigrants?

They are not being helped by the state, and just because they don't have appropriate paperwork, MANY of them have completely legitimate reasons for coming here.

I heard an interview with a homeless person on the radio a while back, and he said that it wasn't people not giving him money that upset him, it was people who completely ignored him as they walked past, that made him lose his self-respect and get utterly depressed (perhaps encouraging alcohol dependancy). He asked people to atleast acknowledge when they see someone begging in the street, even if its to say 'sorry, I have no spare change' or similar.

As the Prophet said: A smile is an act of charity.

[color=indigo][b]At one time we had a flood of kosovo women coming and knocking on everyones door for money with plastic babies in their hands.. but everyone still gave them money. It's usually a family.. the mother will send the kid to the top of the road with a card while she'll cover the bottom end, after they collected some money they would walk around the corner and drive off.

As i was typing this 2 kosovo women just knocked on a door asking for some money.[/b][/color]

A really good book on this subject is Bury Me In My Boots. I have it somewhere, but can't find it in my room...I've just googled it and it's by Sally Trench. It really is a brilliant book, I was surprised by quite a bit when I read it - I'd [i]really[/i] recommend it.

I went through a phase where I really wanted to help the homeless, like really do it as a career. You know when you're really young and naive and you think you're going to be different and actually try to save the world. Well, I'm glad I read this book, it's very real. The first few pages I could so relate to.

I've often bought The Big Issue, or given loose change to the homeless, even when I knew they would only spend it on alcohol, but having read the book, I kind of understood why. Now that I'm practicing I don't give any money direct but have given money to the charity Shelter. Buying them food instead is much better, but I don't think I've got the nerve to do that, plus it's not what they want. If they need a fix of whatever, then they need a fix of whatever, nothing else.

Before there were about 10 people you'd see in the city centre sleeping rough, but a couple of years back a local radio dj mentioned how when he stopped to give money to one of them, he heard the guys mobile phone ring. He said he couldn't understand how these people could afford mobiles and there was quite a big debate on the issue of homelessness. As a result I haven't seen any since but we still get quite a few people selling The Big Issue.

A couple of years ago we had loads of Kosovan women begging door to door, they'd always mention Allah swt, but if you told them you'd only given them some money yesterday, they started cursing you, lol. A few shops were also done over by them where I live. I remember coming back from work one day and there were about 3 women on the other side of the road. Despite having really top pushchairs and laden with Next bags, one still came over to me to ask me for money. I just smiled and pointed to the bags. She gave me a really scary look and swore at me, I just walked off... really fast! She was well scary! I told myself I wouldn't be so cocky next time.

I have no issue with them being here, but some don't half take liberties. Things were all up in the air when they first came, but have settled a lot since, but there's still tension and blatant division in our city.

These women you are on about.........are not kosovan, but romanian.......these women are often waiting at the mosque where i read jummah, waiting to ask attendees for money !!!!!!!!! Romanian women are often working for organised crime gangs !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Err, could we ALL kinda cut down a bit on the thinly-veiled racism?

I love gross-generalisations as much as the next guy, but can't we keep it for the Daily Mail Letters Page in the future?

"FHPE" wrote:

These women you are on about.........are not kosovan, but romanian.......these women are often waiting at the mosque where i read jummah, waiting to ask attendees for money !!!!!!!!! Romanian women are often working for organised crime gangs !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yeah ... right..... and Italian women work for the mafia... and Transalvanian women work for Dracula. :roll:

"Seraphim" wrote:

"FHPE" wrote:

These women you are on about.........are not kosovan, but romanian.......these women are often waiting at the mosque where i read jummah, waiting to ask attendees for money !!!!!!!!! Romanian women are often working for organised crime gangs !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yeah ... right..... and Italian women work for the mafia... and Transalvanian women work for Dracula. :roll:

Dracula was a real life character !!!!!!!! how many know that ? !!

Those exclamation marks are giving me a headache.

Thanks Microsoft for no cleartype tuning facility in vista!

Organised crime or not - most of them do not need to beg.

he was BASED on a real life character. he didn't really turn into a bat (as far as I know...)

Santa Clause is also BASED on a real life character. A Turkish geezer (who didn't live anywhere near the North Pole, but DID give grave warnings about global warming...)

what is so hard to believe about some romanian beggers working for organised crime gangs !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I do not think the word "some" was used in the original post...