LogFAQs > #948570122

Emeraldegg posted...

For starters, what is your stance on I guess, correct "protocol" for just like giving to someone on the street if you are approached by someone? I'm not asking for whether you do or not personally, I'm not here to shame anyone that doesn't. But like, the specifics of my discussion was that I personally have a policy where I am more than willing to get the actual physical thing requested of the person (IE food) instead of giving them actual money (within my means), because I don't believe people are trustworthy enough that I can just give them money and they won't use it for "less helpful" purposes. Do you think this is too cynical of me? It's not like I will refuse to help someone within my means based on this skepticism right off the bat, but like I had a guy a while back ask for money so he could get food literally across the street, and I offered to go get the food for him, basically taking his order, and he declined. Is it "okay" of me to then decline to give them the requested money? The person I was discussing this with described this mindset as borderline victim-shaming. Is that truly what I'm doing? If so, I need to re-evaluate my thought process.

Playing devil's advocate here - some would argue that homeless people decline these offers because there's a chance their food could be fucked with. Now, I think that's generally a bad-faith argument given how readily available packaged/sealed food is, but I digress.

Anyway, you did nothing wrong and being called a "borderline victim-shamer" for that is utterly egregious. That's something I would expect from a naive person in their teens/early twenties who has spent very little time around homelessness.

---

The music was thud-like.
The music was... thud-like.