Never give to beggars. Ever. For any reason.
If you just feel you must give, give food--something that can't be converted to cash. Nothing pisses off "beggars" faster than giving them a sandwich.
1) Most of the time it's a scam.
Often the individual isn't really that badly off or, if they're children, the money is being skimmed by adults.
2) A lot of the time it's criminal.
Many of these encounters are used to snag your attention while you become the victim of a crime.
3) You are not solving the fundamental problem but you are making the area worse for the people who have to live there and deal with the beggars on a daily basis.
If you have the time, consider taking them out to eat if they're comfortable with it. A little food and time goes a long way.
For almost a half-dozen of my too sympathetic friends, I have introduced them to the local beggar population that they wanted to help by saying: "All right. I'll split it with you. Go there (whatever close food source), buy some form of sandwich and drink--no mayo, and come back and give it to him. He'll still be here; trust me on this."
They have quite the reaction when the cursing starts and the food gets thrown back in their face. It's been sadly invariant.
Someone who is panhandling wants money and they get very angry when you interrupt that process. At least in the US, the panhandlers tend not to be the genuinely homeless--they mostly tend to be scummy people. It's a semi-regular news occurrence for someone to follow a panhandler with a camera to find out they really aren't homeless.
It really makes the political discussion about how to help the "homeless" a lot harder because now you have to deal with "How do we make sure that we help the "homeless" instead of these scummy jerks?" And it's impossible to make the separation--the scummy jerks will always work your system better than the genuinely homeless. It's one of the reasons why I'm generally for the basic income kind of approaches--the scummy jerks can't work your system to the detriment of those who genuinely need it.
In the US at least, the "genuinely homeless" that you could actually help tend to be nearly invisible because they don't want to be seen--getting seen gets you noticed and harrassed.
My belief is that this is a very small percentage of beggars and the videos are so widely shared not because they reflect a common situation but because they make the people share them feel better about walking on by. I don’t actually think that you can determine that someone isn’t homeless just because they don’t want to accept food from you.
Should we be helping these people? Yes.
Is panhandling money really helping these people? Not really.
This article tries to find some numbers and should probably cast doubt on the rich beggar narrative: https://invisiblepeople.tv/how-much-do-panhandlers-actually-...
This is a comforting thing to tell oneself but I don't think it's true.
I probably should have chosen my words a touch better. Beggars are certainly never in a good place in life irrespective of whether they homeless or not. I don't subscribe to the "welfare queens" rhetoric.
However, giving a small amount of money to that particular person right now does nothing to improve the situation. And, in fact, it makes the surrounding area slightly worse for the people who live there by creating an attractive nuisance.
Comforting? Not particularly. My mother had quite bad dementia. Without me around, I could have easily seen a path for her to becoming homeless. This is a huge indictment of our current government and economic system that having a mental health crisis can consign you to homelessness.
> if they're children, the money is being skimmed by adults
This one may vary by country, but I'll stick by it.
Or do it either predictably infrequently (major holidays or whatever) or truly randomly.
If daily and at $1/nut, that comes out to $100 per week.
Was it just on some occasions or every morning?
We also don't know how recent this story is. When I was a kid, in the days before gentrification and gourmet-everything, there was a doughnut shop nearby that was like $2 for a dozen. It was way cheaper than regular fast food. I remember thinking what a great discovery it was until I found I couldn't handle more than a couple of them before the sugar was too much for me.
No wonder they went nuts.