The Homeless - what do you do when they ask for help?

do you have a rule that you follow unequivocally?
do you vary your action depending on the situation?
do you say something back or just keep walking?
have you tried to help someone beyond just giving them some money? what happened?

i always try to give some money when asked - like a dollar or some change, whatever low denomination i have on me

when i get mugged in NYC outside the A train at 12:00 AM, i had been coming back up from a restaurant where a homeless person asked me for money. i gave him everything i had in my wallet (about 5 dollars), so when i got mugged i had no money on me. they ended up pulling a gun on me and shit it was very scary. anyway, it all worked out safe + okay and due to my tremendous superstitiousness i directly attributed that to the charity i gave earlier that evening.

when i got* mugged. i don't get mugged anymore, since i've moved.

If I'm walking down the street with spare change in my pocket and a bum asks me for money, I'll give him some. If I don't have it, which is most of the time, I'll at least empathetically say that i'm sorry I dont have any. I hope that they understand I'm being honest about it.

I gave out money when I was way younger, but then I stopped for a long period after a few bad experiences with sketchy/aggro/methy bums. I just adopted a thousand yard stare. I've never had too much money to spare anyway, so I felt like, you know, handing out money HAD to be someone else's deal.

A couple of times, I'll admit, I gave that stupid "sandwich speech" to my friends. You know "it's better to just pack a sandwich to give to them, because they'll just spend their money on heroin". Seems like a stupid thing to me now though! For fucks sake, count up those nickels and dimes and buy whatever you want with it! Buy crack if that's what you need. All the peanut butter sandwiches in the world won't sooth your drug withdrawals. I think I only took a sandwich with me a few times and each of those times I never gave it to anyone.

One time though, I was walking a bunch of soup cans over to a friend's house and she was going to give them to a food drive and this guy asked me for some change. I was like "shit! i don't have any money, but I've got a can of soup." dude whipped out a can opener and drank it all right there.

I won't like, do things for homeless anymore though. Like, don't ask me to push your wheelchair or give you a ride somewhere or some shit. Although in cases where I've seen a dude genuinely injured, I've called the paramedics.

When I used to leave the suburbs and take the subway to downtown Toronto, I had a self-imposed rule: that I'd give my change to the first person who asked me. One time two folks approached me at once, so I had to divide it up.

Most I ever gave was a $20 bill, to an old woman who didn't even approach me, she was just sitting there in the dark. (An impulsive act on my part; I was drunk and the pub had just closed.)

Still will give money to pretty much anyone who approaches me (doesn't happen very often where I live now.)

I just ignore them nowadays. I used to care til i got a job at a diner where homeless people would constantly come in and bug customers for food, or try and shower in the bathroom, or simply linger outside and harass customers. Once somebody used the bathroom to wash their change. At any rate, when i kicked them out there was a 50% chance they would threaten me.

Outside of that there've been a couple of times where i had leftovers or food and tried to give it to homeless people and they refused it, just wanting money. Plus most of the time the asking for help is "Give me a cigarette!"

I don't have any hard and set rules about whom I give money to, though, if they claim to be hungry I'm more likely to get them something to eat. There are a couple of homeless in my neighborhood who I am far more likeley to help than random homeless ppl downtown.

xp: yeah, that's sorta the general kind of shit that put me off giving money: having to deal with aggro homeless in the context of a service industry job. I think the bums in downtown dc are in general much more chill than the bums I used to encounter in San DIego.

For fucks sake, count up those nickels and dimes and buy whatever you want with it! Buy crack if that's what you need.

otm

If I have change in my pocket I usually give it to the homeless, but for some reason nowadays I almost never do. I usually have $0 or a $20. About a year ago a lady was asking for money and I offered to buy her some food instead since I was going into a coffee shop. I came back out with a coffee and a blueberry cupcake and she got really angry with me. "I don't LIKE coffee! I don't LIKE blueberries!", so i kinda stopped doing that.

i just feel so sorry for these people. in DC in particular, it just seems like a total failure of mental health care. there's a fair share of people who just seem down on their luck but a huge proportion are absolutely out of their minds and in desperate need of real help.

it just seems like a total failure of mental health care.

the mental health care system, i mean.

we must be running into different homeless people! everybody I`ve encountered in dc has been real chill and polite and unassuming.

not to say that they don't have mental health issues or that they aren`t woefully underserved. just that their craziness hasn't shown through quite as brightly as other people I've met.

i bark out NO CASH or NO CHANGE while quickening my stride and not making eye contact

I give a couple of big issue sellers some money when i see them. One of them has given me an xmas card for the past few years.

when i was younger i used to give these guys a buck pretty much any time they asked, i think partly reacting against years of hearing my mom tell me NEVER to EVER give anyone money since they'd just use it to go buy drugs. i remember when i was about 19 a guy came up to me outside the los angeles train station and asked if i could help him buy a ticket. i wound up giving him a huge handful of change.

these days i usually just say 'sorry' and don't make eye contact.

sorry, no eye contact is my norm.

I used to give money when I lived in Melb but the sheer number of homeless in Sacto when I first moved was so alarming I kinda freaked myself out of that pretty quickly. Like the Safeway by my house routinely had at least 5 or 10 hanging outside the door and I was on foot and often getting dark...v quickly felt like a bad idea

It's not as bad now but I haven't really eased up

in Glasgow the chuggers (charity muggers) are the worst and most aggressive.

when they ask me for help i usually house them tbph, unless the background check throws up something dubious.

Im a civil guy and im always polite but the chuggers I just want to tell to fuck off

one time, i think it was like midnight after Oasis at loch lomond in 96? a beggar came up asking for a quid for tea. It was in sauchiehall st. My mate sleeping on the bench while we waited on my dad picking us up. Someone called the guy "young man" and of course straight away he started singing the village people song. We all gave him money for the patter.

My only hard and fast rule is that I don't take my wallet out on the street. Any change or anything $5 and under in my pockets I'll give to whomever asks. If I don't have money, I'll make eye contact and say, "I don't, I'm sorry" and I try not to sound pitying but I don't know if I do that very well. But I'm definitely into eye contact because these are people.

And I guess I have some general guidelines, like if you are a young, white person who does not appear mentally ill, get a job and go fuck yourself for taking money away from the career street drunk one block down, and fuck you for making me think like a Republican. There are a couple of regulars a couple blocks northeast of my work who I won't give money to because one of them just sits there and leers at women all day, and the other aggressively shakes his cup once as you walk by and yells "HAVE A BLESSED DAY." I really shouldn't hold that against him, but I do.

I try to patronize the Streetwise vendors I see on my regular routes. There's a guy who sits against a building along my walk from work to the train whom I fucking adore. He blasts classic rock on a portable radio, shakes his change cup to the beat, and just WAILS the songs at the top of his lungs. He cannot fucking sing to save his life, but he seems like he's having a total blast, so I try to remember to keep some money out for him. I'm also much more likely to give money to women who are pandhandling because damn, can you even imagine what they have to deal with over and above what homeless men have to deal with?

I used to buy coffee for a guy who panhandled outside of the Dunkin Donuts near my school. Once I made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for the grumpy street drunk who used to panhandle in front of my apartment building. He said, "I don't like peanut butter. You got a dollar?" Which was cool - I ate the sandwich for lunch the next day.

I'm 100% down with panhandlers using their money for whatever the hell they want but I did stop giving that particular dude money when I saw him use two bucks to take the bus three blocks. I mean, come on man. That's just ridiculous.

I give whatever cash I've got, which generally isn't much, and I buy the Real Change papers with at least a $5. I got to know a few of the vendors over the years. When I lived downtown, I knit hats and scarves and left them on the sidewalk in a box marked Free. We also lived in the same block as the free mental health clinic and 5 different outreach programs - I got yelled at and spit on many times walking home from the bus stop, really challenging to not take it personally.

Now, since we no longer live downtown, I donate a pile of hats and scarves I've knit plus all the coats/gloves/mittens I can scare up directly to Real Change for their Survive the Streets program. Our current neighborhood has a large transient population and several folks who live in their cars/ancient RVs - most are good neighbors who are welcome to draw water from our outside tap and put their garbage in our bins. I leave our smashed cans out for the collectors. idk, I've gotten through some rough times in the past because people were kind when they didn't have to be. I don't like being hit up with an obvious scam, and the level of rage in some is terrifying, but it doesn't hurt me to give something.

if you are a young, white person who does not appear mentally ill, get a job and go fuck yourself for taking money away from the career street drunk one block down

how do you work out they are not mentally ill?

Didn't you know? All mentally ill people have stickers on the foreheads these days.

I'm talking about the trust fund hippies that roll through town in the summer.

i sometimes give money but mostly say sorry no. people i never give money to are those whose "car broke down" or "just got out of the hospital" or "just got out of jail [points toward jail, shows bracelet]" and "need money to get to [town 20 miles away]" because i feel insulted by how they think i am stupid and wish they would be honest about something for once.

i gave a £10 note over christmas to one of our friendly local drunks/h addicts/etc, it's a pretty nice area and our street alkies are commensurably well attired, good mannered and gracious

it was cold and i took pity and my donation reflects guilt over incapacity or unwillingness to do something useful like get them to a shelter etc

saying sorry no on my part is mostly out of hatred of having conversations with other human beings, i guess that's kind of mean of me if i have money

I probably should have just specified trust fund hippies in the first place instead of claiming to be a judge of someone's mental health. I'm sorry.

im thinking of offering my consultancy services to young homeless mentally ill people, suggest they get rid of the baseball caps and shabby coats and embrace the full rammelzee look in order to fully monetize their mental illness

i sometimes give money but mostly say sorry no. people i never give money to are those whose "car broke down" or "just got out of the hospital" or "just got out of jail [points toward jail, shows bracelet]" and "need money to get to [town 20 miles away]" because i feel insulted by how they think i am stupid and wish they would be honest about something for once.

― veryupsetmom (harbl), Friday, January 18, 2013 6:19 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

i gave money to a just got out of jail guy once, because he appended it with '...and i could really use a drink'

there used to be a woman who would come running up to ppl sitting in parked cars and bang on the window saying she needed money to catch a bus because of her daughter something. Scared the living FUCK out of me at least twice. And I saw her a month or two working the same angle on a diff parking lot a few blocks further away.

i take them out on a boat, teach them how to fish

im thinking of offering my consultancy services to young homeless mentally ill people, suggest they get rid of the baseball caps and shabby coats and embrace the full rammelzee look in order to fully monetize their mental illness

― things that are jokes pretty much (Nilmar Honorato da Silva), Friday, January 18, 2013 11:23 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I don't know if that's directed at me, but when you've got a couple of young, tan, physically healthy looking kids who looked like they just rolled off the lot at a Further show and are asking for gas money because they are traveling through town, I'm pretty comfortable attributing their spare change requests to a lifestyle choice.

needing a drink is ok but don't ask for bus fare because i just saw you doing this last week and you were here is what i'm saying

jaq youre a really cool person

I live in a gigantic old house in the city with 5 roommates. We are all down with each other and have no issues regarding guests. Last night the doorbell rang at 10 pm and I answered it. There was a man and he asked for one of my roommates by name so I invited him in and called the roommate to the door. Turns out he's a drug addict who is recently homeless and needed somewhere to sleep. Of course it immediately became very uncomfortable. Somehow he knew my roommat'es name even though they aren't friends, just the barest of acquaintances. No way this dude was staying in our house. We gave him a beer and subway fare so he could be warm and charge his phone.

Anyways, my roommate was mad at me for letting him in, but why the fuck are homeless drug addicts knocking on my door looking for him? Dang. Last time I let his "friends" inside.

i remember years ago a crying teenage girl said she lost her fare home and needed a fiver. I gave her what i had and hoped she got home ok. I was less cynical then. that was like 20 years ago.

grumble a "sorry, no" cuz i really never do, also hate talking to strangers downtown

I decided v recently that unless I'm going to give money to every panhandler, I can't justify picking and choosing who gets help based on factors like whether I have change, whether I'm feeling generous that day, whether the person truly inspires sympathy, etc (the main factors that have informed my decisions so far). I'll give money to organizations that help the homeless.

that is a miniaturized version of why a welfare state is superior to the randomness/discretion/preference for the photogenically pitiful characteristic of charity assistance

I actually think about that a lot, like who the hell am I to decide who deserves my help (my total bullshit and gross "who is mentally ill" determinations included)? Which is probably why I had so much to say about it upthread. I think about this every day. xp

rarely do so anymore, feel the most tempted by the panhandlers who work busy intersections and walk between the rows of idle cars waiting before a stoplight

used to give a lot more in HK, think I picked this up from someone else's observation but I think there may be a difference in how panhandlers act - in HK, they never ever approached you, would always just sit passively or at most make a kow-tow or hand shaking motion, but they'd never make eye contact. feel like it was 'easier' to give because there wasn't a chance of human interaction beyond maybe a 'thank you.'

but here I'm kind of terrified of entering into a conversation with a panhandler

also much more likely to give to buskers

tempted to say something about shame societies vs guilt societies even tho that binary is dreadfully simplistic

there's also a very strong anti-panhandler strain of thinking among a lot of chinese people I know - runs along the line of, they're faking it! they own houses! they make more than you or me!

i don't like the whole 'check their sneakers, if they're good then they're not homeless' -- wtf is this I mean cmon

probably the worse were the ones who were crippled or maimed or deformed. recall running across a guy in beijing who literally had half his head missing - I think he only had one side of his brain. he was being fed by his 'handler' I guess. also remember a pair on the beijing subway train who had really bad third degree burns all over their upper body/faces; one of them spat on the floor a foot away from me and continued to panhandle

and hearing stories about the triads you never know who actually suffered their deformity or who just was late in paying a gambling debt - like, you'd see people with no arms but both arms were cut off at exactly the same spot, not much scarring, etc. - tough to think about : \

i give smokes sometimes. occasionally change. but i generally don't have either of those things so usually just say "no change, bud" and shrug.

will give a beer to the dude Roger who collects the cans in the park by my house, once took his empties to the nearest liquor store for him because he's barred from there.

although Roger isn't homeless when I think about it. Though he has been in the past for long spells and now lives in supportive housing.

Do we really believe a word out of sleepingbag, folks?

Really?

Seems a strange one to spend energy on.

I buy the big issue and pay over the asking for it, otherwise I'm a carry-on-walking guy

Don't the homeless have a bad enough time of it:

The rough sleeping event will be hosted by the comedian Rob Brydon, with bedtime stories read by John Cleese and busking sets from Liam Gallagher, Deacon Blue and Amy Macdonald.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/dec/09/bob-geldof-john-cleese-join-sleep-in-the-park-event-homeless-edinburgh-scotland

if that doesn't get them off the streets they must be genuine

I tend to give whatever singles or $5 bill I may have on me, but I often don't have cash. whatever they want to use it for is their business, not mine, so fairly indiscriminate.

I do have anxiety about being approached on the street by strangers of any type, though.

that Sleep In The Park thing makes me so annoyed. Homeless isn't about some romantic idealised fantasy of buskers, and it isn't about choosing to sleep rough independent of other social issues (eg substance abuse, familial abuse etc), and it isn't about being able to go back to normal the day after or being able to pull out of the situation if it doesn't work. The event is just pity and misunderstanding under the guise of charity, and while money raised can't be a bad thing, it just seems so... misguided.

John Cleese and Bob Geldof are involved, how could it be good?

You don't like montys?

:)

There is a horrible fucker in my area who is a psycho domestic abuser and a thief, who has tried to reinvent himself as Mother Theresa giving out chocolate and cup-a-soups to homeless people. He is doing it all wrong by posting pictures of homeless people and using insulting + victimising slogans like Beggars Can Be Choosers. It is a fucking mess and he shouldn't even be allowed near vulnerable people because he is seriously dangerous and unstable and has a long history of violence towards women.

by all means raise money for the homeless, god knows they need it, but their energy would be better spent (especially those CEOs doing sleep in the park) canvassing politicians to effect the real political change that could eradicate homelessness. britain had almost 'solved' homelessness prior to 2010, but since the coalition government the spike in rough sleeping has been pronounced...

the best model is finland's 'housing first' approach, of course, but would need some radical political change to start enacting that here. reading the the research on homelessness is infuriating: there's a pronounced drop in rough sleeping post-1997/louise casey and then a rapid uptick again to even worse levels post-2010.... hmmm, wonder why....

the number of rough sleepers in Hull is way higher than i've ever known it, and it's all happened over the last 5 years or so

Same in Leeds, Hudds, Dewsbury and even locally I have seen people who just been evicted. My sister saw someone getting evicted and all her furniture was unceremoniously dumped into her front garden. And she was seated in a chair in her garden all evening, burning the rest of her furniture.

I haven't read the Guardian article yet, so I don't know if it's giving a poor impression of the Sleep In The Park event, given the comments here? Said event is organised by Social Bite who definitely know what they are doing. Their ultimate aim is to effectively end homelessness in Scotland: https://www.sleepinthepark.co.uk/our-plan and as far as I understand their work and its scope and political support I think there's at least a chance of success.

It is obvious that there are significantly more affluent folks about, as well as more indigent about, which means that group in the middle is vanishing

I don't remember much homelessness in Scotland when I lived there because COUNCIL HOOSES.

Is there anything the HOOS cant do

What I meant to say was, of course, was COONCIL HOOSES.

from the guardian article: Scotland, which had almost eliminated homelessness after pioneering legislation passed by Holyrood in 2003, has recently experienced an increase in rough sleeping as welfare cuts have tipped more people into domestic insecurity.

My purely anecdotal personal perception is of a significant increase in rough sleeping in Glasgow city centre over the last year or so. I hope last night was a success (not withstanding the largely dire celebrity guests) with longer-term positive repercussions.

I think the actual event seems a bit tacky in execution, however worthy and necessary and urgent the solutions required are. Like I've seen loads of social media posts, selfies of cold people looking forward to waking up and getting some breakfast and I'm like... no way is this accurate. When you don't have a home you aren't carrying a smartphone to take snapshots and you don't know when your next dinner is and you're sleeping with one eye open because anyone could steal your stuff or harm you. I'm distrustful of "raising awareness" campaigns because generally, people are aware that homelessness is a problem. But to treat it like a novelty and like it exists in a vacuum without other society problems is naive.

I agree with you in general, but just didn't quite have those some perceptions of this particular event. I think the main aim was to make as much money as possible rather than raising awareness. Anyway, the good news either way is that they reached over £3 million apparently and have had over 400 homes donated by housing associations/organisations in Edinburgh and Glasgow.

To direct this convesation away from the UK, where I think that some of the root causes for homelessness are slightly different than where I live (ie: there is more of a social safety net in the Uk for people in these situations)....Homelessness continues to be a horrendous problem in the Bay Area, and by my observations has gotten multitudes of times worse in the past year. The last time I remember it being this bad was when there was a tent city in front of SF city hall in the 80's or early 90's. Though it's possible these numbers have been constant ever since but the tents were relocated to areas I didn't have reason to be in; I'm just not sure, but it sure seems worse. There are tents lining Mandela Parkway in Oakland, which I drove down often in the past several years; There's a huge encampment outside my recording studio, directly adjacent to new condos. Potrero district in SF, which used to be largely uninhabited blocks with some warehouses and then some actual residential houses, is bombarded with tent cities. It's so overwhelming it's unfathomable. It's easy to say that 'affordable housing' will fix this but I don't know that it will. In Berkeley I'm quite positive that the perception that there are endless services for the homeless leads to an increase in the population; anecdotally I've heard that people are sent on buses from out of state to the city.

I give if I have cash in my pocket which honestly is almost never.

if used to work at a diner and homeless would come in. i couldn't let them stay, even if i wanted. they always abused the amenities, they would try to bathe in the bathroom, they would ask customers for their food, they would threaten you when you threw them out. what could you do? in that case, on the job, throw them out.

my general rule is to never engage, but if someone has a friendly enough vibe, i will. i don't smoke so i never have cigarettes. i take the bus so if i have any cash chances are i need it for the bus and can't give it away. people that are just sitting in a spot and asking for something over and over, i just ignore.

i used to see them a lot downtown, all over the place. the stadium was there and they had draconian business laws that ended up turning the surrounding area into an effective ghost town after dark when games were not taking place. now the stadium is gone (demolished like a week ago) and the new one is out in the suburbs. im certain this is having a massive effect on the homeless ecosystem, and it's hard to be optimistic about it when every time i read a story about homeless shelters in Atlanta it is that they are being shut down. meanwhile we have a brand new football stadium and a brand new baseball stadium, each costing over a billion dollars to build, one named after a car and one named after a bank, where people can sit and watch other people hit balls around a field.

You

You actually went there

I've always had a mostly subconscious fear that one day this will happen to me. Not like a big fear, but enough that its a contributory factor to anxiety. If things started to go wrong my ability to deal with navigating to safety would collapse.

I give money if I have any, it depends.

A few years ago I was out with some friends about 7 on a Sunday morning and a homeless man at the bus stop asked if we were selling pills, and my friend sold him two.

two of what?

Two pills!

An old friend of mine has been homeless for most of the last year. I only found out about this recently via a desperate email. I've offered him a place to stay for a few days next week, which is not ideal tbh, but I don't think I could live with myself if something happened to this guy, or if he killed himself. My wife is a bit irritated, which I fully understand - she works from home, she doesn't really know this guy (she's met him years ago but doesn't remember) - I felt as though I was in a position where I couldn't do anything right. So when our current guest leaves next week, he will stay for a few days. I spent a day with him last week. He probably needs mental health resources, a job, I don't know what else. I don't really know what I'm asking, here, maybe I just needed a minute to write down my thoughts. I feel terrible because I know I can't solve the problem, and in trying to do my best to help my friend, I've made my wife unhappy. Shrug sorry

hey ian, it's a really tough position to be in. i have a couple thoughts, from my own experience a couple years ago. but, and i think is common with the topic of homelessness in general, there is rarely an unambiguously correct answer or an obvious thing to do.

one issue is with your partner. just curious, did you ask her about it before inviting the friend to stay, or tell her after offering the invitation? a few years ago i was kind of in your wife's position - my partner wanted to help someone that she had met while doing community jail support work, someone who desperately needed somewhere to stay. i don't actually recall if i was asked beforehand or not, i just know that it felt like i had no choice, which left me feeling a little bit like an afterthought. even if i had been offered the choice, i don't know how i would have turned it down. no one wants to be the reason that someone else is left out on the street.

it was rough, to be honest. she had quite a few mental issues, and then tended to manifest most strongly at night. there were some screaming arguments with her bf over the phone in the middle of the night, as well as some complaints from neighbors because she would step outside for a cigarette before the sun came up and talk to herself quite a bit, and do more phone calls. there was one particularly bad night where she found the alcohol i had hidden away and pretty much drank all of it, including a full bottle of whiskey and plenty more besides. she was struggling. there were also a lot of really sweet, tender moments. she treated me like a son, and i stayed up all night, the day before she left, to do a portrait of her in watercolor. it was very bad and she hated it, but it's indicative of how being around her had added something to the household and changed us. by the time she left, it was my partner that thought it was time for her to go, and me who thought she should stay a while longer. it was very hard.

i guess one key thing is to establish some boundaries around the length of the stay, and it sounds like you've already done that. one awful thing that comes up was wondering what to do the next time that she needed help again. it's one thing to upend your life for a week, but it's hard when you start thinking about it becoming a semi-regular occurrence. it brings up awful thoughts and decisions (things that are so uncomfortable that i think it's why so many people avoid helping the homeless in the first place). you would want them to leave your household on steady ground, some sort of hope for the future, a reliable job, better housing situation, something, anything. often, the reality of it is much, much worse. the person who was staying with ended up going back to her abusive boyfriend. we spent days trying to talk her out of it, and she did it anyway. it was horrible.

sorry if all of this sounds negative or hopeless. you said "i feel terrible because i know i can't solve the problem", and that sums up a lot of my thoughts too. you will probably not be able to solve your friend's problems entirely, or maybe not at all. but you can be there for him during this really difficult time, for at least a while, and do your best to give him support and a nudge in a better direction. as for your wife, she may very well be pissed for a while, and i'm sure at least some people reading this would disagree with everything i said and advise not to do it at all if it makes her uncomfortable. if anything, make sure you talk about it some more, before the friend stays, and maybe talk about some boundaries, both in length of stay, making sure your partner is able to do the work she needs to do.

don't beat yourself up too much. it's a very difficult situation.

being someone who has unhealthily tried to be a people pleaser my entire life and often can't tolerate upsetting anybody, I empathize here.

you acted out of goodwill to a friend in dire straits though, and you aren't in a position to solve their problems - but giving them a place to stay for a few days at least gets them in safe quarters and away from harassing police or nefarious people, maybe a little time to clear their head.

I understand why your wife is concerned. but it doesn't sound like your friend is going to be the type to take advantage of your respect.

all I'd suggest is letting yourself off the hook a little - no matter what choice you made, it was bound to upset someone and yourself, but you made the decision you made out of pure compassion, and you didn't over-commit, but kept within acceptable boundaries (a few days). I think you did ok. and I think your friend is lucky to have you.

Thank you both. I did ask my wife before extending the invitation. I think she will be fine, I don’t even think she’s really angry with me. She understands that I’m that kind of person who can’t turn away someone so obviously in need. If I did nothing I would have felt worse, probably.

Ian, I had a friend who dropped out of high school, got kicked out by his parents and was homeless when I was away in college. He froze to death on the streets during a cold winter and I have spent my life since then feeling overwhelmingly guilty for not finding him and helping him when I had the chance. Take that for what it’s worth.

When I was driving to pick up a pizza for dinner tonight, I saw a guy sitting/lying on the lawn in front of a closed business, kind of rocking back and forth and trying to lie down but then getting up. At a glance while I was at the stoplight, he seemed probably messed up, he was contorting his body in weird ways — didn't appear physically disabled that I could tell, but likely on something or other. But what alarmed me was it looked like he just had one layer of clothes on, and just a sweatshirt, not even a coat. It was already 30 degrees at that point and headed lower. I drove back by on my way home and saw he had gotten himself standing but was having trouble staying that way. He had a big backpack and was wrestling with it. I circled back around just to get another look and see if he was still in the same place, which he was.

So when I got home a minute later I did the only thing I knew to do, which was call 911. I know, I know, I would not normally call police on a probably high probably homeless guy. But it's super cold out, and knowing where the shelter is from where he was, even if he had together enough to try to walk there I don't think he would have made it. I was just hoping they could get him inside somewhere. Usually they drop people at the mission if they just need to get inside.

ian nbd at all if you'd rather not share - there are all sorts of reasons, probably most importantly including "none of your damn business!" - but i was just curious how things ended up going with your friend

Hi Karl.

He stayed with us for a few days and it was pretty much OK. No extreme weirdness, I think he is struggling to be normal and put on a lighthearted face. Since then, which was a few weeks ago, I think he has been sleeping on the trains again and spending his days in various libraries. We text every week or so. Sometimes he asks if I can hang out, or if he can borrow some money, but sometimes just to say hi and maintain some kind of social interaction. Another friend and I saw him last weekend for lunch and a coffee. Honestly it's still really hard but I'm not sure what I can do.

This has continued to be incredibly difficult.
I got a call on Thursday night from my friend. He was basically ranting and raving and yelling about how he is going to die and he can't handle being on the streets and the trains and how nobody cares about him and so basically i ended up getting yelled at for an hour by someone i have been trying to help. I sent him some money for a hotel so he could at least get a decent night's sleep and a shower. He was very thankful and seemed to have leveled out when I talked to him the next day. But I can't do this indefinitely. And after the dealing with him having a breakdown and yelling at me on the phone, I really don't think I can let him stay at my house again. I don't want my friend to kill himself, or to be assaulted, but I do not know what to do.

I'm losing my mind.

definitely tread carefully here - although you care about your friend, which is admirable, you yourself can't be fully responsible for his wellbeing or solve his problem. which doesn't mean you should disengage, by any means, but setting boundaries that you are comfortable with and holding to them.

when someone needs help and they're primarily getting it from one source, they will tend to return to that source when they need it. and then that source can get easily burnt out and then they are no longer able to help. the key is to widen the support system so that they have a community rather than a sole individual. Many can do what the individual alone is not capable of.

I will admit to not knowing the best way to do that - does your friend have other friends that you know of that might be willing to help, or are there any groups/organizations in your area that you know of that can provide support?

if he has other resources besides just you that he feels comfortable with, it has the benefit of improving his life, as well as allowing you to continue supporting him without getting overwhelmed and drained.

You're a good person with a good heart - and that can't be said enough. but you also do need to take care of you as well. it's a tough balance knowing where the dividing line is for how much you can give.

are any social services involved here? like, has your friend gotten on food stamps? can people get subway vouchers and things like that? I imagine the shelter scene in NYC is ludicrously overcrowded, this sounds awful and I wish I had better ideas.

So sorry ian, that sounds terrible.

Sleeve - yes, he has EBT so he can eat food. He rejects the shelter system which I guess I understand even if I think it's maybe kinda stupid.

He was just texting me again right now and I'm honestly at my wit's end. I'm not even in NYC right now. I'm with my family because my grandmother, age 92, is injured and trying to recuperate. I can't be somebody's savior and honestly it makes me feel TERRIBLE because I do, genuinely, want to help him get better. But he needs mental health treatment, which he rejects out of hand.

Feel like i'm being emotionally blackmailed here, like it's going to be my fault if this guy kills himself (which he has continued to threaten). And this is, again, someone who pretty much disappeared from my life for about ten years! And somehow I'm the last person speaking to him and willing to help him. But I'm overwhelmed with my own dumb fucking life and I just can't do it.

it is not your fault, and you can't help somebody who rejects the available options

and yes this is emotional blackmail, maybe not intentionally but still what's happening

Yeah man, I have been where you are and frankly you're dealing with your own situation right now. It's ok to prioritize that.

The hard to swallow fact in these situations is that when it comes to harming himself, it will always be possible. No matter what action you take.

You care about it,you don't want it to happen, and it would hurt a lotvif it did, but you also unfortunately don't have a lot of control over it.

The feeling is awful as it can hurt no matter what choice to do.

But a friend of mine said the one thing that cut through to me - "you do not get to consume me to restore yourself". It is not a net positive of rescuing one person sinks another person.

It just sucks because the people who should be helping here (Social services) are hamstrung by budget cuts,a lack of funds, by bureaucrats who don't care about the poor and homeless.

So other civilians foot the bill.

*no matter what you choose to do

Thank you both. I appreciate the perspective and consideration.

<3