0: Ronald Reagan 1986
1: Drugs are literally addictive and they don't have any money
2: There's not much else to do when you don't have your own space
3: It is less demoralizing than trying to offer hungry homeless people food and seeing them immediately lose interest
That person asking you for money probably wants drugs. They probably are too distracted to have an actual conversation with you because it has been too long since their last hit. If you have an acquaintance relationship with this person, a protracted conversation should be considered rude because you are preventing their acquisition of change and dollars for drugs. You don't have to take it as an indictment on their character and you can still give them money!
Furthermore I do not think this take is racist when Black homeless people ask you for money. You're still homeless, there's still not shit to do on these streets, you are asking me for money, I know you are trying to get some drugs.
edit: hell yeah i won. i have allocated $40 to central Lexington, Winchester road crack guys to celebrate
22 Comments
modernangel@sh.itjust.works · 9 pts · 1d
Complex topic. I'd add that a lot of drug-seeking stems from trauma. Our society has so very little support for survivors. They need so much more than a meal, a clean change of clothes, and a safe place to shower so they can attend a support group in dignity. Handing a beggar ten bucks for a bottle of booze is by far the cheaper band-aid act of kindness if you're not going put them in psychotherapy.
choihanna@lemmy.zip · 5 pts · 1d
I mean it depends, here where I live almost all homeless people are drug addicts with conduct problems because everyone else is helped by the state (I live in a nice European country), so almost every time someone asks you for money they're visibly tweaking and will become violent if you refuse.
choihanna@lemmy.zip · 4 pts · 1d
Now before anyone comes to argue against this, the only way you get refused for a homeless shelter in here is if you are an agressive person. And that checks out because I know too many people who got attacked by homeless people, they're so common everyone knows them and have a name for each of them. The one that screams at children, the one who crippled a teen boy and broke into someone's house at night because that old lady refused to give him money, the guy who shows his private parts at people in public...
moodymellodrone@sopuli.xyz · 1 pts · 1d
I don’t live in a nice area. Plenty of meth and fentanyl around. Fucking hate uppers. Meth is the worst. Aside from the violent aggression, people get so brain fried and after long time use, it’s permanent. I dunno if it’s the drug, poor life decision making, getting too many TBIs because of the crazy agitated behaviors or what. Even if after detoxing, their level of functioning just isn’t the same.
masterspace@lemmy.ca · 5 pts · 1d
Non homeless people spend more on drugs than homeless people do.
HobbitFoot@thelemmy.club · 1 pts · 23h
Well, if you have enough money for a home, you probably have more money for drugs.
Zwuzelmaus@feddit.org · 4 pts · 1d
Usually Alcohol.
Leviathan@fedinsfw.app · 2 pts · 19h
I'm cool with homeless people doing drugs. This entire system has failed them and relentlessly works against them. Why demonize them for the only source of joy they have left?
story@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 18h
didn't demonize
Leviathan@fedinsfw.app · 1 pts · 18h
I didn't mean you, I meant in general.
Auth@lemmy.world · -1 pts · 17h
Because they do drugs in the middle of the day and engage in anti social behavior like attacking people, screaming, running around naked. It endangers people. Choosing to do drugs makes it exponentially harder for social services to help them into housing and work. Its fair to demonize them for this and say they shouldnt be spending their little money on drugs.
That being said if you think thats positive then go right ahead and give them money. Its just strange to act like you cant see any reason why people might be against it.
Leviathan@fedinsfw.app · 1 pts · 15h
Doing drugs in the middle of the day isn't a problem. Many of these people live with mental issues that give them psychoses which make them non functional without long-term care or simply incompatible with long-term care, they find themselves in the streets with no money and no medication, in pain and end up self medicating with street drugs. We limit the care they get for their mental health issues and then point and say look at what these drug users do on drugs when it could very well be what they do when they're not on drugs.
What I think is if the drugs help them cope with life on the streets and untreated mental health issues, then so be it. Whether you can say that it's the drugs or the unchecked mental health that makes them act out is impossible, but you clearly only want to see a tiny part of the issue.
Auth@lemmy.world · -3 pts · 14h
One of these guys hit a council worker in the back of the head with a brick and killed him. Thats a guy who works every day to the betterment of the country, a guy who has kids and a family killed because people like you with suicidal empathy think its acceptable for mentally ill people to do drugs around the general public. Why cant they be moved out of the city? Why cant they be put in prison? Why are you people so insistent that they must they be allowed to roam freely to snap and attack the general public at any moment. The right may have destroyed my country but they cleaned up the hobo's in the city. If only the left would drop this stupid position of jumping on a sword for methheads.
Leviathan@fedinsfw.app · 1 pts · 5h
So? Sober, housed people do that shit, too. And tons of homeless people use drugs and don't hurt anyone every day. This is a really narrow minded argument.
And? The homeless guy doing drugs to deal with his unmedicated schizophrenia, because people like you love to treat them like a problem that can be ignored and shuffled off might have had a family and loved ones too.
Because that's their home. They are your suffering neighbours.
Because addiction and homelessness are not crimes.
See my previous points.
They just moved mentally ill or chronically suffering people to someone else's neighborhood or threw them in jail to become slaves.
I am one bad diagnosis from possibly becoming a methhead, I am nowhere near to being some rich fuck the right wing cares about.
These are my people, I will protect them. I will not become a traitor to my class for a weak argument from a dickhead like you.
myyass@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 16h
I like your take on this and while I'm not homeless, I get the notion. Sometimes there's no easy solution and this is where it gets interesting.
So say I break my leg in half, yes literally, then I get the most invasive surgery possible, bob the builder came to town and hammered in a big metal rod. The doctors are restricted from prescribing opioids, at least I had enough for pt to get my flexibly back. So I try a few thing and they don't work. I'm In pain all the time everyday--still am. They say more physical therapy? lol for what? A foreign object in my body? It's fused with my body so it's basically amputation with the chance of still having phantom pain. So I became a drinker. I've got enough pain that I can function after drinking half a bottle. So I emphasize with people that likely got into a similar issue. I think the worst thing is people don't believe you. Like here's the xrays, they're fun to look at; and well trying to fight off death on a cold metal slab when everyone you know is thousands of miles away. I'm pretty sure I died that day in the surgery.
Naich@piefed.world · 1 pts · 1d
Buy them food and drink and something for their dog if you are worried about them using your money to buy drugs.
story@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 20h
not worried at all i love drugs too
IWW4@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 1d
Yes
WhoIzDisIz@lemmy.today · 0 pts · 1d
They're probably homeless due to how selfish and shitty the large majority of people are to others (this post being a prime example, IMHO). I cannot blame anybody for trying to escape this crappy excuse of a life where your worth is determined by how much "value" the overly aggressive & insatiably leeching "leaders of industry" can wring out of you.
I don't use drugs or even drink, but I sure AF want to escape this hellhole excuse for an existence (and would if I didn't have others dependent upon my support), so I can only imagine that goes infinitely moreso for those who've reached that level of despair.
BTW I won't give this an upvote even if that's what's expected. This is a truly shitty attack on people who are already having more than enough challenges in their lives.
story@lemmy.zip · 4 pts · 1d
it's not an attack, give them money for drugs jfc just don't set yourself up for disappointment like my sister and delude yourself into a savior narrative because you're used to quests on video games, and then immediately turn conservative because they disappointed you
also i am at least 90% sure that i have more homeless friends than you. yes friends not parasocial avatars for my ideology
choihanna@lemmy.zip · -1 pts · 1d
WhoIzDisIz@lemmy.today · 0 pts · 1d
@story@lemmy.zip
Well, you two certainly have all the answers about me, don't you? And you claim I'm full of myself?
🙄
FWIW, about the only thing you got right about me is that I'm white.
choihanna@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 19h
story@lemmy.zip · 0 pts · 20h
yo i didn't assume you were like my sister, i was only asking you not to be