Beggars in the UK

Take a wander down Princes St in Edinburgh 1.6 Km length and you will probably see a dozen, mainly East European but I am only going by their looks, and the British ones with a dog.
 
see quite a lot in newcastle.

only ever seen one person who looked homeless in switzerland outside geneva airport and he just asked for a cigarette.
couple of migrants wander around with some printed a4 sheet in german saying they need money for their child they probably don't have since they are never with one.

had one guy on a metro in basel who also seemed to be a migrant try to play a violin next to my sleeping baby :S , theres a sign saying no musical instruments to be played.. guy tried to pretend he didn't speak english, swiss german or german got some really weird looks from other people on the metro but they seemed happy he stopped.
thankfully the baby didn't wake up but what an idiot
 
Hades said:
I rarely give money nowadays as there are too many professional beggars. A couple of weeks ago I was on a train I to London on a Saturday. Sat opposite me was what looked like a typical Romanian beggar woman with a baby in a pram. She was talking on a pristine iPhone. The rain cover was pulled over the pram (it was a hot sunny day) but when I looked closer there was no baby inside, just a bunch of blankets.

She was obviously commuting into work.
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There's some bint in strange garments selling the Big Issue in Whitchurch, looks possibly Afghan. She stays for a few hours near W H Smiths begging , (oops, sorry, selling the Big Issue), then walks to Tesco car park and meets a foreign looking guy in an 18 plate car, goes into Tesco and comes out laden with ten or more carrier bags in a trolley, bulk boxes of strong lager / cider and bulk packs of fags. Dodgy as hell, the more robust tell her to **** off.
 
mikeh501 said:
Manchester is ridiculous. Huge amounts of begging. They want scooping up. I blame the local labour government. Spineless. They only want money for drugs, don’t bother offering food!They get as much food as they want for free and a roof over their heads each night if they want all from local charities etc.
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A friend offers them a few hours gardening work at £10 an hour with a free lunch, and a lift to his gaff and back, after dozens of offers he has yet to be taken up on it. Says it all really. Who mentioned fire hoses?
 
I was working in kensington for a month or so abd every day there was a cluster of
Them on a triangular island one on each side begging from people at the lights.

Id get there early in the morning and they would be sitting in the coffee shops on thier iphones and then assuming the position at rush hour.

Around dinner time they would all get picked up in a black Mercedes and be back again the next day.

It was a massive scam but they must be making money from it
 
Marmot said:
I buy the big issue from time to time. I encourage others to do so as well.
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I haven't seen any sellers in years but I've seen a couple re-appear in the last few months. If someone is settling the big issue does they mean they're legitimately homeless or can anyone get copies of it?

I always assumed it did as most of the big issue sellers appear to be British whereas you never get the more obvious addicts and scammers selling it?

I guess the best thing is to donate to a local homeless charity as you never know if the person is a con artist and/or will spend it on alcohol or drugs.
 
Jokester said:
It’s a good few years ago now but the local press in Aberdeen did an investigation into begging in the town centre and found most were professional beggars taking in £200-400 a day and then went home at night.

Actual homelessness doesn’t seem to have worsened with the downturn. Always been 2-3 folk in the doorways along Union Street sleeping rough.
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Anyone up for actually testing this hypothesis?
I think we'd need a group as if this is a begging gang activity the guy playin the begger may get in trouble.

Pick a few spots one guy or girl dressed up rough does the begging the other 2-3 sit outside nearby coffe shop and keep an eye just Incase.

At 400 a day per begger we could quickly expand with the protection group covering 3 or 4 begging guys.
 
It's definitely becoming more common around here. I get asked for change by the same ones so often I'm surprised they dont recognise me by now.

Some of them are genuine, in that i've seen them successfully ask for change and then head to a chicken and chip shop. Most, especially the Romanians around here aren't. People have witnessed vans driving round 'offloading' supposedly homeless Eastern Europeans, and then picking them up at the end of the day. It's such a problem our local Police actually had officers from Romanian cities come over for a bit to assist them and help form some sort of relationship with them.
 
People seem to conflate homeless people and beggars. While some homeless people do beg plenty of beggars aren't homeless.

The people who announce to an entire train carriage that they need a bit of change to raise enough money to get a space in a hostel tonight are just scumbags. They get a few quid from the carriage and move to the next and are earning a ridiculous hourly rate.
 
Drangueos said:
Also some people claiming benefits can make more money than some working ones.
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This drives me bad

My sister daughter has worked only a few months out her whole life and are government gives her a brand new house with solar panels on the roof + front & rear gardens, Garden shed , Car Parking spaces etc plus god knows how much money just because she got pregnant and had a child..:(
 
Wow some really extreme replies in here..... i've been approached couple times by beggars. One asked for food, other one was like can I have can of beer and the other was just like got any cash I'm little short for homeless place.

None of them were really shady, sleazy or aggresive. To be honest all 3 just seemed like guys who were down on their luck and they looked it.....
 
Rroff said:
I've always seen some - my home town centre usually has 3-5 hanging about with bedding in doorways, etc. and I see easily a dozen while out when I lived in London, elsewhere not seen them quite as much though. I can't say around here I've seen much change maybe a slight increase under the current Tory government but not massively so.

I'd say probably only 20-30% are genuinely disadvantaged and in need of help getting back on their feet though - a certain percentage are there by choice - some of them running scams - and some people just end up back there no matter how much help they get.

If you genuinely want to help then there are several charities that deal with them who always need people and/or while easier said than done the best thing is to get talking to them see what they need - the genuine ones mostly don't mind the company and will appreciate things like food, etc. rather than necessarily money, those desperate for money probably have some pretty serious drug addictions.
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I can help people via charity but when you see them on the street I feel a little bad and its very unlikely you will have food on you to give, also should the police and each council not be doing more to help people.

Like yesterday I was out of town and one short stretch of road I had seen 5, 4 of which had been in middle of the road next to the tragic lights, on the centre crossing or the edge of the road the last one was the only one that was not, he was sitting near a busy are not far from a restaurant.

councils already help with housing and give Jobseeker’s Allowance, why are they not able to help the homeless ???

nearly all town/city have empty buildings owned buy the gov, or buildings that have been left empty for ages which can easily be changed to some homeless centre, to give people a place to eat and sleep instead of the streets and im sure people would volunteer, even if not the unemployed could be asked to volunteer.
I'm sure the council could spare 1 or 2 members of staff to handle the homeless issue, sometime it seams to me the council staff could care less about others.

I think a lot more could be done to handle the problems if they really wanted to.


The people that are not homeless the police should already be aware of who they are and should do more to get them off and charged with fines or prison time.
 
CREATIVE!11 said:
Wow some really extreme replies in here..... i've been approached couple times by beggars. One asked for food, other one was like can I have can of beer and the other was just like got any cash I'm little short for homeless place.

None of them were really shady, sleazy or aggresive. To be honest all 3 just seemed like guys who were down on their luck and they looked it.....
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Never in the history of a post has your signature underneath it fitted so well.
 
2013 said:
I can help people via charity but when you see them on the street I feel a little bad and its very unlikely you will have food on you to give, also should the police and each council not be doing more to help people.

Like yesterday I was out of town and one short stretch of road I had seen 5, 4 of which had been in middle of the road next to the tragic lights, on the centre crossing or the edge of the road the last one was the only one that was not, he was sitting near a busy are not far from a restaurant.

councils already help with housing and give Jobseeker’s Allowance, why are they not able to help the homeless ???

nearly all town/city have empty buildings owned buy the gov, or buildings that have been left empty for ages which can easily be changed to some homeless centre, to give people a place to eat and sleep instead of the streets and im sure people would volunteer, even if not the unemployed could be asked to volunteer.
I'm sure the council could spare 1 or 2 members of staff to handle the homeless issue, sometime it seams to me the council staff could care less about others.

I think a lot more could be done to handle the problems if they really wanted to.


The people that are not homeless the police should already be aware of who they are and should do more to get them off and charged with fines or prison time.
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A lot of homeless also have mental health problems or substance abuse problems. They wouldn't be able to even muster mental capacity to probably claim welfare. I presume some are also homeless by choice because they couldn't hold anything down due to their issues.

Probably donating to a homeless charity or something is the best thing to do really thinking about it.

Efour said:
Never in the history of a post has your signature underneath it fitted so well.
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Sigh....
 
Begging and Homeless are not the same thing.... No one is saying Homeless people do not need help.
I've given money to Homeless people countless times. Upto them if they spend it on booze or anything that keeps em at ease.
 
2013 said:
councils already help with housing and give Jobseeker’s Allowance, why are they not able to help the homeless ???
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I've a relative who does some work with one of the homeless charities from time to time - so many that get help to get off the streets, place to sleep and job placement, etc. but then 6 months later they are back on the streets for whatever reason.
 
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