Quote:
Originally Posted by Sliver
I think if one of the panhandlers walked a mile in my shoes they'd have empathy for me and would quit harassing me for handouts so they can go get high and not work all day. Raising two kids, working all day, running a business - that's hard. FFS it's 7am on a Saturday morning and I'm getting ready to head in for some work that needs doing while these guys are snoozing off their hangovers.
A panhandler or bum working to turn their life around? I have a ton of respect for, which is why I donate money monthly to a Calgary mental health charity. That's addressing the right problem in the correct way versus enabling panhandling by naively pretending these are acceptable problems we should ignore.
A guy smoking crack and harassing my wife for a dollar as she's trying to load groceries into her trunk after a ten-hour day that followed four other ten-hour days? Yeah, eff that guy.
I understand the big picture of how mental health, addiction, cycles of family violence, etc. can lead to a myriad of problems of which one or more affects many of these people. That doesn't mean I find it acceptable for these people to loiter in front of a private business deterring customers and negatively impacting people trying to earn a living.
I think that volunteering for a few days at the Kensington Safeway would change your view point or at least give you some empathy for the business owner.
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Brashness of this post aside, Silver is right. Enabling panhandlers does nothing to help the problem, in fact I believe most advocates and organization believe that it's a terrible idea as it only further enables their addictions.