Beggars in the UK

[dowie]

saw a new one today on the overground, some smacked woman walking through the carriages:

"scuse me ladies and gents can I have you attention please, does anyone have any tampons or sanitary products they'd be able to give me, thank you very much for your time"

obviously pandering to the belief some people like to have that they're not even begging for money, they just want a little bit of help... of course some sucker opens up her purse right away and grabs a few coins to pass to the woman. She the proceeds to slowly walk up the carriage pausing/hovering briefly over each passenger (she absolutely reeked too)... All I said was "sorry I left my tampons at home too" and I got a load of abuse off her... could then see her do the same pitch a bit further up the train and sure enough another sucker dips into their purse... honestly the hourly rate of these scumbags is probably getting close to IT contractor rates in the city.

Of course when I got to Haggerston there was another smacked type waiting outside the station... not sitting to the side muttering to passersby but actively standing in front of where people were trying to walk and asking directly. There was another beggar on the train home too though he went for the more conventional "scuse me ladies and gents I don't want to take up too much of your lovely evening but I just want a little bit of change to get into a hostel for the night..."

 

[jaybee]

I see tramps pretty much every day in London no matter which route I take on the commute. I do truly feel the vast majority are in that position out of refusing to get help or sort themselves out.

I also believe a lot are scammers. The worst ones are the ones on the tube. For those who don't know the routine, they basically during rush hour, walk up and down the trains stopping in each packed carriage and give a speech about how their life is hard and if you just give a bit it can help them eat etc. Nobody can hear them. Headphones in, tube noise. They are largely ignored. Some of them walk around with no shoes on and use this as a sob story saying they want to try to raise enough to buy shoes. They wear large backpacks though which have shoes in them. When they've had enough, they hop off the tube and change into their shoes and go try somewhere else.

 

[dowie]

the ones on the tube are 99.9999% scammers

there are plenty of genuine homeless people who sleep outside the furniture stores on Tottenham court road, I've never been approached by any of them for money - they also don't tend to leave their stuff unattended and will often be seen walking around with a big backpack etc.. they mind their own business, they clean their stuff away in the morning (aside from the odd bit of cardboard) then at night time you see the tents go up and the various cardboard shelters..

on some of the side streets though there are pitches where you see Romanian beggars, they don't have any backpack or sleeping equipment with them and they seem to rotate a bit.. the pitch is in the same place outside Planet Organic but sometimes there is an old geezer there, sometimes a woman complete with headscarf reaching her arm out as you walk past giving some pathetic "pleeease sir" - there is no way they're genuine... it is always a Romanian/gypsy type and they're part of an organised group.

 

[geekman]

That's why I have no sympathy for the homeless in the UK when there are so many options here to help them compared to the US. When you look at them over in the US you can see some are generally mentally ill but with no healthcare system like the NHS over there, if you cant work and you dont pay healthcare insurance then on the streets you go to die its a shame.

Whilst the US undoubtedly offers less benefits than the UK, that’s not strictly correct. I work for a US law firm and deal with these kinds of cases every day. If you’re so seriously mentally / physically disabled that you genuinely can’t work at all, help is available. The problem is that it requires effort on the part of the homeless person - you can’t just sit around and let it all come to you automatically.

A small minority fall through the cracks in the sense that they’re not mentally capable of applying for benefits and don’t know anyone who can help them, which I suspect wouldn’t happen in the U.K. The rest lack the patience / willpower or are simply lazy. Just last week I had 2 people who are supposedly too disabled to work tell me that their cases were taking too long to get approved so they had to start working again. One of them is currrently doing 40hrs per week as a bricklayer.....

 

[Zenduri]

Most days in Nottingham I can walk past one every 30 meters down some of the main streets in the city center, literally equally spaced to not intrude on others territory. It's a problem and the police move them on but they are back within 5 minutes. Over the last 5 years there has been a massive rise of homeless and beggars in Nottingham to the point that its a problem now. There has been a massive increase in homeless charities popping up too, with one buying the left over food from Greggs to feed the homeless... I'm sure the money could be spent more wisely than buying Greggs at a discount!

There is one woman who begs for "bus money" every single day and she does get the bus with the money. She has a home ( fact, as she lives in the same part of the city I do) and she pays for the bus ride into town but it seems cant be arsed to pay for bus fare back home and it annoys the **** out of me.