Is it so bad not to give money to a homeless person? But what if they ask for it? Do you feel inclined to for moral reasons? Or perhaps for safety reasons, in the event that they follow you or hassle you in a threatening way?
Panhandling is a huge problem on the streets of Atlanta. I'm quite sure that all of us have had our own personal experiences with this living downtown. The police have recently illegalized such actions, but perhaps I have not lived here long enough to notice a difference. I am still getting hassled walking to class nearly every day. Now I do not mean to turn a cold shoulder to the huge population of homeless people Atlanta has. The overcrowded homeless shelters have already done that.
I mean to target the panhandlers. You know, the ones who go out and hustle blue-collar people out of their hard-earned money. These panhandlers are not the ones who truly need the money. This is just one of their hobbies after a day of work in the office. I have heard such horror stories in which people pretend to be paralyzed in a wheelchair just to sucker others into handing out donations. As I was saying, these monsters are giving the true homeless a bad name. The people that need it the most are the ones who do not ask for it. The person living out of a ratty old blanket under the highway overpass needs the money. The nice old gentleman who holds the door open for everyone at the Shell needs it. Several of us are guilty of often confusing the two, so next time you see a panhandler asking you for money on a street corner, leave that dollar in your pocket and take it out the next block for that lonely man sleeping on the church's stairs.
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