Suppose you've been given the opportunity to help someone. You were given a gift of money to pass on to another, along with three choices of who or what you can hand the money over to.

Choice #1: A homeless person, who became homeless of no fault of their own. This person is being proactive in utilizing resources to better his/her life, but is struggling.

Choice #2: A homeless person, who became homeless of no fault of their own. This person is not doing anything to help him/her self. He/She has given up, even stollen from those who tried to help, and pretty much everyone has given up on him/her.

Choice #3: A Homeless Shelter or an Organization that helps the homeless.


To whom would you give the money to, and why?

I chose option C, cause the organization will help the other two options.

Animal shelter, humans can fend for themselves

Unfortunately, most of the homeless I've
encountered, have drug addiction issues.

I simply refuse to subsidize addiction.

So... I'd chose option #3.

thats to easy its number One the One thats trying...

All very worthy causes, maybe divide the money 3 ways and help all of them if possible. If not, I would choose 2 as the person that in my opinion as needing the most help right now, because they are very desperate, and nearly at the end of their rope.

Thank you, everyone, for your responses. There's no right or wrong answer to this, other than perhaps accepting the money under false pretenses to do with what you want, rather than what you agreed to do with it.

My reason for posting this was a personal reason. In the last two weeks I was faced with a decision to help someone financially to get back on their feet. Only in this situation it was my own money, not money someone gave me to help this individual.

About three months ago, my sister and I decided to help someone she's known for years. At the time, he had a long standing full time job in the community. His home was declared condemned by the County and he was given twenty-four hours to leave the premises.

In exchange for work done on the property, we agreed to let this person set up a tent on the property, rent free so he could save his money and get suitable housing. He failed to comply on his agreement to do work, and later failed to pay rent when told if he isn't going to do work, he'll have to pay rent.

About a month ago, he lost his job due to stealing from the company. Shortly afterwards, I began to notice things disappearing from inside my home. At the time, my doors didn't have locks, so I suspected he was stealing from me when I was at work. My sister and I put locks on the door and said nothing to him of our suspicions, I couldn't prove it, and we didn't want to cause him any more embarrassment or humiliation that he might be feeling.

We decided he had to go, that we couldn't help him any longer because he wasn't doing anything to help himself. Knowing what it's like to be at your lowest point in life, I offered to help with a bus ticket to Kentucky so he could live with his mom. This man, btw, is in his 50's, more or less. I told him to not blow what little money he had left, and that after the 4th of July holiday, we would help him get to the bus station.

Long story short, he had no gratitude for any of the help he received, was actually a little rude and arrogant at times. Continued to blow his money on scratch off tickets, didn't offer to do anything in exchange for the bus fare to his mother's, and broke into my house again when I forgot to lock the door.

The offer to help with bus fare was removed, and he is now living in the woods!

My thought process was much like Duttoneer's. Help the one who is most desperate and nearly at the end of their rope. I wanted to plant a little mustard seed of hope in someone who lost all hope. There was a time in my life when someone did that for me, and that mustard seed grew. It was my way of giving back, or so I hoped.

What I failed to see is that this person doesn't want help, at least not at this time.

There's a saying... "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink." So very true!!

So in the future, if someone were to give me money to help option # 1, 2, or 3... I would choose option #3. Give it to an organization that helps those who want the help.

Couldn't reply earlier, because of night duty.

The way, I always helped the homeless was by visiting charity shops, or donating clothes and unwanted gifts.

Or by donating non perishable food to a charity, which was then given to people sleeping rough.

Also my local football team had shoebox appeals every christmas, collecting toiletries.

Seems I have problems handing money to a person sleeping rough, as from my experience, they are prone to by drugs or alcohol.

To me it is also essential to prevent homelessness by providing affordable housing.

All excellent ways to help Larsi.

I understand the reasons why some/most would choose not to give money to a homeless person. Sadly the general consensus is that they will use it for drugs or alcohol. Which in a lot of cases they do. It's unfortunate that their actions end up reflecting the overall view of those who are homeless. Even in my situation, giving the man money would only have fed his addiction to gambling. But not all homeless people have addictions problems.

Prevention is definitely the best option. Affordable housing, work programs, and shelters to help get people off the street are some of the things the US do. But due to the large population of homeless, and the shortage of those resources, way too many wonder around from place to place. And our government is not as generous as other countries when it comes to helping people.

Down here in the Florida Keys, there is one shelter for the homeless. It's an overnight shelter for those in need to have a dry place to sleep. The idea is that they go out during the day to find employment, which there is plenty, but the majority of them go sit on the beach or wonder around town, begging for money to get their next fix. It's really sad... especially when a lot of them don't want help and they are taking a warm bed away from someone who really does want help.

choice 2 simply because any one can make mistakes when times are rough and we can fall down even at times when we dont appear to be trying we still want to better ourselves if the world looses faith in them people what hope do they have because they are the chosen few and sometimes this world forgets they exist everyone deserves more than one chance dont forget some of them hit drugs and drink because its a coping mechanism some do it to forget most of the people i met when i was homeless was artists and musicians i used to be a confident blood delivery driver everyone smiled at me then i was on streets in complete spinal spasm and the world tarnished me as no good its sad really how fast the world can judge these people not all deserve to be out there

I choose C as well. In fact I do donate money to one here in my city as long as they send me a mailed envelope to send them a check in which I always send $100.

Thank you for sharing. I hope things have turned around for you.

Nice, very commendable Julie!

I'd probably choose #1, if I knew them or was invested for some reason. But annonymously, if possible.

I no longer do number 3, because I've read that the vast majority of the donations go to overhead, rather then going to the actual people who need it. I'd rather see a need and help that person directly if I can. But I would try not get too close or too attached. I've learned that the hard way.

That's a good point about the organizations, I didn't thing about that. So if choosing an organization to give the money to, researching them to find one that helps the people who need it more so than the people who run it would be wise.

Thanks for sharing Bonnie