If a homeless person begged you for money, would you give it to them?

If someone is following me, absolutely not. I would be far more interested in getting out of there.

Also, this viral marketing for the new Winnie the Pooh series is super weird.

Depends whether I have money on me or not. I've felt genuinely bad for having no money at hand when a mother and her kid handed me a note asking for some money, presumably because they couldn't speak English. I typically don't give to people just sitting on the ground with a bucket or whatever.

No. I honestly don't trust people with money.

If you have a sign that says you're hungry, I'll buy you a burger. I have no idea what you'll spend my money that I give you on, and the cynic in me says it won't me a productive purchase.

No, I tell them to go away. Most beggers like that are total scammers or end up buying booze, smokes, or drugs with it. I'd help a person even if they weren't homeless but I'm not stupid.

Organized begging is a rather lucrative business. You can do better than minimum wage begging on a corner.

A full time job is increasingly becoming a sucker's game, not to mention more cost to the employer than it's worth.

Dude, your like the third person who's signed up and just posted weird polls in the last month or so. Is this some kind of thing?

Welcome back Hizang.

I don't give money because 95% of the time I don't carry any on me.

If I think a person is genuinely homeless I'll give them some change, but probably not if they went following me. But there's a lot of telltale signs of people not actually being homeless. I've spent enough time in the city to recognize (at least locally) which ones are spending the night on the street and which ones are just running a scam. Example - there's a woman who for the last five years has spent her weekends standing outside a bookstore or near to it, with a childs pram that's always facing the wall so you can't see inside it asking people to buy her food for her and her baby. I've seen her walking the pram from one location to another and there's no baby in that pram.

Matthew 25:40 is the correct answer. In other words, let him have a beer.

Let them eat cake.

Sure, giving feels great. To an extent of course.

Shit... Shit!

SHIT!

But seriously, OP, are you Hizang?

Ha!

If they walk up to me and directly ask for some change, sure. If they start following me around and harassing me, hell no. Luckily, i've never had the latter happen to me so it's not a problem.

I'll gladly dump my pocket change on someone (apparently) in need now and again.

I once had some rude-ass bum come up to me, call me "baldy" and demand some money. I didn't give him shit.

It depends on how it is, but I said no.

Harassing me and following me around? Nope. I'd be more likely to be on the defensive and call the police if some strange homeless fellow were harassing me and following me around. That's some fairly threatening behavior.

Just on the sidewalk, asking for money from any generous passersby? Perhaps.

I don't understand this attitude. If someone feels that a can of Tennents Super will give them a brief respite from their miserable existence I don't get why that'd offend you so much. I mean a case can totally be made that you'd be better donating to a charity that runs shelters or soup kitchens, but I don't think buying a beer is this absolutely awful waste.

And to answer the OPs question, sometimes? Honestly, if I'm having a shitty day I'm more likely to be a scrooge & claim I've no change. I'm not proud of that but hey.

Here's the thing, I know this board is called off-topic, but it doesn't really mean that you're free to just make a new thread/poll any time you have a random thought. Inane polls that aren't likely to generate meaningful discussion are generally going to be considered spam (especially when you make two within about 30 minutes of each other) and will be locked/deleted.