Are you a pigeon?

[The Mollusk]

unfortunately he used the money to become a nonce :/

Fair play that is a lot of penny sweets!

[Glebe]

"'Pigeon'? Try being a Generous Seagull, mate! Caw! CAW!"

[flotemysost]

Like many people I rarely get cash out any more unless it's for an occasional specific purpose (taxis or drugs, basically) and I sort of hate that I've slipped into a default response of "Sorry, I don't have any on me" when someone approaches asking for change. I give regular donations to Crisis which feels like a practical option, as I know they do huge amounts of work to help people affected by homelessness. (I've also spent a fair amount in their charity shops over the years - probably the majority of my clothes and quite a bit of furniture/home stuff is from Crisis shops, aside from being a good cause and less wasteful etc. they also just always seem to have really nice stuff, so it's not especially selfless.)

However obviously one of the most damaging aspects of homelessness by far is the complete dehumanisation and being ostracised from society, so stopping and asking if someone's OK and if they want anything to eat/drink (or anything for their animal, if they have one) is definitely valuable, but at the same time it can sometimes just feel really glib and ineffectual and hopeless to ask if someone's alright when they're quite clearly in a very vulnerable and precarious situation, knowing I can just fuck off back to my nice comfortable life once the conversation's over.

But man I'm more conflicted than ever about how best to act, what to do.

From the handful of volunteering in homeless shelters I've done, most organisations stress that as an individual you probably shouldn't try to take it on yourself to single-handedly "save" any person who's on the streets, because frequently alongside homelessness there's numerous other incredibly complex problems and trauma like addiction and abuse and it's basically very very difficult to navigate these things without professional help. Years ago I once called an ambulance after I stopped to ask if someone near Victoria station (who was very clearly not in a good way) was alright and they turned aggressive, then I felt awful because I don't know what sort of a situation they'd be facing after they were (presumably) taken to A&E and maybe that would even unintentionally make things worse.

[Twonty Gostelow]

Just got hooked by the big issue lady coming out of Poundstretcher on way home from office. Only had an hour but she gave it the old bless you blah blah despite showing her I had no cash (who has cash nowadays?). Before I knew it I was waddling off to the cash machine to withdraw a tenner, then queuing up behind some cunts in Greggs to get something shit for change.

Why didn't you just write her a poem?

[Phoenix Lazarus]

Plinky-plonk-plinky-plonk-plinky-plonk-plinky-plonk-plonk.  "Mooullll-dy old dough!"

[chveik]

nah the real pigeons are the people that buy 'let it be' boxsets and shit like that

[Johnny Foreigner]

It's probably from the French, être le pigeon.

I bought a Big Issue beside Kings Cross, several years ago. The woman was telling me about how she slept in a car park, which I found so engrossing that I had not noticed a bit of tobacco being blown out of my pipe and burning a hole in my trousers. I was kind-hearted enough not to ask her for compensation.