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Should We Give to the Homeless?

The last time I gave much to the poor was two summers ago, in Beijing. I spent a satisfying evening tucking money into the rags of sleeping vagrants, or secreting it in their carts as they puffed past.

But in England I am less generous, in recognition of two main problems.

The first is “moral hazard”. By giving a beggar money, we are – by logic – reducing his incentive to get-on-his-bike and seek employment.

Sometimes we can ignore this problem. In China, the pauper will never escape poverty, so incentive reductions are meaningless to him. However much he longs for deliverance he will forever be poor, and the donor can rest assured he is doing a kindness.

At home, on the other hand, the moral hazard risk is more important. We are fortunate enough to live in a country where the rough sleeper – with due resolve – stands a good chance of escaping the street. In Canterbury he can visit the Housing Advice Centre. He can appeal to the Council which has a qualified legal obligation to house the desperate. He can seek a crisis loan from Social Services, or apply for the Jobseekers’ Allowance if eligible. He has the church, and voluntary organisations. But it is a daunting task, and he is depressed, disillusioned and mistrustful. Life in a sleeping bag is miserable, but manageable. If he doesn’t absolutely have to pull himself up, then, perhaps, he won’t. Subsidising his rough sleeping may deter him from taking steps to help himself: he is caught in the so-called “dependency trap”.

The second, perhaps less important, problem that altruists face is the risk of giving money to the undeserving. No-one really wants to give to a beggar who turns out to own a mobile phone, for example. Or who turns out not to be homeless. You may attempt to mitigate this risk by giving only to those your intuition says are needy. But then you encounter another problem: you could be unwittingly depriving the genuinely needy of help. In statistical jargon, in seeking to avoid a “Type 1 Error” you are committing yourself to making a “Type 2 Error”.

Type 2 Errors notwithstanding, even the most eager-to-help would withhold their charity if they thought the chance of committing a Type 1 Error were 0.99, or 0.95. As such the decision to give depends partly on what you personally reckon is the chance of a random beggar being genuinely deserving.

John – writing elsewhere on this site – apparently believes that all who ask are deserving, which would imply that Type 1 Errors were impossible. But I have seen a local beggar talking on his mobile, and heard of a friend being conned out of his jacket, and read of dubious Big Issue sales tactics. I myself was threatened after helping break up a thuggish patch fight on the St Margarets Street corner. This all impacts slightly on my generosity: being made a fool of infuriates me. Surely John – for he is only human too – understands this point?

So those are two theoretical – and slightly overlapping – arguments for not giving to beggars.

In reality, though, I’m not a total rationality-worshipping bastard. I sometimes give a cigarette, or a sandwich, or a pound. But I do so with a sense of unease. It is the same unease that I feel when giving tobacco to the pal who’s trying to quit. I know I should be loyal to the quitter not the craver, but for some reason rightness loses out to… well, not kindness, right?

I do not mean to identify myself with the Kentish Gazette’s red-in-the-face anti-beggar campaign: I am not offended, as they are, by the mere sight of the homeless. But that is not to say we should ignore the issue which is, ultimately, a tragedy.

As an alternative crusade, the Gazette might encourage the Council to follow the example of Brighton and other councils, which have installed official collection boxes across their towns. People are asked to give to these collections – whose proceeds are allocated to local homeless charities – instead of to beggars directly. This potentially bypasses both the problems I have mentioned: charities can ensure that beggars are receiving (to borrow the Big Issue’s motto) “a hand-up, not a hand-out”; while the public can rest assured their money is directed only to the deserving.

How’s that for the beginnings of a solution?