Hi Yueshanghaim
Another interesting repaste from you. Do you know that the writing isn't very well done in this repaste? Are you translating these for us from Chinese?
We have a similar problem here in Canada. My husband has offered to take them to a place where good food will be served to them for free. Usually they don't want that.
I had exactly the same experience as your teacher. I gave something to a beggar and when I passed again he didn't recognize me and asked just as before.
Recently laws have been passed here that forbid begging within a certain distance of banks or bank machines. Beggars are not to harass or threaten, or in any way make people feel unsafe. They are also not to block sidewalks. A favourite place to beg is outside a liquor store where alcohol is sold. Here in Canada alcoholic beverages are still sold from government controlled liquor stores, and not in grocery stores and so on, but there are efforts to change that. You can buy wine with your meal in many restaurants. There are other restaurants where children go with their families where no alcohol is offered with meals. There are bars and nightclubs, too, of course.
Very recently it has become possible to buy alcoholic drinks in gambling establishments. I think this is not good, because people can more easily lose their judgement and get into financial troubles. There are always cash machines at these places so they can withdraw money from their bank accounts. The coin operated machines which require no skill and are programmed to entice a "player" to put in more and more money are the most addicting of all. They are deliberately designed to be addicting. It is a great pity. Since a portion goes to government coffers, and a portion goes to charity, and a portion goes to the gambling business, there isn't much willingness to stop these gambling casinos with their "one-armed bandits". It is the poor, the old, the bored or the mentally handicapped or unintelligent people who "play" these machines.
I have read that in India children are sometimes maimed to make them more pitiful so that they will draw more sympathy and get more money. I have seen damaged or retarded children in Mexico with coin cups attached to their wheel chairs, but I've never seen such things here. Here it is as you say, young people or people who really look like they sleep under bridges, have no homes, and probably have lost everything to alcohol or gambling.
As beggars change their behaviour, people on the streets will become more cynical about all of them, and not be willing to give. Here, if you get into trouble there usually is some social safety net to help. However we recently met a family who had been living in a tent in a helpful person's backyard because they had no income and no fixed address. Without a fixed address it is difficult to get help from the social safety net.
Someone told Ben about them and he was able to get the man a little work and allow them to clean up a property he was managing that had been abused. When I saw what a good job they did I suggested he might be able to let them move in temporarily. The man almost cried when he learned about it. This gave them a fixed address, and Ben did their income tax so they would get their family allowance cheque again for the two girls, and could also get some other help. The cheque and help is cut off if you don't file your income tax.
They were so willing and eager to work that Ben looked around for other work for the man, and the woman found a part time job for herself, so they are both working now. The girls are nicely behaved and you can see that their parents have been bringing them up well. They will be able to go back to school this autumn, and Ben decided to take a chance on them as permanent tenants in that house, at a somewhat reduced rate he was able to arrange for them.
They fell into this trouble because the man lost his job, due, he said, to a repetitive strain injury in his hand, arm and shoulder. He used to have a secure job at a government experimental farm, but the place has been reducing staff to save money so he lost his job. They finally moved to a very bad part of town in order to afford a place to rent, but they didn't know just how bad it was. There they ran into thieving that parents allowed, and even encouraged in their children, and drugs, drinking and every kind of bad behaviour. They left without a place to go next and with no security deposit or down payment left so they they could get one. That's how they ended up homeless and living in the now damaged tent. They had become street people. It can happen because of abuse of alcohol, mental illness, drug use, or gambling addictions.
A big rain and windstorm had blown a hole in the tent, so they were now quite desperate. The woman in whose backyard they were living told her friend who lives next door to the house Ben had empty, which needed to be cleaned up after a month-long illegal grow-operation of marijuana did some damage to it. The former tenant had let some friends have it and gone to the coast without telling Ben. Her so-called "guests" suddenly left, leaving lots of useless garbage and junk behind. Maybe they were involved with a gang, and found themselves in danger because of their new grow-op, so they fled.
Anyway, the house is in a truly fine neighbourhood, but is just a "holding property" because the value is in the land, not in the house at all. Some day it will be torn down and replaced with a very expensive view home. It has a marvellous view and everything houses need to have, such as a tight roof and walls, plumbing and so on. It even stands in five acres of fine cherry trees. The woman in the grand house next door knows Ben and she told him the man might be glad of a chance to be paid for cleaning up the mess the house was left in. That's how Ben found out about them, and things developed from there. They are happier and happier all the time, and are planning for a few pets, and keeping the grounds very well.
This story gives you an idea of one way a family here can "fall through the cracks in the social safety net and end up homeless and without government help. These people aren't the kind of people who are "beggars." I know Ben took a chance on them, so I hope they will repay his trust. So far, so good.
Our Faith teaches that "the most despised of men is he who sits and begs." Also that we should be kind, loving, and accepting of all kinds of people, even those who do things that aren't good. The only ones we should not be that way with are "a liar, a tyrant and a thief." He said these three kinds of people think they are fooling you, when you overlook their bad behaviour in your kindness, and they believe they are getting away with it. He said we should let them know that we know what they are about.
I think that many of the beggars you described, and I have seen here too, are doing both things: lying and thieving from us. The trick is to know who is doing so, and who truly needs help. We can only know that, if we come to know the people, as we did this family. Baha'is are taught that we should help those whose circumstances we truly know. It won't help the others to let them get away with their lies, and their stealing from our pockets. We are working to build the kind of a world where everybody will have what they need, and where children will be well and properly raised and loved, so they won't turn out to be bad. We believe this can only happen through a very strong motivating force, which is a new outpouring of guidance from God and we think that has happened.
Anyway, that's my reply to your latest repost, my friend.
Warmly, Mary
