I don’t really carry cash, but whenever someone asks for any I offer to buy them a meal, or a train ticket or something like that. More often than not I get responses of “really” and I say “yeah! I don’t carry cash but I’m happy to help”. I also got the like monthly transit pass for my city because it’s worth it for me already, and it gives me extra taps I can give out. I’ve got a few people that I’ve helped out multiple times. One person in particular I ended up chatting with for a while and I think was super happy to have the company for an hour or so. I’ve even gotten cash for a few people because it really is so useful. Like folks don’t have IDs and bank accounts. They rely on cash a lot. Our transit system’s cards are also debit cards which is pretty cool. Local mutual aid funds are awesome, but often rely on knowing about them, or just baseline having access to them. There’s so much stigma around helping homeless folk, and giving them cash in particular. Such bs

Once I split a pizza with a homeless guy. I thought I’d made a friend too after a conversation, but he never appeared anymore in the area. Sometimes shelters ship you by bus to other areas when they are full. Maybe he was temporarily in my area or maybe he found a better living situation.

A guy asked me for a couple bucks while I was waiting for my cousin to chow up for lunch. I don’t carry cash but there was a Walgreens down the block with an ATM so fuck it, we walked together. Turns out, he’s been all over the US, he’s been on the streets for most his life and can’t stand being tied down. He was only in town until he scrounged up enough bus fair to get to Alabama where he was going to visit friends. I gave him money, he genuinely said it was too much, but I feel it was fair pay for the story and g the world view. Either way, I hope he’s out there living his best.

My city has homeless all over and you see the same faces often. I’ve had chats and given money to a few of them over the years. I met one guy a while back that said he was just hungry and didn’t really care about money. I went and bought him a sandwich at the grocery store nearby. When I came back, someone else had given him a sandwich already, so I handed it to him and said “now you have dinner covered!”

no, because my country doesn’t have homeless people. and even if it had, they would die anyway because it’s -20c.