Because I don't care much one way or the other about money, I have given thousands of dollars to charities in the past, including a lump sum of $5000 to a local homeless shelter. But, about a year after that, I went thru a period where I thought I was going to be homeless and my eyes were really opened.
The shelter I donated $5000 to? With no strings attached? A couple of weeks before I thought I would be homeless, I contacted them asking what they could to help a brother out. The only thing they could do for me was to give me a spot on their cafeteria floor and a blanket to spread on that floor to sleep on --- maybe. And, I would have to leave in the morning, taking all my belongings with me --- which is why you see homeless people during the day carrying garbage bags or pushing a cart. Even if they can get into a shelter, the shelter will not let them stay there all day, nor let them store their few belongings there.
It did not take a genius IQ for me to figure out that the shelter's homeless people would have been _MUCH_ better off if people like me gave our $5000 donations directly to homeless people, rather than to their shelters.
You know why homeless people always sell like pee? Most of them hang out downtown because that is where the shelters are. But, the shelters kick them out in the morning and there are no unlocked public bathrooms downtown -- except at the library - which is why, if you go to any downtown library in any major city, you will find homeless people hanging around outside or inside.
To qualify to receive help from the shelter, I would have had to agree to stand on a corner several hours a day begging for donations. Now, just think about the implications of that:
- Having to stand on a street corner restricts your ability to go out looking for a job, which increases the likelihood that you will remain homeless, which ensures that you will be out there on that corner, like every other good ho, day after day, making money that you just turn around and hand over to your pimp. And, just like with pimps, the shelter does not pay taxes on that money.
- Don't even think about getting paid for the time you spend standing on a corner begging for donations for the shelter. The shelter will let you keep just enough of the money you collect to be able to run over to the 7/11 from time to time and buy a coke and a sandwich. This is not done as a gift to the homeless person, but rather provides a legal loophole to avoid having to pay the homeless person a minimum wage while also avoiding the embaressment of a shelter's homeless people collapsing in the street and being run over by passing vehicles.
The shelter works with the state to humiliate the homeless person. I agree with a previous participant here. Donate to _individuals_, not to charities.