Wouldn't want to be homeless in this city

I live in Piraeus, a municipality of Greece and part of the capital. Together with the municipality of Athens 45% of the homeless people in Greece live here. I see them every time I leave my house. That is to say, if I choose to see them.

When I first came here from Sweden I was chocked to see all the homeless people, and the amounts of people begging in the street. In the city centre of Athens you can not walk down even one street without passing them. Women with babies, children, men with amputated legs, all crying out to you for just a few cents. Or just looking at you, as if they've already given up and are simply people watching, sitting on the ground with an old can next to them. I wanted to cry. I tried to make sure I had a lot of coins on me so I wouldn't have to pass any of them and not have something to give.

Since then I have changed. I almost never give anything. Why? Right now as I am thinking about this, I cannot think of a good reason. I know that most people around me seem to have good reasons not to. They talk about organized begging; that parents or other grown ups send kids out to beg for money, and then keep it all to themselves and leave the kids in poverty. And about how people from certain cultures don't want to get other jobs or houses. And then there are those who are sure that these people get so much money from what they do, that they are not to be considered poor but actually wealthy!

None of these arguments deal with my initial thought though. Which was that even if some of the money you give goes somewhere bad, it's still worth the risk as some of it might help someone survive the day. And besides, I think pretending not to see people in need is something that, in the long run, is going to make you a bad person. Getting used to not helping is something I am deeply ashamed of.

Something I am going to do from now on is to offer something to eat when people ask for money. That will help those in immediate need but won't support the asses who use children to get rich.

Oh, when I said that 45% of the homeless people in Greece live here and in the centre of Athens, I was only talking about Greek citizens. So you can save your comments on immigration to a later post (It will come up. The thousands of people living in temporary camps around the country will not be forgotten.).