GIVE to others and you shall receive blessings...

Good for you Ana! You're heart is definitely in the right place.

I had a situation once where my mom and I were sitting at a light and a black guy was doing the usual sign holding walking back and forth, but he had on good clothes and was probably in his late 20's. Normally, I am not the assertive type person but I was in this particular type mood that day and feeling a lot of self confidence.
So when he walked by, I rolled down my window and told him to come here, of course he thought this girl in this mercedes is gonna give me some money, I had my good guess it had to be for drugs/alcohol, his eyes were glassy. I asked him "how long have you been doing this" he told me how long, I said "what are you going to spend this money on?" he said to go get a meal, I said "why are you out here" he gave me a quick little story, I said you know, you could go get a job and get money and not have to be out here, I said you don't really want this money for food do you? you want it for some more drugs, he was just smiling shaking his head, I said Goodwill is right down the road and I know for a fact they hire anyone even with disablities and they will help you out, I said my mom here worked there and she's in her 70's, he said did you work there, I said yeah and look at the car I'm driving I used to have nothing, (it was funny) he just looked front to back at the car and said if you got this car just from working at Goodwill then I'm there! But then he began to try and flirt more but saw that my mom was there, he wanted to say some more stuff and it wouldn't have been pretty, so right about then the light changed and we took off, my mom said if I hadn't been in this car I think he would have really said some things that might have hurt you, I said I know and I can't believe I just did that but had I been out where there wasn't much traffic or well populated and you weren't in here that might have been a bad decision.

There have been other times where I offer them to take them down the road and buy them a meal or help them get a job, but they usually decline with that, then that usually tells me the money is going to feed into their habit, and I wouldn't want to be doing that. I'd rather show them another way out of their habit, but if they don't want it then thats all there is to it.
I always ask, if they are in that desperate need for money to have to get out on the side of the road begging and they are actually walking which means they are capable of working, they're out there in the blazing heat for hours walking back and forth, I would say they're not too bad of health to be able to do that and if thats the case then they're most certainly able to withstand a job, which there are jobs out there to be had that anyone can get, like I said about the goodwill industries, they hire anyone and a lot of the people there are in rehab or disabled, they can ride a bus to the job, they can get the money they need to get some food, they are taught that working is a good thing for you, etc.

Okay, this subject tends to get me riled up. I know you may think I'm some kind of cruel person saying these things, but I've dealt with these kind of people in my past both casually and personally and I have learned.

I know the type you mean, Kimmie. That's why I usually just ignore them.

This gal was different though. Usually at this intersection the people are in groups of 2 or 3, they're laughing and joking, they're aggressive and go up to cars, they look drunk or high. This lady was all alone. She looked cold and hungry. She did not look like she was a drug user or a drunk. I think she was most likely an abused woman. I've seen a lot of people with signs, no one has ever had the word "scared" on theirs. I think she was scared of her husband or boyfriend and probably left with just the packpack on her back to get away from a bad situation.

Native people in my city are looked down upon. It is hard for them to find work, even if they are educated no one wants to hire them. I hired a native guy as a tech in my company once. He was educated, clean-cut, polite and hard working. It was a disaster. Customers were refusing to let him into their home and calling me saying "I don't want a lazy indian cleaning my carpets". This was before giving him a chance - natives here are branded as lazy and stupid. I hated seeing this happen, and could not fire him, he resigned after a couple of months because he knew that he was hurting the company just by being born of the "wrong" race. Same with East Indians here. I hired a Canadian born East Indian guy once, same thing happened with him - got calls "I don't want a hindu in my house". He also resigned. The East Indians here aren't even Hindu, they are Sikh for the most part, but the term hindu is used here as a derogatory slur against them.

Anyhow, this woman, being young, native, female and timid - she has very little chance of getting hired anywhere here. She had a scared look in her eyes - like an abused animal, she took the $5 and walked away with her head down. She never made eye contact with me, almost like she was feeling that she wasn't good enough to look at a white person. Native women are like that here.

Native women in Victoria are abused by their men more than one could imagine. At the women's transition house I learned that 1 in 4 native ladies are victims of serious domestic abuse. That's only the reported ones. They estimate that it is even higher than that. It is horrible.

Belive me, I don't give to everyone who begs here. We have an epidemic of beggers - its in the news all the time. I haven't given to one in over a year, and the last one was also a young woman who I talked with, she was standing outside a department store crying late at night when I was walking to my car after being out for dinner. I asked her what was wrong, she told me how her husband went crazy and she ran away because she thought he was going to kill her. She had nothing, no purse, nothing. She was well dressed, not a homeless person, but she had bruises on her face. I gave her $100 and told her where to go for help. She had already been to the shelter and was turned away because it was full. That happens here in winter.

Battered women have it bad here. The police don't like to get involved because there is a chance they will be injured or killed. A few months back a man here killed his wife, child and inlaws, then killed himself. The woman had gone to police many times and had been hospitalized from the abuse. She told police that she was afraid for her life. Nothing was done. The night her mom called 911 to say that the man was going to kill the family - she was screaming and crying - the police took over an hour to respond. By then the whole family was dead.

I have been in the position where I have had to call the police when I was being physically assaulted by my ex-husband. They came, saw me crying and terrified, saw "Mr Con Man" making tea and telling them "she's very emotional and very dramatic, she tripped on her own high heels and that's how she hurt her head (I had a cut and a huge lump on my forehead from where he smashed my head into the floor) she's planning on leaving me for some other guy and that's why she said I hurt her. I love her - she's my wife - I would never hurt her". I told the officer to check the records - that this man had been taken to jail on our honeymoon because the hotel staff had called them to report the abuse they heard going on in the room - they didn't even bother to check. I made tape recordings on my cell phone in future abusive situations, took them down to the police station, nothing was done. And I'm a white woman living in the most exclusive neighborhood in the city.

Imagine how it is for a native woman, a poor woman, a timid woman. They don't have a chance. It took 2 years for Child Protection Services to get this man out of my house. You can't make someone leave here. And I had a lease for $2800.00 per month, which if I broke the lease I am responsible for making the payments until the place is rented, which usually takes around 3 months, plus a penalty for breaking the lease, plus all costs to rent the place. And my business is run from my home. This was why I needed him removed, I couldn't just go. I had my son to take care of. Hence going to Child Protection Services to get him removed. 2 years. My son and I went for counseling once a week for those 2 years to deal with the abuse. 2 years it took. Because I didn't have the money for a good lawyer - and he had as his friends some of the toughest criminal defence lawyers in town. He got off before for attempted murder - shot at a guy when he was in his car - got off on some technicality because of his good lawyer. I didn't have a chance fighting him through legal chanels.

So...this is why I gave the woman $5. Thinking back, I should have given her $100 like I did the other woman. I feel guilty now for having spend $40 on a bra instead of giving it to her. I'm going to drive by there again today and see if I can find her. If I can I'm going to give her $100 and a list of all the women's shelters, transition house, and my church. I hope she's ok. I had put it out of my mind how bad it can be - and how helpless that woman really was - and how low she must have been feeling. I don't like to think about what happened to me, I've tried to erase it from my memory, but sometimes it is good to remember so I can remember to be compassionate to others.

Oh I remember all the horrible abusiveness from all the men in my past too and that is exactly what gives me that same compassion for people who I see, and now I have learned by experience how to see through the ones that really are reaching out for help and the ones that are wanting you to enable them to stay in their habit.
I have even taken some in to live with me in the past because I felt so sorry for them. Most of the people I have befriended are the ones that are down and out and much less fortunate than me, because I always thought that I could help them somehow.