Don’t turn away from reality of begging

There is a beggar in the town where I live who appeared on a BBC reality series about beggars.

This may have been a bit of an own goal because now everyone knows she begs because she is an addict, rather than merely hungry and homeless. Don’t give her any money, she’ll only spend it on smack, people say. I’m not funding her habit, they add. The implication is that she is begging as a lifestyle choice. That she is a chancer. A lazy junkie, wrapped up in her nylon sleeping bag on the pavement, with her paper cup in front of her.

I don’t know about you, but I have never withdrawn from heroin. By all accounts it’s pretty unpleasant, so much so that people addicted to it do all kinds of things to prevent it from happening — begging, borrowing, stealing. But the reality is that most people who are begging are not heroin addicts — they are more likely to be alcohol addicts, or just horribly, desperately poor. Overwhelmed. On the rocks.