There was a brilliant rap/spoken word performance that I remember hearing back in 2005 (I haven't found it since) where the lyrics said something to the effect of:

"This homeless guy asked me for money and my friend said, don't give it to him. He's just gonna use it for drugs and alcohol. Then I thought, that's what I'm gonna spend it on."

I remember my dad criticizing our "Obrigkeitshörigkeit" (deference) and I encourage my kids to break some rules.

I look forward to visiting Germany next month and ignoring signs together with them

After I explained what was happening and what I wanted to do my kid said, "Let's go do that now."

I don't think the officer was actually concerned about your child. Ii sounds more they were trying to undermine your attempt of normalising the situation: That people in a community can support each other, even when interacting with state authority.

I presume your child didn't just happened to be there, but that you made it effectively part of the parenting programme.

@scroeser

PS It's a non profit small collective, of which I happend to be part of. Half of us have access to this account.

> "Do you think this is the kind of thing you want your kid to see? Do you think this is good parenting?"

I bet they don't wait for kids to be out of the house/vicinity when they arrest someone who happens to be a parent

I think the fact that the young are asking and seeing is a positive. They’re not learning to be wilfully blind.

A story and an idea.

Pre pandemic, when we went out a lot more and especially up to london, and could afford it, we’d carry little cheap cloth bags to give to street sleepers. If I remember, they contained some sanitary pads for the women (we had a few of each), a small bar of soap, a Mylar (emergency blanket), mini first aid kit, a led micro torch and a cigarette lighter. We didn’t put food in, and the whole thing probably cost a couple of quid as we bought bulk from Costco.

I’d had bad experiences buying food for street people (memorably one guy outside a hospital getting aggressive and rejecting the sandwich and coffee he’d asked me for as it was the wrong sort of cheese, I’m assuming mental health crisis) and these seemed to go well, especially the thermal blanket.

As you say, theres not much we can do for street sleepers, we never know why they’re there and just giving money can be challenging. But these pouches seemed an option for us and we would often hand out a couple each trip.

These days we have a crate outside the front door for delivery drivers and postal workers. It contains water, food bars and a few other thank you items (tissues etc) for anyone who needs them. Thankfully we live in an area where the local teens aren’t likely to steal the lot and we know it goes down well. Those folk get worked hard with no breaks and it seems the least we can offer to support them. Probably costs us ten pounds a month and they save us more than that in fuel and stress.

"Sorry, we don't have time to stop and pick up that litter someone else dropped."

"That person is sleeping there because they don't have a home, and there's not much we can do to help"