What's an appropriate gift to give a homeless man?

have you heard of this idea? they call them ‘blessing bags’ http://strongluv.com/blessing-bags-homeless-resources/

Two things greatly appreciated are shoes and socks. Shoes, a nice pair of sneakers. and socks, nice medium thickness wool or cotton.

Help getting back on his feet. I would like a warm shower and shave you can give swimming memberships so he/she can shower their . Also have a couple of resumes printed off and stored on a flash drive. You can also buy him/her a long distance phone card so they can talk to family.

A sturdy tent and a sleeping bag.

Something he may find useful that may actually improve his situation a bit would be an inexpensive (even second hand) tablet computer. Doesn’t have to be fancy; anything that can hook up to the free WiFi outside the local Tires Plus will work. They can charge up at the library or a McDonald’s while they’re getting a $1 coffee.

It’s small, easy to tote around, and he can use it to read library books, search for day labor, get in touch with family members, and apply for social services. The internet is an almost necessary tool for daily survival anymore.

I found a Kindle at a yard sale for $10 recently. There’s also eBay and thrift stores and pawn shops.

I do buy homeless people beer. My intent is to share some of my good fortune and make their life a bit better even if it is just temporary. If that happiness comes in the form of beer so be it.

We also got the odd snow about four months ago and there was a homeless dude pushing a cart on ice. I just ran in the store and bought the best gloves and beanie they had. Cold ears and fingers are the worst.

But I really don’t care. I am not jesus. I don’t want to fix you. I just will do what I can do to make things “right now” a bit better.

What’s wrong with cash?

A sandwich

Serious answer: socks.

I appreciate all the thoughtful responses.

What’s wrong with cash? Well—

• He hangs out by a freeway exit holding a sign. Cash is probably about all he does get.
• I often do give him a small amount, a ten or a twenty. Yesterday was pretty hot, and I gave him an ice-cold Coke.
• He looks like what he is, an old homeless guy. There are probably not many stores he can go into. He’s bound to have security on him in seconds. He’s probably stolen from some of them. I can go into any store I want, but he can’t. I can also travel to stores he can’t get to.
• It’s wasteful when a guy is as likely as not to spend cash on expensive coffees and fast foods just because he wants something right now, instead of getting the most for his money.
• I’d be sorry for it to go straight into drugs.

He also appears to be toothless.

Socks are a very good idea. Thanks. I don’t have hundreds of dollars to spend, but I can afford socks. The gift is not just the item but the trip out to get it and the acts of purchasing and delivering.

Other suggestions are still welcome.

Here is something that a company that I used to work for did. They collected used plastic bags from Walmart etc., and made plastic bed mats to give out to the homeless. They are easy to roll up and carry, they shield the moisture from the ground and are easy to make.

“I often do give him a small amount, a ten or a twenty.”

We define small amount very differently. Twenty bucks is my daily budget after rent and utilities are paid. I generally spend much less since I have to save up for shoes and the dentist out of that 20 a day.

@johnpowell, I realized that as I said it. There’ve been times when I’d have thought having a twenty left at the end of the day was unimaginable affluence. At times I’ve been so broke that I lived on lettuce sandwiches for a week, scrounged pockets to find seven cents and go buy one potato. I’ve also lived on a Silicon Valley high-tech salary times two.

These days I pay a lot of bills, but I rarely spend cash other than for groceries. A twenty will make a much bigger difference to the old guy than it will to me.

The cash he gets normally will buy him a coffee or a cheap cheeseburger. A $20 will get him most of the way to an air-conditioned motel room for the night.

There are still $20 motel rooms left in the country?

Certain places, yeah. It’s more an “unadvertised” rate available when they don’t have the room rented anyway.

For the frequent-fliers. The average tourist isn’t getting that room for $20.

I like the socks idea too and perhaps shoes. Blankets, pillows, even soap and a razor could help. I have no idea how important hygiene is to him. I am thinking about if I were homeless and the things I’d buy first. Which would be booze, cigarettes, and food? I would be too scared to spend the money on other things that I do need. Like toiletries and personal stuff.

I know it sounds odd, but also storage bottles for water to drink and wash with. Backpacks too.

OK, you want to help him but not enable him, the best thing you can do is some of the following:

• Offer him a chance to earn the money, tell him you’d meet him at the self-serve carwash and he can wash and detail your car.
• If you determine him to be trustworthy enough, you can let him earn the money by doing your lawn.
• Have him meet you at a local barber and pay for his cut and shave so he doesn’t look so unkempt.
• Take him out for a sit down meal so he can feel he is still human and have some worth.
• A good but inexpensive watch, he may have to keep time on outreach or church feeding programs. If the watch is not expensive no one will be tempted to steal it and he will not be tempted to sell it.
• A good stout day pack that can take abuse without falling apart.

Start with those, I am sure he will appreciate it, I appreciate you just making the effort and trying to do it to the best effectiveness.

Gift card to a sandwich place nearby, where he hangs out, or if you know he likes coffee, than a gift card for coffee. True he can trade it with someone for cash, but maybe he will be content knowing he can buy a few sandwiches or get a few cups of coffee. It will be one less thing he has to try to get money for.
A sleeping bag does sound awesome as @ragingloli mentioned

@Pandora A sleeping bag does sound awesome as @ragingloli mentioned
It sounds good but where is he going to put it? Will he have to carry it around everywhere he goes? If he leaves it somewhere is it hidden enough not to get stolen? Same with a tent, if someone see it will they call the cops or the city? Anywhere a tent goes he will most likely be squatting. There are strip malls around here that if anyone shows up with a blanket or sleeping bag, it doesn’t make a different how new and clean it is, if they have dirty clothes or appear not to have shaved in a month, they will be asked to leave or be arrested.

To clarify a bit: this guy has been out there for a long time. He won’t be needing the first things; he’s not just starting. I’m sure he knows every free-food place in town—there are many—and where to get clothes and toiletries and take a free shower. Someone left a mattress and box spring near where he camps, and he didn’t need or want them.

I wanted to give him something he could use, that would not put him in jeopardy and also might not be among the usual run of handouts. I know there are or used to be some flutherfolk who’d been in this man’s shoes and could make practical suggestions. My idea was to make it something like a gift and not, say, a box of tissues and a roll of paper towels. But I’m not taking him somewhere alone in my car, and I’m not buying expensive gear that I can’t afford and that will just make him a target. I gave him a bag of batteries once.

Incidentally, I still refer back to this great thread, one of many past on homelessness.

@Jeruba How about an MP3 player or 9-volt battery radio so he can listen to the news, music and sports. edit Maybe you can ask him what he wants or needs? You could invite him to join Fluther. I’ve only been homeless for 2 days in the past 3 years and two weeks in Christmas in 1997 . I never been fully homeless an I am grateful to my family for there help. Someone told me about my social housing and vouched for me and now I have a safe place to sleep. I have my own beautiful apartment for $580 per month.

Huh. I find many of those answers to be rather offensive.

Jokes about bags of cans and using your mom as a reference on a job application. Hilarious. Isn’t that street corner bum funny?

I have friends that are in the homelessness cycle. The biggest problems they have are keeping enough work to pay an acquaintance rent for their tool shed so they have shelter from the mosquitoes at night, and keeping their phone turned on so they can maintain the lawn-mowing jobs they have that pay that rent.

Yeah, I know people who pay $250 a month to sleep in a tool shed.

@Seek, I didn’t like the jokes either, but the article that started it was for real and has been updated recently. It helped me understand something I didn’t know first hand and think a lot about how much closer to the edge many of us might be than we realize.

if you’re planning on giving him a gift, why not ask him what he would like?

I know very little about what the homeless might value most in terms of receiving a gift, but here are my suggestions.

Maybe one of those blow up pillows? The little ones people use for planes? He can deflate it and fold it up in a pocket during the day.

Packaged food. Something that will last. Some dried fruit or crackers in a resealable bag.

A bag of toiletries. Wipes (for the body, like baby wipes) toothpaste, maybe some Chapstick? I’m not sure what toiletries he might appreciate most.

You might want to refrain from giving him caffeinated drinks if he typically doesn’t drink coke and coffee. Caffeine can be aggravating to people who are mentally ill, especially if they are on certain meds. At the same time, if he does regularly drink caffeine then a coffee or coke is probably very appreciated. Just something to think about.

A thermos or insulated lunch bag that can fold down flat.

I know you’re going into summer, but as winter approaches a warm, but light blanket or a warm hat or some gloves would be good (plus socks). Perhaps a waterproof mac that has a hood. Something he can roll up and stick in his bag easily.

And I think it’s really lovely that you are doing this. I’m sure he will appreciate your kind thought. Sadly, homeless people can become almost invisible to some people.

There are some good answers in the posts above. Here are some more ideas:

A used laptop or pad is a great idea. Pawn shops have the best prices.

I would research how, in this guy’s immediate area, one registers for an EBT card (food stamps). He is definitely qualified, but he needs an address other than a P.O. Box for them to send it to him, which presents a second problem. There are places that provide the homeless addresses such as certain churches and homeless shelters. I would contact the church nearest his on ramp to see if he could use their address. A nice lady lady will get better results with the church people than he will.

In order to get an EBT, he also needs an official picture ID, such as a driver’s license, or a state ID. Many states offer State Identification Cards for a fee since 911. I would find out how much the ID is, what he has to do and where to go to get one. But, he is going to need a certified copy of his birth certificate and a Social Security card in order to get one of these. That’s a whole new bag of worms.

No matter what you do, or how involved you wish to get into this, this man can always use transportation to and from better prospects. You could buy him a monthly or annual bus pass. If he has any paperwork showing he is homeless, he might be able to get an annual bus pass from his city or county. In my former county in Florida, they just instituted a program that if someone possesses a county indigent health program card, they automatically get an annual free bus pass, a hard plastic card with their photo embedded, which solves a lot of ID problems as well. You might look into whether or not your county or city offers something similar.

IDs and transportation are huge problems for the chronic homeless and keeps them from many of the indigent programs offered by local and federal government. If you could help this guy solve just one of these problems, it would be more helpful than anything else you could do for him. An EBT card will him about $100 worth of cold, prepared food, ramen and canned goods every month. It helps.

Many shelters and churches won’t touch this aspect of the homeless. It’s too involved, it often takes too many resources. It is much easier to feed and bed the homeless than it is to connect them back into the world.

The reason is that a large part of this population suffers moderate to severe mental illness which goes undiagnosed and untreated resulting in their homelessness. The characteristics of these illnesses aren’t conducive to things requiring the ability to be proactive, to plan ahead, or to make any decisions based on anything other than exigency.

Then there is the problem that, even after they accrue all the things they need to get the IDs to enroll into indigent programs, all their shit is stolen and their IDs with it. Or they lose their stuff, or the cops just take it away while they are at the 7–11, or they are arrested and taken away for a few days and their stuff is missing when they return. And it’s back to square one.

It’s a real shitty life and you just give up after awhile and coast as much as you can until you die. It is no surprise to me that indulgence in a little anesthesia along the way is so common among this population.

You can also find out how to get the guy a free government cell-phone by googling “Obama phone”. These are usually basic phones with free 250 minutes calling time per month with no roll-overs. This can be an invaluable device. If he is willing to give you his info and a safe address it can be mailed to, you can arrange the phone for him on the net.

I don’t know how much time you have on your hands, @Jeruba, but you seem to keep revisiting this theme over the years, so I assume you are interested in real solutions. You might look into what your county has available as to getting these people IDs and transportation and see if anyone is actually speciallizing in this aspect of the chronically homeless.

Don’t think for a minute social services are on this. They don’t provide safe mailing addresses, they don’t help each individual navigate the various obstacles each state has between them and a birth certificate, they don’t leave their desks, rarely look beyond their own county or state for resources and almost never connect with private orgs outside of their immediate geographic area.

There are programs galore for these people, but nobody will take the time to properly connect them because helping someone who really can’t help themselves—due to mental illness, substance abuse, or just failure to thrive— is very, very difficult.

You might look into starting an org that fills in this gap. I might be something you can do in, oh forty years from now ;.), when you retire. A kind of one-stop clearing house specializing in getting ID’s and registering people into programs and transportation and disseminating useful information, like free tuition for the homeless at your colleges. Many of these programs are big secrets for some reason. They pop up and disappear regularly. Constant research is necessary to stay on top of these, but computers and the net are wonderful things. You might have some like-minded friends who would also like to get involved. You might create a model that could be replicated throughout the country. Ransack your book or writer’s club for help. They always seem like nice intelligent people.

Sorry about the length. It’s a complicated problem.

My fear is an iPad or something similar will get him robbed. Maybe I’m too paranoid.

He could get robbed for a pair of socks, too.

If the goal is to help him improve his life in a meaningful way, a cheap tablet will do a lot more than a pair of socks or an airplane-sized bottle of mouthwash.

@Seek I do like the idea that he could be more connected. Don’t get me wrong. I just don’t want him to get hurt. He would need to have wifi access, which I guess he can still get even if he doesn’t go inside a wifi establishment as long as he is in range.

A pair of toenail clippers. Not fingernail clippers, toenail clippers. One tool for for all twenty digits.

Or a small foot care kit, pedicare kit with all the little tools for properly caring for one’s feet, like one of the those kits that come complete in a small, zip-up leather case. Invaluable.

And a small bottle of anti-fungal nail tincture found over the counter at the drugstore. Fungi-nail is a good one. Also invaluable.

I just thought of something that could actually save a life in the winter months, if you live in a place where it gets cold.

When I lived in Sweden, I had one of these for outdoor activities such as motorcycling, hiking and sailing.

It’s a cold weather waterproof coverall with a detachable hood. Fire and police department personnel, military, railroad workers, construction workers, motorcyclists, etc., wear them in freezing weather. They are extremely durable. Dark colors show no dirt. They cost anywhere from $75.00 (Dickies) to $300.00 (Israeli Military). Mine kept me warm in windy, -50F weather. You can sleep on the snow with these and stay toasty with only a T-shirt and boxer shorts underneath.

The Fire and Police Departments in your area might have a few old ones laying around, or the guys might want to donate their old ones, if their integrity has been broken in any way. But they are patchable. These departments often like to get involved in toys-for-tots programs, etc., so I imagine it wouldn’t be difficult to convince them to help the homeless.

If you could hand out a few of these during winter, you might save a life or two. Sew a tag in the collar to remind them to turn it in for re-donation when the weather warms.

A hotel room for a couple of days and spend some time with him. When people live like animals, because they want to or not, they begin to feel less human. Spending some time with a homeless person is a blessing for both of us. There are, of course, some who will turn down such an offer. There are abundant mental illness and addiction on the streets.

@MollyMcGuire that’s a great idea. I can’t think think of anything I would appreciate more than a chance to sleep under a roof and in a bed for a few nights.