Why (on something happening on the street)

[Kyriakos]

There is this beggar here, who everyday does his thing, always repeating the same progression of sentences. It would translate to: "Due to my state, I cannot work, so am forced to beg. Any help you can give would be really great. Please". I never heard him say anything else.
Up to recently I hadn't seen him - didn't turn to look. But a few days ago I did. He has a mechanical leg.

Now, clearly due to his condition he is eligible for public funds, and I see no reason why he wouldn't have already received that monthly check. So I must assume he has, and decided to also be a beggar. Granted, he may need more money (I don't know how much that check would be; I'd imagine it wouldn't be more than 1000 euros, which isn't great by any means, but livable), yet the tone of his voice makes it very clear he is miserable while begging.

Why, do you think, he does this to himself? I doubt he gets that much more money by begging. Sometimes life really sucks.

I mean, I'd like to believe he is actually a robot, so his creator didn't want to risk the public funding route. But that's not very realistic, although it would make me feel better.

PS: in some other countries (maybe also here too) there seems to be an underworld where some people even deliberately get handicapped so as to be more useful as beggars (human civ #1). Then again I doubt their underworld boss would bother to buy them mechanical limbs, or be fine with just a minimal animation from their part, and monotonously repeating the same sentence. So likely it's not what's going on here.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Didn't we already have this conversation somewhere?

 

[Kyriakos]

Didn't we already have this conversation somewhere?

Good gets around
I think last time I wasn't aware he had a robotic leg.

 

[Samson]

This is the sort of thing that is a bit dodgy to speculate about, but I guess that does not usually stop me. Perhaps some combination of:

Needing the money

If he is getting €1000 and his rent is €990 then gaining €10 is doubling his food budget, which could make the difference between suriving and not.
​

Wanting the money

Similar, but if his rent and food bill is €990 then gaining €10 is doubling his disposable income.
​

Mental illness

Even quite mild, if one has a learned behaviour it can be hard to break out of it. Physical disability can be the etiology of mental illness.
​

Something to do

You say he is miserable while begging, but perhaps he is even more miserable sitting at home staring at a wall.
​

He may not mind it so much

You say the tone of his voice makes it very clear he is miserable while begging, but you could be misreading it. We have all done things for money we do not enjoy, it could be the best option for him.
​

I will also add before you judge a man, walk a mile in his shoe(s). Points of view are very different and we all have to find a way to survive in this crazy world. This is his, and I do not think you or I are in a position to criticise.

 

[The_J]

This can be a circular bureaucratic thing.
- To receive social aid, you need to have a bank account
- to have a bank account you need an address
- to have an address, you need to be able to rent an apartment
- you obviously need money for this, which you might not have, due to lack of social aid before


Some people are also too "proud" to ask for social aid.
In many countries the money you get is also not exactly a lot, you might have trouble finding suitable housing.
Not everyone is elegible either.

 

[Kyriakos]

@Samson

I agree that this is all speculation. However it is imo very unlikely he enjoys begging. It's extremely rare to see active beggars - those that say some phrase - let alone walking to and fro. Usually they are either lying down or standing outside some busy place - a supermarket or similar - and most of the time they have some sign instead of talking. This one moves to-and-fro in the central street here (it's a relatively busy suburb), and repeats the same phrase over and over again, in a very sad tone.

I also doubt his rent is that high. It is pretty easy to get a very nice place with 500 euros/month, for a single person. Maybe the public money is considerably less than 1000 euros, though.

This can be a circular bureaucratic thing.
- To receive social aid, you need to have a bank account
- to have a bank account you need an address
- to have an address, you need to be able to rent an apartment
- you obviously need money for this, which you might not have, due to lack of social aid before


Some people are also too "proud" to ask for social aid.
In many countries the money you get is also not exactly a lot, you might have trouble finding suitable housing.
Not everyone is elegible either.

I think that you only need to show you are related to someone with an address. In Greece the number of homeless is very small, so it's highly unlikely he is homeless.
Having lost a limb definitely makes you eligible for social aid.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

This can be a circular bureaucratic thing.
- To receive social aid, you need to have a bank account
- to have a bank account you need an address
- to have an address, you need to be able to rent an apartment
- you obviously need money for this, which you might not have, due to lack of social aid before


Some people are also too "proud" to ask for social aid.
In many countries the money you get is also not exactly a lot, you might have trouble finding suitable housing.
Not everyone is elegible either.

I got snarked at a few days ago by a social worker/nurse, who seems to think that because I have a mobility-related disability, I should move to a care facility. I was told the same thing two years ago by a nurse, because she was annoyed that I couldn't manage to inject myself perfectly on the first try (I've since been told that I'm not unique in having anxiety and panicking on the first try, not to mention I had the added disadvantage of this being before my cataract surgery so everything was a blur anyway and I couldn't actually see part of what I was attempting to do). She kept yapping that "what if I didn't qualify for home care" when I'd already told her I had. She refused to listen and then stated that I should move to a long-term care facility... and even had one all picked out on the spot (insanely expensive Catholic-run place full of people 25-30 years older than me).

People with that attitude can go to hell, because they just don't listen when told the reasons why a person is in the situation they're in and why they don't want to be shuffled into institutional situations.

Long-term care facilities are death traps. Those are where the vast majority of covid deaths have happened in this province - not because the residents are old, but because the management is stupid and people are careless. And it took far too long for the province to notice and give a damn.

As for pride... some social agencies treat people abominably, either by denying benefits they need, along with the dismissive attitude that goes with it, or the "why don't you just ______" or "Can't you just _______" speeches that make me want to reach through the phone and slap them. It's humiliating to be in these situations, and I remember one month when I hadn't been able to work for ages due to chronic illness and the provincial and federal governments couldn't agree on when my dad was born so he missed the first month of the pension he was eligible for, we ended up having to use the food bank. You have to qualify and register for that, and I felt really frustrated and embarrassed that things had gotten that bad. It's a common thing, I'm told, in people who genuinely need help and aren't just trying to scam the system. Scammers don't feel humiliation.

@Samson

I agree that this is all speculation. However it is imo very unlikely he enjoys begging. It's extremely rare to see active beggars - those that say some phrase - let alone walking to and fro. Usually they are either lying down or standing outside some busy place - a supermarket or similar - and most of the time they have some sign instead of talking. This one moves to-and-fro in the central street here (it's a relatively busy suburb), and repeats the same phrase over and over again, in a very sad tone.

I also doubt his rent is that high. It is pretty easy to get a very nice place with 500 euros/month, for a single person. Maybe the public money is considerably less than 1000 euros, though.

In what kind of neighborhood, though? The first social worker I ever dealt with had the view that I belonged in a single room, minus my cats and 99% of my books, in the part of town where they house alcohol and drug addicts.

I put my foot down and told her, No. I'm not like them. I'm not an addict, giving up my cats was something I could not live with either morally or because they are necessary for my mental health, and I saw no reason to give up my books. I'd find my own place, thankyouverymuch, and she wasn't happy when that succeeded (even though it was in a decent neighborhood, cats allowed, within walking distance of everything I needed, and a bus stop was nearby). In her view, clients do what they're told, and don't get to express preferences.

Obviously I don't know how the system works in Greece. I'm just giving my perspective on what happened 12 years ago and why I advise people not to let social agencies push them around if there are viable options they're reluctant to allow the client to pursue, or if they're pushing options the client can't work with.

 

[Kyriakos]

I got snarked at a few days ago by a social worker/nurse, who seems to think that because I have a mobility-related disability, I should move to a care facility. I was told the same thing two years ago by a nurse, because she was annoyed that I couldn't manage to inject myself perfectly on the first try (I've since been told that I'm not unique in having anxiety and panicking on the first try, not to mention I had the added disadvantage of this being before my cataract surgery so everything was a blur anyway and I couldn't actually see part of what I was attempting to do). She kept yapping that "what if I didn't qualify for home care" when I'd already told her I had. She refused to listen and then stated that I should move to a long-term care facility... and even had one all picked out on the spot (insanely expensive Catholic-run place full of people 25-30 years older than me).

People with that attitude can go to hell, because they just don't listen when told the reasons why a person is in the situation they're in and why they don't want to be shuffled into institutional situations.

Long-term care facilities are death traps. Those are where the vast majority of covid deaths have happened in this province - not because the residents are old, but because the management is stupid and people are careless. And it took far too long for the province to notice and give a damn.

As for pride... some social agencies treat people abominably, either by denying benefits they need, along with the dismissive attitude that goes with it, or the "why don't you just ______" or "Can't you just _______" speeches that make me want to reach through the phone and slap them. It's humiliating to be in these situations, and I remember one month when I hadn't been able to work for ages due to chronic illness and the provincial and federal governments couldn't agree on when my dad was born so he missed the first month of the pension he was eligible for, we ended up having to use the food bank. You have to qualify and register for that, and I felt really frustrated and embarrassed that things had gotten that bad. It's a common thing, I'm told, in people who genuinely need help and aren't just trying to scam the system. Scammers don't feel humiliation.


In what kind of neighborhood, though? The first social worker I ever dealt with had the view that I belonged in a single room, minus my cats and 99% of my books, in the part of town where they house alcohol and drug addicts.

I put my foot down and told her, No. I'm not like them. I'm not an addict, giving up my cats was something I could not live with either morally or because they are necessary for my mental health, and I saw no reason to give up my books. I'd find my own place, thankyouverymuch, and she wasn't happy when that succeeded (even though it was in a decent neighborhood, cats allowed, within walking distance of everything I needed, and a bus stop was nearby). In her view, clients do what they're told, and don't get to express preferences.

Obviously I don't know how the system works in Greece. I'm just giving my perspective on what happened 12 years ago and why I advise people not to let social agencies push them around if there are viable options they're reluctant to allow the client to pursue, or if they're pushing options the client can't work with.

Due to the crisis and other collapse here, I think that 500 euros/month should be ok in a decent neighborhood. I actually am looking for something closer to 350 euros/month, and it wouldn't be bad.
Obviously it wouldn't be bigger than 50-60 sgm, but the building should be fine and you would be in a high floor. 500 euros/month for something of that type would mean next to no time wasted to find it either.

 

[AmazonQueen]

I got snarked at a few days ago by a social worker/nurse, who seems to think that because I have a mobility-related disability, I should move to a care facility. I was told the same thing two years ago by a nurse, because she was annoyed that I couldn't manage to inject myself perfectly on the first try (I've since been told that I'm not unique in having anxiety and panicking on the first try, not to mention I had the added disadvantage of this being before my cataract surgery so everything was a blur anyway and I couldn't actually see part of what I was attempting to do). She kept yapping that "what if I didn't qualify for home care" when I'd already told her I had. She refused to listen and then stated that I should move to a long-term care facility... and even had one all picked out on the spot (insanely expensive Catholic-run place full of people 25-30 years older than me).

People with that attitude can go to hell, because they just don't listen when told the reasons why a person is in the situation they're in and why they don't want to be shuffled into institutional situations.

Long-term care facilities are death traps. Those are where the vast majority of covid deaths have happened in this province - not because the residents are old, but because the management is stupid and people are careless. And it took far too long for the province to notice and give a damn.

As for pride... some social agencies treat people abominably, either by denying benefits they need, along with the dismissive attitude that goes with it, or the "why don't you just ______" or "Can't you just _______" speeches that make me want to reach through the phone and slap them. It's humiliating to be in these situations, and I remember one month when I hadn't been able to work for ages due to chronic illness and the provincial and federal governments couldn't agree on when my dad was born so he missed the first month of the pension he was eligible for, we ended up having to use the food bank. You have to qualify and register for that, and I felt really frustrated and embarrassed that things had gotten that bad. It's a common thing, I'm told, in people who genuinely need help and aren't just trying to scam the system. Scammers don't feel humiliation.


In what kind of neighborhood, though? The first social worker I ever dealt with had the view that I belonged in a single room, minus my cats and 99% of my books, in the part of town where they house alcohol and drug addicts.

I put my foot down and told her, No. I'm not like them. I'm not an addict, giving up my cats was something I could not live with either morally or because they are necessary for my mental health, and I saw no reason to give up my books. I'd find my own place, thankyouverymuch, and she wasn't happy when that succeeded (even though it was in a decent neighborhood, cats allowed, within walking distance of everything I needed, and a bus stop was nearby). In her view, clients do what they're told, and don't get to express preferences.

Obviously I don't know how the system works in Greece. I'm just giving my perspective on what happened 12 years ago and why I advise people not to let social agencies push them around if there are viable options they're reluctant to allow the client to pursue, or if they're pushing options the client can't work with.

I remember one of my friends who was registered blind giving his careworkers hell because they tried to put him to bed at 6PM.
In the end they agreed he'd be "allowed" to put himself to bed when he wanted but without assistance.
Too often social services run things for the staffs convenience or to shave a small amount off the cost.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I remember one of my friends who was registered blind giving his careworkers hell because they tried to put him to bed at 6PM.
In the end they agreed he'd be "allowed" to put himself to bed when he wanted but without assistance.
Too often social services run things for the staffs convenience or to shave a small amount off the cost.

Being put to bed at 6 pm is what you do with babies.

During my last hospitalization (2 years ago), a couple of the nurses came in and turned my lights off at 9 pm and snarked that it was selfish of me to want to stay up - what about my roommate?

Well, I had a number of different roommates during that time, and I'd asked every single one of them if they minded if I kept the light on longer, as I was writing a story (this was a post-NaNoWriMo project in which I'd registered to do 30,000 words in 60 days as a followup to my 2018 win; I'm still working on that particular project).

Not one of my roommates objected, as of course we had a privacy curtain between us and I kept the sound muted on my laptop (thank goodness for wi-fi in that place or I'd have gone nuts from boredom). And if they can have a TV or tablet, why can't I do stuff on my computer?

That's not how these nurses saw it. And since they had 11 pm and midnight stuff scheduled where they would stick needles in me, I saw no reason to even try to sleep before that time.