If you see a homeless person asking for shelter on a very cold night do you offer him/her ....?

Question

....to stay at your home for the night , until he/she finds accommodation ?

Thanks for your answers .

Answer 1

For your safety and that of your family, I would discourage you from taking homeless people or other total strangers into your home.

Here are a couple of tips for helping the homeless.

1. Financially contribute to a homeless shelter.

2. Volunteer some of your time to work in a soup kitchen.

3. Donate food to local food pantries.

4. Buy books of McDonald's gift certificates and keep them in the glove compartment of your car. You can hand them out to homeless people who say they need money to buy food.

5. You can also carry blankets in the back seat of your car and hand them out in winter to any homeless person you see by the road. (Not a bad thing to carry for safety reasons, too.)

6. Contact your local government or local churches to find out what social services they have available for the homeless. Get all of the contact information onto a single sheet that you can duplicate and hand out.

7. If assistance for the homeless in your area is not adequate to deal with the existing need, don't be afraid to advocate for the homeless. Write to your city council or attend a town meeting and express your opinion. If you belong to a religious organization, you might express your desire to start a ministry for the homeless in your area.

8. Contact local hotels and ask to see if the manager can give you a discount rate if you are paying to put up a homeless person. (This sounds odd, but I have gotten some assistance from some kind hotel managers more than once.)

9. In the United States, many homeless people are veterans. Find out how to contact the local Veterans Affairs office.

Answer 2

If he will die with out my help, I surly will help him. But i will keep him in a locked room. I will ask him all his details.

by next Morning if he can prove his details are correct. I may help him more or else "i will call police".

Police will help him then after :)

Answer 3

That is an extremely tough question!

I have asked people,  taking shelter under my roof in heavy rains,  to step in.  But I decide by looking at them and only if I find them decent...not knowing whether they are homeless or not.

But to offer them shelter for the night?  Though compassionate,  I am very timid.  I am moved by the plight of such people,  but not to such a degree that I open the doors of my house for them.  The most I would do is to give them blankets,  tea and snacks and ask them to sleep in the verandah.  That much I can definitely do!

Answer 4

Unless I am accompanied by lots of people or very near to my house, I would leave them alone.

But if I am, then I would ask them if they need help, and give directions or something.

But home? Probably never...

Answer 5

Very interesting.  I would like to say yes, but all things being equal, I probably would not.

Meta-question: Does the question change if you have something in common with the homeless person (both served in the army, both from the same country and far from home, same religion, same incurable illness, etc.)?  Should it?

Answer 6

i couldn't trust him.

Answer 7

Ones home is an extension of one’s mind and body temple. All who enter become a part of this spiritual domain. The homeless are free radicals, living life with no fixed abode or discipline creates unassimilated electrons.

Negative energy absorbed from the path upon which they have travelled create volatile beings of an undetermined resolve. Yes there are homeeless being whom I offer twenty pound notes in passing, probably why I’m poor, but I do not allow souls other than kindred into my little hub, no matter how modest it may be.

The stark difference between free worldly spirits and free radicals is extreme polarities.

There is a little tale I will share with you. A soldier and son home from war with his friend rang his parents to collect him from the station, and asked if he could bring a friend in a wheelchair, wounded from battle to stay. The parents declined saying as working career persons they had neither the time or financial support to take care of an individual that would require attention and care. The son once more asked his parents to reconsider, but the parents who as good but pressurised people, declined again. They embarked upon the journey to collect their returning son. Arriving at the station they saw a crowd gathered around a young boy who had obviously fallen from a great height with his wheelchair. Chilled to the spine they neared searching around for the presence of their much loved son. Upon closer inspection they were horrified and mortally shattered to find the fallen and dead boy was their son.

Not wishing to encroach upon his parents perfect little world he had cited himself as a friend wondering were he not the son would they devote time to care for an invalid and incapacitated person, and had thrown himself from the roof of the building to his death. A sobering thought..

Answer 8

not in my place...but I will help him find some place.

love

Pluto

Answer 9

No.

If you offer him/her to stay at your place. He/she will stay forever.

I will show him/her the way to the homeless shelter.

You don't donate thousand of dollars to charity so that they could bulid white elephants (homeless shelters).

Answer 10

Hard. Although shelter is basic human right, and I believe anyone and everyone should be entitled to it, there are better, more indirect ways to put a roof over someones head, and they are undoubtedly safer. I think that if you feel bad, support a foundation. It is ultimately unsafe to personally house a homeless person.

Answer 11

absolutely not, esp when you have no idea who that person is, and what they're capable of... asking a homeless person to stay is like asking your house to be robbed, or you to be hurt... I wouldn't recommend it at all..

Answer 12

Sometimes yes, sometimes no. It depends upon many things.

Answer 13

i'd ask the reason behind him being in this situation if he deserves it i won bother  

Answer 14

If I know the person I absolutely offer them shelter and assistance in my own home any night of the year. But for strangers I cannot have them stay in my home overnight, simply because I am very cautious about who I let in my home, homeless or not.

I do make other arrangements for the homeless on cold nights. I have happened across a homeless person a few cold nights in the city and I would usually make a deal with hotel personnel at a cheaper hotel and put them up for a few nights.

Now that I live in the suburbs with my kids, we have a guest bedroom above our workshop and the workshop itself is heated and I have offered shelter to some homeless there. I usually invite them to take meals with us and then they go about their business as they wish.