system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
CMV: It's impossible to help random beggars just by giving them money

Background: I'm from Germany, so we do not have probably as extreme poverty issues as e.g. the US or other 3rd world countries.

Assumption: While we have a social safety net, which entitles every citizen to a home and money to not starve, I can fully understand that also here people fall through the system. Either due to mental illness, addiction or just bad luck. E.g. the movie "I, Daniel Blake" really shows how easy and undeservingly you can end up like that.

In public transport or on the street I regularly come across beggars/homelss people. I would say there are four categories:

1. Organized begging. These poor souls are basically slaves being owned by a criminal organization. They drive them everyday to there begging spots and collect them in the evening.
2. Drug / alcohol addicts, collecting money to survie/ continue consuming.
3. People with bad luck that are fighting to get out of their tough spot.
4. Scammers / pick pockets / etc. Think this is by far the smallest group.

(1) I think I cannot help at all by giving money. It breaks my heart to see this stuff happening. I heard horror storys of some mother being blackmailed with her kids. I do not understand how the govrment / police is not fighting to help these people. If I give them money, it will not end up with them but with the criminal organization. Yes it might help them not to get punished or something for not making enough money, but that's it.

(2), (3) and (4) are impossible to distinguish. And I can even only distinguish them from (1) by social profiling, e.g. their skin color and country of origin.  
I don't want to finance someone's drug use. It's only enabling and potentially killing them. 

The times where I genuinely thought that a beggar was (3) and believed the story they were telling, I learned later that they were lying. Also I ended up giving away money based on someones charisma, which is probably not a good selection criterion.

This brings me to my view that I cannot contribute by supporting homeless people just by giving them money. It seems just super heartless and not what I expected I would do, when I was a kid.

  
Alternatives I could consider:

* Buying/giving them food
* Giving money to organizations that help homeless people  


Note: In other countries many many more poverty and (3) beggars exists and there it probably makes more sense to give money.
gpt
I mean, obviously this greatly depends on what you define as "help." Even the people in category 2 or 4 will probably enjoy getting your money and will be materially better off to have it than to not have it. You won't be alleviating their poverty or fixing the problems that caused their situation in the first place, but booze money is booze money. 

On the other hand if you're defining "help" as fixing their situation, then you can't do that anyway, regardless of what you do with your money, unless you're a billionaire. The structural problems in society that lead to homelessness and poverty are outside of your reach to fix with the money that you have available to you, and while charity can help mitigate some of the worst outcomes, it can never really fix the problem.