The big issue: why can't beggars be choosers?

You have no right to advise or question a homeless person on what they will spend their money on

John Bird, the founder of The Big Issue, has been reported as saying that people shouldn't give money to the homeless in the street. A surprising thing to hear him say, and these reports went on to give the impression that he has turned into a crusty old git of the worst variety, complaining about feckless layabouts.

Of course, it turned out to be not an entirely fair representation, and subsequently he did say that in fact he does give money himself to homeless people. He felt, however, that any money would be better given to organisations than to individuals.

Probably many people will have found themselves nodding in agreement at the original argument, however, and this is an issue which tends to divide people violently, even at Christmas. For every person who will hand over a quid on request, there are many who will say that they never give to individuals, on the basis that they'll only spend it on heroin and Special Brew. It's much better, such people say, to give to organisations, who will use it wisely. Perhaps no more than one in 20 people who advances this argument actually does give to homeless charities, but that doesn't diminish the force of the case.

Giving alms to the indigent is an ancient and a near-universal custom. Probably only in the contemporary Western world is it regarded as unrespectable or indecent to beg; in other times and places beggars have been regarded as pitiable or even worthy of respect. In the Middle Ages, the devout often begged for subsistence, and received it; in many oriental religions, a special place is reserved for those who have taken leave of worldly possessions, and subsist on charity, given by an individual to an individual. Those Hindus who divest themselves of their belongings and take to the road live in the state of sannyasi and are considered to occupy a high state of personal development.

The Western attitude is rather a peculiar one, and I think not a very admirable one. It goes back to an old distinction between the deserving and the undeserving poor. In this case, the deserving poor are the homeless who are unfortunate, who do not drink or take drugs, who are judged capable of being helped by charities. The undeserving are the other sort. The argument goes that the individual giver cannot himself judge whether the figure hunched up at the end of, say, Hungerford Bridge in London is going to take your quid and put it towards his next bout of cheap intoxication, or tuck it into his sock towards a bed for the night. Better to give it to a charity which will do the judging for you.

I don't get it, and I think it's an unattractive attitude to take. I once knew a Lady Bountiful at Oxford who was in the habit, when someone asked her for "fifty pee for something to eat", marching them off to the nearest takeaway for a cheap but nutritious luncheon. She was more detested than you could imagine, largely because when they got back they invariably found that their prime pitch had been nabbed. I wonder that she didn't take soup round.

The point is that you either give money unconditionally, or not at all. A handout is a gift, and not an investment, and you have no right to advise or question a homeless person on what they will spend their money on. Of course, a pound spent in the purposes of half-an-hour's intoxication, a brief insulation from the cold, is not a pound well spent. But homeless people have the right to spend their money, or waste it, as they choose, just as much as anyone else, and once it is given, unconditionally, you must accept that. Anything else is a denial of people's dignity, and you would be better off not giving any money at all.

And the argument that charities suffer when money is given directly to the homeless is a false one. There is no reason why you can't do both. The more rational argument for giving primarily to charities is that it is impossible to be sure that random giving is equitable, that some beggars will be much more successful than others. In my view, one should not give to anyone who obviously tugs at the heartstrings; women with babies. Young girls of winsome and pathetic appearance will probably do all right. Instead, give randomly, and to the completely hopeless cases; smelly old men, smeared with dribble and puke, swearing at phantoms and abusing you as you hand over the coin. They are probably the ones who are really struggling.

One day, Christianity will go, and perhaps Christmas with it. But, for a time, it was a cultural expression of something permanent in human nature, which will remain when religion is forgotten; compassion and love for people whom we don't know. To give money to an individual, as well as a charity working on behalf of a distant, unknowable mass of humanity, is the most direct channel for an emotion of which Christmas is a partial, imperfect expression; an emotion which, heartless as we try to be, doesn't go away after Twelfth Night.

p.hensher@independent.co.uk