Fake Homeless: Who's Really Begging on the Streets? | ENDEVR Documentary

Some guys tweeted here, I'm sure I've just given money to a fake beggar. I don't work but would give the homeless my last pound if I knew they weren't fake. Save your money, don't help this loser. Hashtag fake homeless. So from what I can see, the term fake homeless is quite new and it seems to relate to people who pretend to be homeless to get money off the public. I mean, I'm finding reports from all over the country, people getting in taxis at the end of the day, of people using a chip and PIN machine to fleece people out of money. Scammers are exploiting the public, taking people for a ride. All the language around this is really angry. People just, I think, have had enough. They feel like they're being mugged off by everyone that's begging in their local towns, and they're furious about it. There's a lot of animosity against beggars and against the homeless community. So I don't know whether this is a really dangerous time to be homeless in Britain, or if we are living in a nation full of scammers. I've always been aware of begging gangs, but more recently there's been a lot of media attention around individuals begging on the UK streets who people say are pretending to be homeless to get people's cash so just looking into it it feels like quite a lot of these reports are coming from Liverpool there's a bar owner who works on Matthew Street and he says that the problem is so bad there's about 40 people begging every single night and it's actually just stopping people going down there for a drink i'm going to try and get hold of this guy this guy as well definitely not homeless If he was homeless, he wouldn't cover his face, you know what I mean? Really? Yeah, he wouldn't. The bar owner, Jimmy, has agreed to meet. He's convinced all the beggars here are fake. What about that guy there? Definitely not. How can you tell with him? He's come from out of town. How do you know that they're going home? Well, they get into taxis, do you know what I mean? So they've earned their money, they've made their money. They're not homeless. I mean, compared to an average salary, do you think these people are earning the same amount that we are? Yeah, yeah, I think sometimes, some of them, especially on certain weekends, you could make easily £200 a night, easily. Why do you think it's a problem that people who aren't homeless beg? I just think there's too much money to be made. People are generous. Again, in Liverpool, it's probably in their nature. 18 months ago, it probably wasn't as bad, but now it's just getting rife. It's just more and more coming into the city. It's like an epidemic. To get a clearer idea of what's going on here, I approached most of the beggars on Matthew Street that night. Most told me they didn't have permanent accommodation and I didn't see anyone getting in a taxi like Jimmy said. But has begging become an attractive way for people to make cash? Are beggars really earning hundreds of pounds a night? John, who says he's genuinely homeless, told me about some of the tactics used to make money. We look young, so more people try and help us. Could you make more money if you're younger then? Yeah, things like having a dog. You get someone to sit down like us then you get the ones that walk around the ones that walk around will make more money yeah they always make more money okay why is that it's because um they put people on the spot they can make them feel uncomfortable how much money can you make here the most i've made in one day was 120 quid really yeah it's expected now people expect to get money off the sheets it's not just i'll sit on the sheet and i'll see if i can get some money i'll sit on the sheet i I know I'm gonna get some money. That's how it is. It's either this or I go back to crime. I hate being out here, I hate it. I've had enough of it. I don't wanna be begging, I don't wanna be smoking smack or anything like that. I wanna be one of the people going in the clubs, giving them money. Don't get me wrong, I think that there is some element of manipulation involved with a lot of beggars. I think that people do know how to work the system. I think they do know how to make more money and I think they use that to their advantage. but I think that to say that everyone's fake misses the point. There's definitely an organization to it, but that doesn't mean that they're all going back to a plush four-bed house at the end of the day. There's another guy sat here, three more here with a dog. Getting official numbers on this is complicated, but I've got some information from Merseyside police showing over 80% of people arrested for begging in the last three years did have some kind of accommodation. It seems to back up Jimmy's idea the majority of beggars are not rough sleeping. I wanted to speak to people genuinely sleeping rough, like Damien, to see if they think there's a rise in professional beggars. So this is your tent. What's it like inside? It's an absolute ----. There's only about eight people, roughly, that are genuinely entrenched rough sleeping every night. Is that how many people you think are rough sleeping here? Yeah. I mean, I've just seen 20 today. Yeah, you will have seen 20, but there's a difference between people who are begging and people who are homeless. And there's a big difference, you know what I mean? You know what I mean? This is what you look like when you've been sleeping in a doorway for three years. Do you know what I mean? It's not hard to tell you, do you know what I mean? How does it make you feel? It pisses me off, big time. Because it slanders anyone who's genuine. I'm here every day. I don't go home. I've got nowhere to go, do you know what I mean? Seriously, thank you. Liverpool City Council is one of many in the country which says that nobody in their city has to sleep rough. So why is Damien sleeping in a tent in the middle of the city? Have you tried to get help from the council for a house? They say no-one has to sleep rough. Quite right, no-one does have to sleep rough, but no-one else from normal society would be happy being put in a hostel or a night shelter with ******* handbag robbers, with drunks, with the rest of them. So why should I? The homeless situation seems complicated here. But hearing that even rough sleepers like Damien are concerned about professional beggars makes me think there clearly is an issue in Liverpool. So I've been told that Liverpool City Council are setting up a dedicated team alongside the police that's going to tackle the fake homeless problem in Liverpool. I'm just reading an article that sort of details a bit more about it. And it says that this follows a council report which found that only a small number of people who beg in Liverpool are also rough sleepers. That's quite interesting. I've seen that council report. and it detailed that there were quite often more beggars than there were rough sleepers in the city centre and it showed that this fluctuated month on month. I mean in one month, I think it was December around Christmas time, there was about 40 rough sleepers and 105 beggars in Liverpool. So there are obviously people who are coming out of some sort of accommodation or shelter to come and beg on the streets and I think people are concerned about that. I approached Liverpool Police and Council to talk about how they're tackling this issue, but both said they didn't want to be involved. So I've decided to head to the other side of the country to see how one town took on the issue. Looking online, it feels like the first time there was a big media storm around fake begging and fake homelessness was when a man called Ashley Sims from the South West implemented a plan to deal with this issue. He set up a Facebook page called Fake Homeless. He'd take photos of people in his local area and name and shame them, saying, this person's fake homeless, don't give them any money. I mean, that campaign got massive attention in the press from both the local and the national media. And I think that created this narrative that there's hundreds of people across the UK who are pretending to be homeless when they're not and begging and taking the public for a ride. And I think this campaign was almost a catalyst. There he is. It is half past five in the morning and I'm about to go meet Ashley who's taking me on a tour of the town centre and show me how he used to spot people who were fake homeless and how he determined there were genuine rough sleepers in the area. Hiya, how you doing? How many times a week would you get up at this time? Only once or twice, but this is the best way to see them. Ashley believes he can work out who's really homeless by seeing who's sleeping out on the streets in the early hours. anyone else he sees begging later in the day he says is fake homeless and they're outed on his facebook page and this is the main stretch here where they all stay that's Wayne, the rest two there well look now it's 25 to 26 they're leaving now by six o'clock they're gone but is ashley's definition of fake homeless too simple so looking up the definitions of homelessness it feels way more complex than you may actually first assume i think there's loads of situations that people might not realise are classed as homelessness. So, sofa surfing, staying with friends, you know, staying in a hotel or a B&B for a period. If you leave your family home, for example, for a few days, you're technically homeless during that period. Within those categories, there's so many subsections and so many different elements of homelessness. And, you know, looking at the fake homeless issue, what this means is that there are lots of people who may have a roof over their head, who may be in a hostel, sofa surfing, in a B&B, but they're still living a homeless lifestyle. They're still homeless and they may have needs and they may be in a desperate situation that's causing them to beg. And so these definitions just make it clear that it's not as simple as you're not sleeping on this street, you're going back somewhere, you're not homeless. Official statistics show a massive rise in homelessness in the Torquay area. But Ashley says these numbers are inflated. So, why have you taken it upon yourself to try and fix this problem? Nobody else was going to do it. And I said, look, I know how to end this. We're just going to photograph them and they'll dissolve. When I started, there was 20. I took it down to six in three weeks. And how do you tell if someone's a professional beggar? Well, most genuinely homeless don't beg. Really? Yeah, most genuinely homeless don't beg. Who told you that? Genuinely homeless. Many of the people Ashley photographed were living in homeless hostels, which, in his eyes, makes them fake homeless. Do you not think that they're still homeless, though, if it's temporary accommodation? Of course they're not homeless. Of course they're not homeless. Listen, we're in a benevolent country, right? If you see somebody in a shop door with his sleeping bag and cardboard who then picks his sleeping bag and cardboard up and goes home, that's not homeless. Do you think that the photos and the Facebook campaign was the best response? It was a brilliant response. We need to highlight this fact. We'll take the photos and we'll say, this person lives here. We never gave the addresses out, but we said, he lives over the road. not really homeless so Ashley's campaign received quite a lot of attention and not all of that was positive he got quite a lot of criticism as well and in response to that he set up what he's now calling phase two of his plan to tackle fake homelessness in Torbay and that involves setting up a B&B which he claims is to house all of the genuine rough sleepers from his local area this is my B&B okay you've got 26 rooms dining room cooking facilities there's a washer and a dryer. So how many people have you got here now? Seven street homeless, four vulnerable. Ashley introduced me to Joseph who's staying at his B&B. He's been on and off the streets since the age of 16. He took me out to show me where he used to sleep and beg for money. So this is where you used to sleep? Yeah yeah yeah right there. That's one of Ashley's signs there. So Ashley made that and put it up? Yeah. I was the one down here five o'clock in the morning when he put that up because I was the one that jumped up and said what the **** are you doing? He was like It's alright, mate, go back to sleep. I never got photographed, but... Do you think everyone he photographed was fake homeless? No. Some of them were homeless, especially over Christmas. So, yeah, it was wrong to sit there and pinpoint certain people as their fake homeless, because, well, they're not. Do you think he feels guilty? I don't... I wouldn't say he feels guilty. He did put a ******* bomb in a water and stir it, like... I'm concerned that Ashley's methods of determining who's really homeless and who isn't are way too simple. I don't think you can drive around twice a week and have a look at who you can spot in a doorway and say that you know for sure who's really homeless and who isn't in your local area. And I think for him, homelessness is simple. I think he genuinely believes that if you've got a roof over your head, whether that be in a hostel, on a sofa, in a squat, you're not homeless. And now with his B&B, I'm worried Ashley's not prepared enough to take on a very complicated problem. Are you equipped to house someone who's in that vulnerable situation? Don't need to be, it's a B&B. You only need to have a manager who is there permanently and all you need to do is give them facilities to cook or make breakfast for themselves in the morning and that's it. It's not a hostel. And Ashley's approach goes further than just putting a roof over their head. I didn't want them to go begging, so I used to give them the school money every day to go and buy whatever they needed. And it was spice and mustard that I was buying. and I was buying. You give people money to feed their habits so they don't go begging. Is that not counterproductive? No, of course it's not. That was to protect the business fraternity of Torbay and the council are not doing anything to help them whatsoever. No worries. The fact that he's admitting to giving them money so that they can go and buy drugs to stop them from begging just seems completely contradictory and really, really irresponsible. After hearing Ashley's complaints, I did speak to the local council who said they have spent almost half a million pounds on a programme to end street homelessness, as well as supporting a local homeless shelter. Media stories about fake homeless are coming in from all over the country. Cambridgeshire police have said that all of the beggars in one town are fake. I mean, that's a huge statement. They've said they're making substantial amounts of money and they've all got homes to go to. They're taking quite a hard stance as a police force on begging and they're saying that there's enough services that nobody has to be homeless. Walking around Cambridge, it is such a beautiful city and part of me wonders if they're trying to move people out of the city and stop them from begging because they don't want to put off tourists who are coming here. The police team here have agreed to show me what they're up against. Sergeant Missick is in charge. This person here has been one, two, three, four, five, six. At the moment, ballpark figure about 80% of those are accommodated in some way. Really? Yep. Whether that would be their own accommodation. And I think the classic example is a gent there. He's had his own house for as long as I can remember. And at one point he had one of the largest care packages that kind of sits in the city. And he begs every single day and has done for the last five or six years. Cambridge is nice. Cambridge is nice. It's full of people who feel sorry for you and give you money. So that's why I've come here. And the 30 or so names on this board only represents the individuals who regularly cause Sergeant Missick and his team problems. it's just around making it uncomfortable not uncomfortable wrong word making it challenging for them to sort of continue to do that and to say go and get the help in the city there is there's a phenomenal level of service a phenomenal level of people that will help them go and seek the help it's quite interesting to watch members of the public having a go at me and my staff for interacting with them and being quite robust and oh you shouldn't be doing that and going, actually, you don't know what I know. You don't know what's going on, actually. What we're doing here, there's a reason. So what happens if there's someone, the council have tried to help time and time again, the service have tried to help, and you've warned and reported. What happens then? Prison. I'm with two officers, Lee and Richie, as they sweep the city centre, moving people on for begging or sleeping on the streets. There's one down there. OK. Lady in a wheelchair. The woman I'm about to meet has a flat, but chooses to beg and sleep in the city centre. It's just that it's so far away. I can't walk. I can't walk. I can't walk a bit, but I just can't walk far. Yeah. Come on, mate. Give us your hands, please, mate. Just let me have a roll-up, please. Just let me have a roll-up. By taking this hard-line approach to begging, the police say they are pushing people towards local ways to help them. But I'm wondering if it's really that different to what Ashley's done in Torquay. More to do with moving beggars out of sight. You know the score, come on. So tomorrow evening, there will be a bed for you should you want it. You've got feet, you can walk places, all right? Sitting here is not going to achieve anything, is it? So why can't police move people on for just sitting on the streets or begging? Up until 2014, police nationwide relied on a law that was created almost 200 years ago to prosecute street begging. Most convictions result in a fine, which in itself poses a problem, because how are beggars going to pay for that fine? So new laws were brought in, giving police powers to move people on, and all begging is classed as antisocial. Cambridgeshire Police embraced these new powers, but when the Home Office updated this legislation with official new guidelines at the start of this year, it was made clear these powers must not be used to target rough sleepers. And yet a good number of the people I saw targeted did seem to be sleeping on the streets. We're giving them notices because of the antisocial behaviour. One of the ways police are trying to discourage begging is by issuing notices banning people from the town centre. Let me explain. We have several conversations with you every time we're out about the begging. You guys are always sat begging, aren't you? And to be fair, a lot of the time we're lenient about it. Because we're homeless and we're sleeping in the doorway, they've come to give us a dispersal notice that we can't enter the town centre for 48 hours Yeah, because apparently this is unsocial behavior Do you have any any idea where you're going now just will you leave the boundary I feel like neither of the stars of enforcement that I've seen around begging are working It feels like the police have two options. They can either use a law from over a hundred years ago to convict someone of begging or they can use these dispersal powers which doesn't stop the problem it just moves it out of the area for 48 hours and neither of those are an actual solution to begging I've requested information from every police force in the UK to find out how many of these orders were issued against begging or on homeless people but over 80% of forces either didn't respond or said there was no way of finding out of the four forces that did respond with the information I requested. 45% of dispersal orders issued against individuals for begging were classed as having no fixed abode. While this only represents four forces, the government have stated these orders mustn't be used to target rough sleepers. So I find this worrying. And with Cambridgeshire Police taking a hard line, who stands to lose the most? I'm heading to meet Emily, who by all definitions I've heard so far, is a fake beggar. So what kind of accommodation are you in now? It's a roof attic flat. OK. So how often do you come and sit in the streets? I try to turn up every day. This is work to me. OK. But I think some people can have a bad view of people who have somewhere to go and then come out onto the streets and beg for money. And what would you say to them? How would you explain why it's important to you? Well, it's work, like I say. It's a job. It was either this or be a hooker, that's the truth. Really? Yeah, there are not many options for a person like me. Do you get on with other people who are sleeping on the streets? I try to keep a kind of business relationship with those kinds of people. You know, they do what they've got to do and I've got to do what I've got to do. On paper, Emily is fake homeless. She's got a flat that's paid for by the council, she gets benefits every two weeks, and she comes out every day and she begs. But speaking to her, it's clear that she's vulnerable. It's not as simple as one person's fake homeless and they're a con artist and someone else is genuine and deserves help. You know, I'd be really concerned. I'd be scared for her if something like Ashley's fake homeless campaign were to happen here in Cambridge. Having seen how the police in Cambridge have been tackling the issue, I've returned to Torquay, where local businessman Ashley Sims took action against what he called fake homeless people because he felt the authorities were failing. But what do those authorities think of what he's done? Some people would argue that the fake homeless campaign was successful or was a good thing and that this one man did the job that the police weren't doing and what would you respond to that? Do we still see street attacks? Do we still see begging in Torquay? Of course we do. does it help Torquay as a town no it doesn't the fake homeless campaign was disruptive to what we were trying to achieve it's not a simple solution it's not something that should be sensationalized it's a difficult multi-faceted problem that can't be resolved by sticking a camera in someone's face so with strong local arguments against what ashley's done so far i didn't have much hope for his bed and breakfast solution working long term I think maybe Ashley moved everyone here on a good intentions but it's about whether he's sort of continued to help or I've returned to Ashley's B&B and two residents have agreed to speak to me. There's been a lot of things in this building that haven't been dealt with as properly. We've had, we had some begging at our door, looked like he was melting, saying he needed money for spice in the morning banging on our door and things were getting taken, doors are getting kicked in people are stealing things and help them fight each other. We've had someone break their girlfriend up the driveway the other day. We've had people fighting. We've had kicking doors down. Like, this wouldn't happen in a council-bound building. They wouldn't allow it to happen. You'd be straight out. Ashley himself had admitted to me he was giving money to residents to buy drugs to stop them professionally begging, and I wasn't the only one struggling to understand this. So, it's like, yeah, you will help drug addicts for drugs, but you won't help people who actually need help. So, I don't know. It's been very controversial. I'm worried about the vulnerable people he had in his property and if he'd actually broken any laws I've spoken to a criminal lawyer and he said that Ashley's not doing anything illegal and I'm concerned that whether it's the police or the council or a charity there was no one to step in and say this setup is inappropriate There were seven people living in there with complex needs with addictions And he was just giving them money to go and score and saying, I don't care what you do, just, you know, take drugs in here, keep yourself to yourself and don't beg. And I just feel like someone should have had some responsibility to say this is inappropriate. I want to get some clearer answers from Ashley, who I learn has been forced to close his B&B due to funding problems. Take a seat down here. Yeah. So how come you're still here? I just still hang around quite a bit. Did you take safeguarding issues into account when you were here? I did, yeah. What did you take into account? The fact that there may be issues with people getting into trouble. There's no-one allowed in after 11 o'clock. Were people taking drugs while they were staying here? Yeah. Do you not think that you had some responsibility, housing addicts... Yeah. ..allowing them to take drugs inside the property that you were running? Mm. Do you not have some duty of care towards them? Just be aware. This isn't a hostel. I don't have to play by hostel rules. This is a bed and breakfast. You told me in a previous interview that you gave people money to score. That was to stop them begging. Do you think that's appropriate? Yeah. Really? How can you justify that? Because otherwise they would have gone begging. So you were funding someone's drug habits? Yeah. To stop them off the... You're going to fund every drug addict in Torquay? My responsibility is to protect the business fraternity of Torbay, right? That's the reason I did this. Why would I let a kid stay here, go out begging, shoplifting or grafting against the people that I'm trying to protect for the sake of giving him 20 quid? You're taking this high moral ground for I'm managing a building full of addicts and you're saying, do you think you should let them take drugs? ------- hell, of course you're going to let them take drugs. That's what they do. That's why they're in the situation that they're in. That's why they've blown every chance they've ever had. I fear Ashley's B&B was a dangerous reaction to a problem I'm not sure ever really existed. I think Ashley made that easy for people. He took the homeless people off the streets. he said anyone else that you see out begging is fake so that allowed people to not give any money and feel anger towards beggars they saw and I don't think anyone really questioned what was going on at his B&B because it's kind of like out of sight out of mind I think that fundamentally people don't want to see homeless people on the streets whether that's because it makes them feel sad it makes them feel uncomfortable they don't want to give money I think that most people would rather not see it at all. One of the initiatives that's being pushed nationwide is the drive to give money not to beggars but to charities instead. I mean, in Nottingham, the local council released these adverts that were trying to dissuade people from giving money to beggars. I mean, one here says, begging, watch your money go up in smoke. Another one says, begging, watch your money go to a fraud. Beggars aren't what they seem. I mean, they're so derogatory, and they also just label anyone who's begging a fraud or a drug addict. And it's not that simple. In Torquay, Cambridge and Liverpool, I came into contact with more than 50 beggars over several months and none seemed to fit the stereotype of these adverts and media reports. Most of the organisations on the front line that I've spoken to have said this idea of fake homelessness is just too simplistic to describe a group of people who do have some kind of accommodation, lead complicated lives and choose to beg. You know, I'm yet to meet someone who is out begging and they've got a fancy sports car and loads of designer gear and they do it because it's easy money to make on a Saturday night. I'm not saying they don't exist, I'm just saying they're hard to find. With so much public mistrust out there, I've come back to Cambridge one last time. The city claims no one needs to be sleeping rough if they don't want to, but is that really true? I spoke to Steph, who I'd met briefly before, and her friend Emma. What do you think about the police's approach? I'm treated like a criminal and told to move on. When there's nothing there. Not where I'm harming anyone. The authorities in Cambridge claim there are 300 beds for rough sleepers. But Steph says this is not the reality on the ground. Have you tried to go to Jimmy's or...? Yeah, I'm on the waiting list. But again, it's hard. Like, it's full. They're all full? I'm living in poverty and I've been left on the street for like three months now. Why? Why do they say that? Because I've got no local connections and I've been given no support. How do you feel when they're telling you that there's support there and they're telling you to go and then you're turned away? I agree. And then because you get frustrated because you're not getting support, you give up. My family isn't really supporting me at the moment due to me being on the street, due to me losing. So me, I have no one and then I try and go to all these services. we're just lower than line and that we've got no opportunity. How are we meant to change our life? Yeah, we're known as an assessment centre. OK. I've come to Jimmy's, the main homeless hostel in the city, but just as Steph told me, they're full. Every day, because sadly we are full, so it may take a little while to get a bed. It's so tidy. Yeah, this is a typical room. It is occupied. Oh, OK. We have people that are working that don't have an address, which is really, really hard because this can be their address, but they may not qualify for housing benefits, so they've got to pay the full rent here, which is miserably expensive. What's the full rent? It's about £330 a week. You do get people who pay £330 a week to stay here? Yeah, not many, but there are some people, as I say, they may have had a relationship break down, they just want nowhere to live, but they have a job. That's probably, that could be all of their wages. You know, one of the biggest arguments against street begging, and particularly in Cambridge, is that there's somewhere for you to go. You don't need to be homeless, you don't need to be begging. I'm walking around Jimmy's, that's not the impression I got. You know, there's not enough beds there. People are knocking every day and they can't get in. It doesn't feel fair necessarily on entrenched rough sleepers who maybe have addictions and can't go knock every day and can't engage with the services as fully as other people. You know, of course they're begging. I'm not sure I buy the council's line that no one needs to be homeless in Cambridge and no one needs to beg because that's not the impression I got from being there. When I spoke to Cambridge City Council, They said any rough sleeper asking for help will always be given accommodation within a reasonable time frame and in severe weather They guarantee a bed every night They said Jimmy's hostel is the first port of call that at the moment the wait is no more than five days and that there Are enough services? My time's nearly up in Cambridge So I'm back to discuss with police if moving rough sleepers on for begging is really fair And why they enforce so strictly if there's no guarantee of a bed I mean, Jimmy's is full, and you do have to go and knock every day. Yes. And there are cases where people have done that and haven't got in. Where are they supposed to go if they can't sleep on the streets? I don't know. The answer to that, I don't know. It would be easy to turn around and say, oh, that's a council matter, they need to put more accommodation in. Here, generally said, you find people sleep on the streets, and you do everything you can to try and help them. If Jimmy's is full, Jimmy's do try their best to try and accommodate people, but there's only a limited number of beds. I do understand that, but then equally, I suppose, for those people who aren't getting accommodated, either in Jimmy's or with this grant, they're then becoming ingrained in street life. Yes. And then they become the problematic individuals that you enforce on. And so, is it not this vicious circle? It is, has been, and it will be. There is no solution. If, for example, you put in a 500-bed hostel, those beds will be full. It'll be attracting people away from other parts of the country where they may have accommodation. Hopefully what you have seen when you've been out with myself and Ritchie is a quite pragmatic approach. Enforce where it needs to be enforced, where we can give some discretion, but it's just when it comes down to it. Yes, our job is enforcement. To hear police say there's no solution is pretty depressing. Part of me thinks this idea of our streets being flooded with fake homeless or professional beggars is a convenient excuse for cracking down on the homeless, by everyone, to sweep the problem out of sight. Yes, it is true many people begging do have a roof over their heads. But I've not seen anyone begging who isn't doing it out of desperation. It's the opposite of these reports of people earning huge amounts and exploiting the public. Whether it's the police, the council, the public, vigilantes like Ashley, No one wants people to beg. Everyone wants to get rid of beggars. It feels like they are a burden or a hindrance, like something that people just don't want to see and don't want to be plagued by. And everyone's up for a quick fix. There's lots of reasons why someone might beg. And I think that we need to understand all those complexities and then make our minds up about whether we think it's right or wrong and whether we want to give to people who are begging, rather than just saying, oh, they're fake, because it's not that simple.