the crazy thing is that there are a ton of "recently homeless" folks you encounter in your daily life without even knowing it. Something like 10% of the cal state university students are homeless. My wife is a doc in the ER and deals with a bunch of folks who are going through these issues. Many retail workers, service workers etc are homeless, shower at the gym, and have been living in their car or friends couches for the past few months and will probably find a place to live in the next few months.

If anyone was wondering about a source, as I was, here:

https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-cal-state-homeless...

https://presspage-production-content.s3.amazonaws.com/upload...

When you give $50-100, please employ them to do a task.

Ie. "Here's $50. Go and buy me some ice cream. You can have another $50 when you bring it to me".

It discourages begging and encourages an entrepreneur mentality.

This is the most stereotype hn comment I can imagine.

Why does your goal have to include putting them in some weird spot where youre holding power over them to teach some "entrepreneur mentality". Most of the temporarily homeless population is embarrassed to ask for money, just treat them like an adult if youre going to offer help.

This is completely asinine. You're working on the assumption that these people have the opportunity and bandwidth for entrepreneurship. Guess what homelessness takes away from you?

Take a quick peek at Maslow's hierarchy of needs please and map both their situation and what you're asking of them.

People aren't dogs, you don't train anyone to have "entrepreneur mentality" by giving them asinine tasks. It is condescending as hell and, worse: it is degrading.

Sorry, I’m not a complete shitheel.