[crdrost]

I mean if you're curious there actually is a good argument for not buying the homeless food, and it has to do with a sort of "market saturation." Talking to some homeless people and some formerly-homeless people, my understanding is that they know at this point where they can go to get a hot meal, and they take full advantage of those sorts of help.

By contrast what is missing includes reliable sources of clean drinking water, reliable sources of quarters and possibly detergent that could be used to do laundry, reliable sources of personal-needs products like toothbrushes, toothpaste, toilet paper, dish soap, changes of underwear/socks since those are less-often donated to clothing distribution locations.

Indeed the argument against giving the homeless money seems to me a little strange, since it inherently places them in a distrusted role over their decisions about themselves and emphasizes your control over someone else. It's not that the argument has no merit—it still has some. But in many regards the argument is limited, simply because wisdom cannot be imposed on someone from outside but must be learned and chosen from within: if I create a sandbox for the homeless where they can only do the activities that I approve of, I might get them out of homelessness—but am I really sure that then when I send them back into the world they will fare better? Put another way, how many people go through drug rehab and then relapse? Giving someone money and saying “I don’t know if you are going to spend this on booze tonight but I trust that if you keep having opportunities like this eventually you will learn that its more wise to spend it on your laundry” may be worse overall—but it's not clear that it’s worse in the long run by a substantial margin.