Compassion and soup a bad mix

Published: 25 March, 2011

• THE Forum by Jad Adams on soup runs (March 18) actually proves the opposite point – why Westminster City Council is right to ban soup runs and rough sleeping. 

His article is all about his and the soup runs’ so-called “compassion” and desire for martyrdom, but not what actually helps rough sleepers?

Giving money or free food to rough sleepers is exactly the same as giving heroin to a drug addict or whisky to an alcoholic. By doing these things, you are not being a Christian at all. In fact you are helping them kill themselves (or at least drastically shorten their lives), in the name of “kindness” or “compassion”. 

Why should any rough sleeper change their destructive and chaotic lifestyle if people like Mr Adams and all the others keep them ever longer on the streets by their handouts?

The council are doing the right thing by supporting rough sleepers away from the streets – which will kill them – into indoor services which can truly transform their lives. This is real compassion, charity plus self-help.

Local people, like me, do not want rough sleepers choosing to sleep on the streets of Westminster. 

The soup runs and those who give money to beggars just make the borough a worse place for everyone.

GR, SW1