"When I think of the people with serious physical or mental handicaps who nevertheless work, I find it hard to sympathize with able-bodied men who stand on the streets and beg. Nor can I sympathize with those who give them money that subsidizes a parasitic lifestyle which allows such men to be a constant nuisance, or even a danger, to others."
Thomas Sowell’s Random Thoughts.
THE TEXAS SCRIBBLER 
I guess you already know my opinion on this topic…
Presume it’s similar to Sowell’s and mine.
generally – yes; I go a bit further.
You probably read the thread at Dustbury where I have participated one last time.
I hadn’t when you mentioned it. But I have now, I think, on the thread about charity?
Handing money to street corner beggars is not my idea of charity. I even tend to lock the doors when I see that I will be stuck next to one at a red light.
It took some explaining to my son the first few times I ignored the beggars. But he gets it now.
I consider advertising one’s acts of kindness (even one performs them) in a general bad taste. So even assuming I donate money/goods, nobody will ever know – for my own sake, as well as for the sake of the people who received charity. I’d be ashamed if someone bragged about helping me.
And I would never volunteer, ever, for any cause. Working for free is to have no self-respect, and what’s worse, to signal to others that one has none.
Anyway, I thought I’d meet more understanding of my principles, in the company of nominally Christians: wasn’t it written somewhere about teaching a beggar how to catch a fish instead of giving him one?
Anyway, I always feel ashamed for the beggars – how low you have to fall, to demand money from strangers!
Generally, yes. But the able-bodied beggars I know here in Austin have no shame. They can get downright surly if you make eye contact with them and then don’t pay. They are mostly drunks.
The similar loud-mouths in the NY subway (trust me, they could be real loud and demanding, even if not drunk) I never reward, not even with a second of my attention.
This doesn’t apply to street/subway musicians, but only if they are good at their performance.