Life on the streets isn’t easy, and there’s nothing glamorous about being homeless.

Studies by Solidarity’s welfare organisation, Helping Hand, which surveyed beggars in and around Centurion and Pretoria, have shown that as many as 80% to 90% of those on the streets are battling drug addiction.

Their latest study, aimed at analysing “the implications of drug addiction among the country’s destitute”, focused on male drug addicts aged between 18 and 48.

Of the 50 men surveyed, 17 were beggars. Here’s Business Tech with some interesting numbers:

According to the data, begging was the prime source of income for feeding their drug addiction, where some respondents indicated getting as much as R3,000 a day in some cases.

However, this was an outlier, Helping Hand said, with as little as R150 a day also being reported. On average, the beggars reported receiving R1,263 a day.

The average day’s begging yielded R1 263 per day – that’s a pretty decent sum.

A similar study from earlier this month, reported on Rekord Centurion, found that on average “a beggar in the streets earned between R300 and R500 per day”, which could rise to as much as R2 000 a day at times.

Here’s a pretty sobering stat – the study of the 50 drug addicts found that they each spent, on average, between R500 to R1 000 on drugs per day.

Helping Hand stressed that giving money wasn’t always the best way forward:

The group has warned in the past – and in its most recent studies – that giving money to beggars feeds the problem, and leads to many other associated ills, such as a rise in crime.

The study found that the majority of addicts and beggars did not have a regular income, with almost half turning to theft and fraud to get money.

Begging, which accounted for 25% of income used to fund their addictions, was so lucrative that it could sustain their addictions and kept them on the streets.

Other sources of income were to sell drugs themselves, or getting funds from enabling family members…

Helping Hand said that instead of giving money to beggars, concerned citizens should rather opt for donating money to organisations that look after the homeless and take in drug addicts, or to buy food coupons, which can only be traded for a plate of food.

There are many, many organisations that could use your donations towards good causes, but if you want to make a difference here in Cape Town then The Haven isn’t a bad place to start.

A donation of R60 buys a homeless person a bed for five nights – you can find out more here.

Whatever you do, just remember to treat everyone lekker.

[sources:bustech&rekordcenturion]