Cash and Gift Cards
When people want to help me, they sometimes go shopping and clearly spend serious dough on some kind of upscale food or whatever. I am sure they mean well, but like many homeless people, I have a medical condition and significant dietary restrictions. I often cannot eat what they buy me. In some cases, I am outright allergic to it. Further, the fact that I am on the street does not mean they know more about good nutrition than I do. I realize they think they are going to feed me better than I could feed myself. This is potentially true insofar as sometimes I do not have money for food. But insofar as ability to decide what is best for my health: No. I know quite a lot about my medical condition and how to properly feed myself in the face of it. A random stranger on the street will have no idea what my medical diagnosis even is. So I am generally not too crazy about people buying me food in that manner, where they choose the food for me without any input whatsoever from me. It usual