Campaign to stop people giving money to beggars

A former homeless man is warning against giving money to people begging on the street.

The man who we are calling John, to protect his identity, spent eight years on the streets of Newcastle after becoming addicted to heroin when he was 12.

Now, he's helping the charity, Changing Lives, with a campaign that aims to educate people that giving cash to beggars, could lead to their death.

John started using heroin with his parents as a child. By 14 he'd been abandoned. He spent years on the street of Newcastle begging.

'I had friends who used to beg and I saw the sort of money they made. so I tried it for myself one night and I was stunned.

So on an average day Monday to Thursday would be £200, a Friday or Saturday night anything between three to £500 a night.'

But that money was simply funding John's heroin addiction.

'I got to 32 and I was living in a cave in Seaham and I was just physically mentally and emotionally broken, I just couldn't function at all I wanted to die and to kill myself. I went to rehab and got an assessment and they took me in the next day and turned my life around.'

Two years ago it was estimated there were 25 people begging on the streets of Newcastle today it's thought to be 200.

That has led to a new campaign being launched by charity Changing Lives.

Outreach workers for the charity say that only a small minority of the beggars are homeless and they sit on the streets to make money to feed their addiction. Northumbria Police and Newcastle City Council are backing this new campaign, they want people to understand the real picture of begging in the city.

And that is something that John agrees with.

'The right thing would be not to give them money, you could give them money and they could go and use and that could kill them.'

This campaign is hoping that we can make a real change in a beggars life, by NOT giving them money.