Actually it's much worse than that the Australian government puts legitimate refugees on an island. I hate them for it. I digress.

1. Is not a good citation because it's anecdotal. I'm actually sure it probably happens, just like I'm sure that people do dodgy things the world over. What matters in this case is the first reply to my top level comment was asserting that I shouldn't give to beggars AT ALL because it encourages them, and asserting they're all Romanian, etc, etc.

2. Dylan16807 said he found things but didn't actually cite/link them ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Here are some actual UK citations for you:

> "Homeless charity, Crisis, estimates that over 80 per cent of beggars are homeless."[0]

> “Firstly, Thames Reach’s outreach teams including its London Street Rescue service, who are out and about on the streets of the capital working with London’s homeless 365 days of the year. They estimate that 80 per cent of people begging do so to support a drug habit. [1]

> “Secondly, when the Metropolitan Police did some drug testing of people arrested for begging, the figures indicated that between 70 and 80 per cent tested positive for Class A drugs. [1]

> “In a police crackdown in Birmingham on begging in autumn 2013, every single one of the 40 people arrested failed a drug test.”[1]

Whether you want to take this as evidence you shouldn't give to beggars is up to you, however it directly contradicts the "It's all the Romanians".

Now there absolutely are migrants that come to the UK and then end up in financial trouble (homeless, etc). This study[2] has a few interesting points about legal migrants from Eastern Europe.

> The Fitzpatrick study investigated the specific
experiences of MEH service users who had migrated to
the UK as adults, including ‘A10’ migrants from Central
and Eastern Europe, refugees and asylum seekers
and irregular migrants. Migrants were more likely than
other MEH service users to have slept rough but were
less likely to have stayed in hostels or other temporary
homeless accommodation, or to have applied to a
council as homeless (these findings are likely to relate to
the ineligibility of many migrants for housing or welfare
assistance in the UK).

That they are more likely to be properly homeless because of they're not eligible for some of the services. They lack access to a support network -- something that is associated with a risk of homelessness in most western countries.

> 51% of migrants reported some form of substance misuse, compared with 82% of non-migrants;

> 51% of migrants had engaged in street culture activities of some kind, compared with 74% of non-migrants; and

> 32% of migrants reported at least one form of institutional care experience, compared with 72% of
non-migrants.

They're less likely to abuse substances (but not none). Less likely to do 'street culture' things like begging and prostitution. Less likely to have mental illnesses.

The homelessness monitor: England 2017[3] suggests that the number of migrant to non-migrant rough sleepers is about 50% (it's on page 55ish). But this is still very different from the "they're coming in their cars and sending the money home", as opposed to legal migration and then ending up in trouble (something that has no doubt changed with brexit, but there isn't a more up-to-date version).

[0]: https://www.politics.co.uk/reference/begging/

[1]: https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/is-begging-just-a-s...

[2]: https://www.homeless.org.uk/sites/default/files/site-attachm...

[3]: https://www.crisis.org.uk/media/237088/homelessness-monitor-...