The adventurer and record holder of the Guinness World Record, Ed Stafford, has revealed that living on the streets of Britain is more lucrative than imagined. Stafford, a former British army captain, said he spent two months as a beggar in the cities of Glasgow, Manchester and London. The man discovered that, in addition to weighing about 5.5 kilograms, because the passers-by gave him fast food, sandwiches and burgers, he collected about £ 200 a night.
After living in the streets for the fourth TV station "60 Days" which is scheduled to be broadcast in days, Ed said that living on the streets sometimes seemed easier than I expected. "I think I was shocked by the amount of food that was offered to me. I thought I might lose a lot of weight but there were a lot of people who wanted to help, in the three cities. In Glasgow, I saw 26 volunteers serving food in one day, and there were only two people sleeping in the street. I met with a vagrant who complained that the public was over-feeding him. "It was common for a beggar to collect 100 to £ 200 a day, and that's more than the average person gets. "
Ed was accompanied by a homeless man in Manchester who managed to collect 20 pounds within half an hour when he was asking passers-by to make money for him to go to the inn, although in fact he was collecting for his addiction to cocaine.
Ed said he was shocked at how some beggars accepted their status. "I thought there would be no one in the streets if he had the option, but in fact some of the beggars I met preferred to live on the streets," he said.
After trying street life, Ed said he would not give money directly to beggars, but he believed they needed more than just support to help them get rid of the situation. "In the depths of each one of them, the begging life is not a voluntary choice for him, even if they accept it now, because they all came to the begging life as a result of a disaster that struck them sometime in their past."
Between 4,000 and 5,000 people sleep in the streets of Britain every night, according to Big Ishu, which is trying to help beggars by ordering them to sell magazine bulletins.