BetterYou pass someone. You have four seconds and no idea what to do. Almost everyone resolves it the same way, by looking somewhere else and feeling bad about it for a block.
Two international texts happen to answer this, from opposite ends. One is a field guide written for people with no training. The other is a General Assembly resolution. They converge on the same instruction, and it is not the one you would expect.
Ask. The WHO writes that even when the need seems obvious, you should always ask the person what they need and what worries them. Introduce yourself, ask whether you can help, and accept no as a complete answer. Do not push, do not judge, do not promise. And the UN, on its side, asks States to combat the stereotypes and discrimination targeting homeless people.
The instructionThe question nobody asks
The WHO's psychological first aid guide has one sentence that settles most of the awkwardness. It is written for crisis situations, and it applies exactly here:
“Although some needs may be obvious, such as a blanket or clothes for someone whose clothes are torn, always ask what they need and what their concerns are.”
And then: “Define with the person what is most important to them at that precise moment, and help them express their priorities.”
Read the first one closely: the WHO deliberately picks an example where the need looks obvious, torn clothes, no blanket, and says ask anyway. That is not politeness. It is the recognition that an outside guess about someone's priority is usually wrong.
The sequenceHow to approach
The guide gives an order, and it is short.
And if they do not want to talk. The guide is clear that this is normal, not a failure: do not push people to recount what they have been through, stay present, let them know you are there. It adds a line worth carrying: “do not talk too much; silence matters too.”
The other listWhat hurts
The same guide sets out what not to do. Almost all of it is restraint rather than action.
- Do not push the person to tell you their story.
- Do not touch the person if you are not sure it is appropriate.
- Do not judge what they did, did not do, or how they feel.
- Do not make false promises or give false hope.
- Do not repeat to others the story someone told you.
- Do not speak of people in negative terms, the guide gives “crazy” and “mad” as its examples.
That last line is where the two texts meet. The UN resolution encourages States to combat the stereotypes and discrimination targeting homeless people, and to fight stigma through awareness raising. A word used in a conversation is the smallest unit of that work.
The resolution also states that being homeless constitutes an affront to human dignity. The word places the offence on the situation. Not on the person sitting in it.
The limitYour safety is in the instruction
Nothing in either text asks you to put yourself at risk, and the guide says so inside the instruction rather than as a footnote.
Move a person away from immediate danger “if you can do so while ensuring your own safety”.
And where someone is in deep distress, the guide's instruction is to make sure they are not left alonewhich can mean staying, or it can mean calling someone whose job it is.
If there is immediate danger, the useful action is the emergency number where you are. Not improvisation.
Beyond the encounterIf you want to do more than pass by
The resolution lists what it asks States to provide. Read as a list of needs rather than a list of duties, it is a decent map of where an effort actually lands.
- Basic necessitiesthe resolution names food and hygiene items explicitly.
- Health care that is accessible and affordable, noting that homeless people are often exposed to communicable diseases.
- Mental health and psychosocial support, delivered at greater scale, with awareness raising and work against stigma.
- Help finding housing, education and training, employment advice, childcare, food services and trauma services.
- Digital inclusionthe resolution urges reducing the digital divide “especially for homeless people”, which is the item almost nobody thinks of.
Its stated aim for all of this is to break the cycle of intergenerational poverty and homelessness, with particular attention to families, women and children exposed to violence. That is the scale of the thing. A conversation on a pavement does not fix it, but the way that conversation goes is the only part of it any of us controls directly.
There is no worldwide helpline, and numbers change from one country to the next. Two markers hold everywhere.
If there is immediate danger, call your country’s emergency number.
Otherwise, Find A Helpline lists more than 1,700 free and confidential helplines in over 175 countries. You pick your country, it shows what exists near you, with opening hours. The site itself is in English, but the lines it points to are local.
This is not a clinical recommendation. It is the one international directory that states it verifies its data with the helpline organisations themselves and maintains it daily.
QuestionsFrequently asked questions
Should you give money?
No international source settles that question, and we will not settle it either. What the WHO guide says is something else, and it is more useful: always ask the person what they need, even when the need looks obvious to you. What you do next is yours to decide, but it will at least rest on what they said rather than on what you assumed.
How do you approach someone without being intrusive?
The WHO guide gives a short sequence: approach respectfully and in a way appropriate to the person's culture, introduce yourself by name, and ask whether you can help. That third step is a question, not an announcement. If the answer is no, it is a complete answer.
What should you definitely not do?
The WHO guide is explicit: do not push the person to talk, do not touch them unless you are sure it is appropriate, do not judge what they did or did not do, do not make false promises, do not repeat their story to others, and do not speak of people in negative terms, it gives “crazy” and “mad” as examples.
What if the person does not want to talk?
That is anticipated, and it is not a failure. The guide writes that it is important not to push people to recount what they have been through, and that what matters is staying present and letting them know you are there if they want to talk. It adds a sentence that holds in every situation: “do not talk too much; silence matters too”.
Am I taking a risk?
The guide sets the limit itself: it only invites you to move someone away from immediate danger “if you can do so while ensuring your own safety”. Your safety is not a secondary consideration in that text, it is written into the instruction. Where there is danger, the useful action is to call your country's emergency services, not to intervene.
Does looking away really do harm?
The UN puts the question at that level. Its resolution 78/172 encourages States to “combat stereotypes and discrimination targeting homeless people”, and to fight stigma through awareness raising. It also writes that being homeless “constitutes an affront to human dignity”. Those are chosen words, and they are not aimed at the person sitting on the ground.
Read nextRelated
Sources
- Psychological first aid: guide for field workers, WHO, War Trauma Foundation and World Vision International, 2011
- United Nations General Assembly resolution A/RES/78/172 (2023)
About this article. General and educational information. The actions described come from a World Health Organization guide written for people with no health training: it is neither a professional intervention method nor a safety instruction. No international source says whether you should give money, and neither do we. Where there is immediate danger, your country's emergency number comes before everything else.
Spotted an error or an out-of-date figure? Write to us: we will correct it and re-date the article. Our texts are written with the help of artificial intelligence and checked against official sources before publication, but a figure or a definition can change without us catching it. If anything here does not match what an official body tells you, they are right.