BOB ABERNETHY: In this season of giving, our Perspectives on this question: What about giving to panhandlers? Does giving to them really help? Is it ethical not to give? A few days ago, we assembled a few people to talk about this. First, a sampling of opinion on the streets of Washington, DC.

Unidentified Woman #1: Without question, it's ethical to give money to people begging on the street. What happens, though, when you're confronted with this, is just the horror of seeing someone in need and the almost human instinct to just turn away and keep on walking.

Unidentified Man #1: I'd be more inclined to help out someone I know or to help out some organization or institution I know than to help out some anonymous person I've never met on the street who approaches me for money.

Unidentified Man #2: Jesus said give to those who ask of you and don't expect anything in return. I try to see if, like, I have a sense that God might want me to give to that person.

Unidentified Man #3: I don't give to people on the street, because I know about so many shelters and churches that will give time and money and stuff for most of the homeless people around here and a lot of people that fall into the web and never really owe, or they're disabled, or you lose your job and you just can't make it back out.

Unidentified Woman #2: If I have it, I give it.

ABERNETHY: So what should you do when you meet a panhandler? Pass by, thinking there're plenty of shelters and feeding programs to meet the needs? Or pass by, thinking any money you give will just go into alcohol or drugs? Or give something, however it might be used?

Cheryl Barnes is a board member of the National Coalition for the Homeless, and lived and begged on the streets of Washington, DC, for 10 years. Dr. Robert Madsen is a psychologist and a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Mormons. Edward Grandis is a lawyer and the executive director of the Dupont Circle Merchants and Professionals Association in Washington, DC. Reverend Stephen Burger is executive director of the International Union of Gospel Missions in North Kansas City, Missouri.

Reverend Burger, you have said flatly and officially, "Do not give." Why not?

Reverend STEPHEN BURGER (International Union of Gospel Missions): Well, what I've said is, "Do not give money." That doesn't mean do not give.

ABERNETHY: Why not give money?

Reverend BURGER: Because what we're wanting to deal with is real change, not spare change, and spare change just oftentimes goes against the opportunity to see any real change come and doesn't meet the real need. Oftentimes it goes for drugs and alcohol. It doesn't do what we intended it to do. That doesn't mean we don't help. For instance, food coupons is a great idea to help.

ABERNETHY: We'll get back to that. Cheryl, you were on the streets. What do you make of that: "Don't give any money?"

CHERYL BARNES (National Coalition for the Homeless): I say to you, sir, that it's not fair to think like that, because I understand, too, in a lot of cities now that the men have to pay to sleep in the shelters and they use that money not just only for alcohol and drugs. There are some folks who drink, and I don't know the denomination of the folks that do, but they also use the money for food, and they use the money for, you know, to get back and forth on the buses and stuff.

ABERNETHY: Cheryl, when you were on the streets, did you do drugs? Did you use the money for drugs?

Ms. BARNES: Yes, sir, I did, and I truly regret that today, but I needed, that was the only way -- only job I had. It was a job for me. It was a job for me to go walk down the street with my cup and ask for change. I asked people ...

ABERNETHY: What if they'd known you were going to use the money for drugs? Do you think they would have given?

Ms. BARNES: No, they might not.

ABERNETHY: Dr. Madsen?

Dr. ROBERT MADSEN (Clinical Psychologist): Bob, it's been estimated that on the low end there's perhaps 30 to 50 percent of the people panhandling suffer from some type of mental illness, and on the high end it's probably closer to 80 to 90-plus percent; and when you're dealing, then, with people who are mentally ill -- and, as a psychologist, those are the people that I deal with, and I've been involved in a criminal justice system here in the District of Columbia for some period of time now -- and these people sometimes don't have the choice to use or not to use. They're so wrapped up in the disease process of drugs and alcohol that they have to use the drugs, but they don't use the money exclusively for drugs and alcohol.

ABERNETHY: Ed, where do you come out? If you -- panhandlers are bad for business. You start there, right?