Am I a sucker?

So, we live in an ordinary town with ordinary people. There's some crime but the streets are basically safe. I walk 4-5 miles a day with the kids and I've only once had a scary vibe that I should avoid someone. That time, there was someone lurching up a residential street and peeking into car windows and trying door handles. I took an alternate route and that was that.

I realized that I've taken to keeping some cash on me to give to people who ask. 10 years ago, I might have just gone off on somebody asking me for money, regardless of their circumstances so this is a definite change of character. What I don't know is this: am I stupid to do that? In my mind, I think that maybe this is a chance to do a kindness for someone from whom I have nothing to gain. I don't have any idea what they want or need that money for. Maybe they'll use it to buy drugs. But, don't drug addicts need to eat too? Maybe they need someone to smile and help them instead of walking away.

For three years, J and I were seriously broke. Welfare kind of broke. We had to do it to get J through school. It was something that you just can't imagine until you are there. The humiliation of applying for aid at the office, the strange and condescending looks from people behind you in the grocery store, the list goes on. That part of it was awful.

I suppose this possibly flies in the face of my recent tirade on being accosted to buy things "for charity" in parking lots. But, really, it's altogether different. I'm not interested in the middle men. They're the ones that irk me, not people in need.