One of my daughter's drivers told me about her mother's boyfriend who would get her and her brother and sister to stand on a street corner with him and her mother with one of those signs that said their car broke down and they needed money to get home. He would make the kids leave their shoes in the car because that made people give them more money. They would get a couple hundred dollars in a couple of hours. They weren't homeless and their car didn't break down and they were very near their home. He would take them to the mall and give them some money for the arcade and buy them a pizza with some of the money and spend the rest on drugs for him and their mother. She had a weird early childhood until her dad got custody of them.
Now, I'm less inclined to give money to people hanging around street corners.
I have given people "bus fare" before, though. Once, I gave a woman a ride home, but she wasn't asking for money. I could just tell that her feet hurt by the way she was walking.