This one is from Spain. It hit the news not so long ago. They had and international art exhibition there in, I guess, Barcelona or Madrid. Before closing the gallery for the day, a homeless beggar dragged himself into one room of the gallery, emptied a bottle of liquor to warm himself, laid down on the floor, covered himself with newspaper, and fell asleep. In the morning, some journalists came to report on the exhibition and thought that the still sleeping homeless beggar was an exhibit, an art piece thus, and reported about it as a great art piece that is exhibited on this exhibition. Really, it is tragicomic.
Than the beggar got the real deal. I don't quite remember who, I guess the organizer of the exhibition offered the man to become a real exhibit on that particular exhibition that actually went moving around the planet. His job was to be the exact stinking drunk exhibit, covered with newspaper just as he was found (he was allowed to wash himself in-between, though). His job lasted for a year or so. And, he travelled the planet's biggest cities, and was paid real money - even fiat is good for such purpose.
Now, imagine your beggars' syndicates there making an ICO offering, and then demanding from you to pay in their cryptocurrency on the latest iPhone. Or, if they are smarter than they will care for their image, and have some used former version of some smartphone - just to fit their position of a beggar.
Or, maybe your state should offer Bollywood producers to make a film in your country, they pay really good. Or, some other film producing company, and use the beggars as statists (a really good paid job in Hollywood - some get paid just for waiting to be called).
But absurdities aside, I agree, proper welfare should be a more appropriate solution. There are some small scale UBI (universal basic income) experiments around the planet that worked really good, like in Canada, for instance.
Haha! I guess for a year he wasn't considered a beggar since he was on a payroll. They should've helped him by instead investing it on his behalf. The beggar wouldn't know how to efficiently spend the earnings so it would just be wasted.
Your story made me think of this: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/may/27/pair-of-glasses-left-on-us-gallery-floor-mistaken-for-art
We do get some Hollywood films shoot here from time to time, but they hire professional actors for beggar roles. It's too much of a risk to use beggars, I guess.
With regard to UBI, yeah, I'm keeping a close eye on those projects. I really do hope that one proves to be successful soon.