“You can’t help someone if they won’t help themselves”. It’s an old saying, but one you’ve likely heard time and again.

Sadly, it rings true more often than not: try as you might, it’s extremely difficult to lend someone a hand or make a difference in their lives if they’re not fully committed to giving themselves the best possible chance.

Ryan Bray, from Florida, knows a thing or two about that. As per reports, he regularly passes beggars on the street while on his route home from work. One Sunday, he walked by a man who had a particular saddening story, and so Ryan decided to intervene in the best way he knew.

Instead of simply giving the man some spare change – which wasn’t going to help his overall situation – Ryan tried to think bigger, grander. He offered the homeless man $15/hour to come work for his family business, effectively presenting the panhandler with the opportunity to get off the streets permanently.

To his surprise, however, the beggar in question had absolutely no intentions of getting a real job. He told Ryan he was satisfied with sitting on the street, where he could beg more in an hour than Ryan was offering him.

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FOX 13 Tampa Bay

Of course, by that stage Ryan was incredulous. Having given the man the chance to turn his life around, only to have the gesture thrown back in his face, he decided to act.

Ryan returned home and made a sign of his own, before heading back out to the same street corner. There he stood with his sign, openly shaming the beggar who had become disgruntled upon being offered a way off the streets.

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Ryan’s sign warned other members of the public not to give money to beggars, explaining how he had tried his best to help the homeless man in question, but that his compassion had been treated with scorn.

“I offered him $15.00 an hour to do yardwork for me, and he refused,” Ryan’s side read. “If we as a community stop paying them, they will leave our neighborhood!”

As per reports, the homeless man dubbed Ryan a liar, saying that he’d never received an offer of employment.

Of his encounter with the homeless man in this story, Ryan said:

“He reached his arms inside my vehicle, resting them, and said, ‘Hey do you have any money?’ I said, ‘No, I have one better for you.’”