The truth about the homeless old lady who "begs for charity during the day and returns home with tens of billions at night" in Hanoi

In recent days, social networks have been abuzz with reports about the recurring situation of fake homeless people in Hanoi .

In the video , a homeless person, after filling a cart with gifts, returns to a 3-story house, over 100 square meters wide, located on To Hien Thanh street (Le Dai Hanh ward, Hai Ba Trung district).

"According to locals, the value of this house is up to tens of billions of dong," quoted from the report.

Sự thật cụ bà vô gia cư ngày xin đồ từ thiện, tối về nhà chục tỷ ở Hà Nội - 1 — The woman returned to the 3-storey house after receiving enough charity gifts (Photo cut from video).

Social media then resurfaced a video showing an 83-year-old woman named Phuong picking up trash every day, begging for food to survive. In the yard of the house, furniture and scraps were piled up, and several bags of leftover, moldy food hung on the wall.

She said "I sleep on a piece of cupboard door I found and put it on the porch. Every day I pick up trash and beg for food, I eat whatever people give me."

"The best meal is the one when I can beg for rice. On the days when I have money, I buy a bowl of bun cha for 40,000 VND, which I only eat once every few months. Or there are girls who eat on the sidewalk here, they want me to eat with them. It's very hard," the woman said in the video.

Speaking to Dan Tri reporter, the leader of Le Dai Hanh Ward People's Committee said that the old lady in the video is named Nguyen Thi Kim Phuong (83 years old). Ms. Phuong is a single elderly person, with permanent residence at a house on To Hien Thanh Street.

According to the leader, she is not homeless but currently lives on the first floor of the house. Her situation is not as difficult as the video shared on social networks.

"Ms. Phuong has a registered residence on the first floor of the house and receives a monthly allowance of 400,000 VND. She is healthy, alert and active, but likes to pick up trash and accumulate trash all over the house," said the leader of the ward People's Committee.

According to local authorities, due to the amount of trash in her house, Ms. Phuong often sleeps on the porch. Every 1-2 weeks, the ward and the neighborhood association mobilize to come and clean up and collect trash for her.

The government also offered to repair the house, tile the floor, buy beds, TVs, cabinets, etc. for her to move in, but she refused.

Sự thật cụ bà vô gia cư ngày xin đồ từ thiện, tối về nhà chục tỷ ở Hà Nội - 2 — Ms. Phuong said she sleeps on the porch every day, picks up trash, and begs for food (Photo cut from video).

The Ward People's Committee, departments, branches and organizations regularly care for and provide financial support to Ms. Phuong during holidays, Tet, the month of action for the poor, and provide emergency subsidies; assign residential areas and residential group No. 2 to care for her life.

"Ms. Phuong's name is always on the support list. Neighbors around also care, cook food and bring it over, but she doesn't eat it. Every noon and evening, she goes out to the street to ask for charity," said the leader of the People's Committee of Le Dai Hanh ward.

In April 2020, Ms. Phuong appeared in a post about receiving charity rice.

The article stated: "She is an elderly single woman, her siblings have all passed away. She lives alone in the capital, in dire circumstances, having to collect scrap to make a living, struggling to eat each meal during the Covid-19 pandemic."

The People's Committee of Le Dai Hanh Ward later spoke up to correct, saying that in fact, Ms. Phuong is one of the cases that regularly receives attention from the government, mass organizations of Le Dai Hanh Ward, residential groups and neighbors, and is supported with funds and necessities for daily life.

A representative of a charity group in Hanoi said that 3 years ago they met and started helping Ms. Phuong when they saw the elderly woman sitting on the sidewalks of Trang Thi, Hai Ba Trung, and Ba Trieu streets every evening.

After an accident, Ms. Phuong was taken to the hospital by the group for emergency treatment and financial support.

The group said that because she realized that it was easy to ask for money from an accident and sitting at an intersection with a painful leg, she used her illness to appeal for sympathy. From then on, the group decided to stop helping her.

When investigating her situation, the group learned that she had a registered residence on To Hien Thanh Street, but the woman always said "her house was taken over and she was kicked out onto the street".

"We have witnessed her knocking on car windows asking for money, cursing and chasing away other homeless people, and even selling items donated by charity groups," the representative informed.

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