How To Deal With Neighbors And Friends That Come Begging For Food At Your Door In A Crisis

The late afternoon light is shining through your window and the scene outside is quiet, just the way you like it. You are about a month into a serious collapse and thus far your preps have held up. Power has been out for 2 weeks; you don’t plan on ever having power again. You prepared for that.

As the sun sinks closer to the horizon you hear one of the most terrifying sounds of all: A knock on the door!

Your family finds their places and weapons, you leave from the backdoor and flank whoever might be on your porch. To your surprise it is your cousin! You haven’t seen him in years, but he is here. He looks rough and he has his disheveled family of three along with him.  He also doesn’t seem to have any food or supplies with him.

This is one of the prepper scenarios we all have thought about. However, it might not be as bad as you think!

From natural disasters like earthquakes or tornadoes…
To explosive situations like mass shootings or even nationwide martial law.
And It doesn’t matter if you’re out of shape…
Or have no equipment…
Or even if you’re disabled living in a wheelchair.

People Are Power

So, what do you do when someone unexpected comes knocking? Now, that is an interesting word to use in conjunction with preppers. UNEXPECTED. The whole point of prepping is to consider the unexpected.

In a true SHTF situation people bring you power. Your community should be like a hive. Hardly worth the trouble of any small group that might wish to steal or worse. You must be able to sustain them or have them sustain themselves but there will be tremendous power in numbers. Big jobs become easier, you can make an area more secure with more people, and you have more brains to put towards a problem.

Of course, its not heaven. With people come people issues like fights, jealousy, and the like. However, good leadership and preparedness can give you the upper hand on things like that.

You must first make an honest list of “survival dependents” or people who will come to depend on you when everything goes to hell!

How to Deal with Neighbors and Friends Who Come Begging for Food at Your Door in a Crisis

Trust me, your list is bigger than you think.

Survival Dependents

While it is nice to imagine that the calamity will never cross your threshold, the reality is that many more people depend on you than you think. Chances are, even if people don’t know you’re a prepper, you are the type of person who has it together. You are likely the person people go to for answers.

No matter how strong your OPSEC protocols are if you are a good and solid person, than people will look to you in times of crisis. These might be people you love or just people you know.

Now is the time to sit down and create a real list. You must take off the blinders and truly consider all the people who will depend on you in an SHTF situation. It would be perfect if your list consisted of 4 people but when you break it down you have groups of people to consider.

  • Immediate Family
  • Extended Family
  • Friends
  • Co Workers

Your group of survival dependents could include people from each of these categories. How they depend on you may vary but this list will help you understand that there are more people than just your immediate family who will turn to you in times of calamity.

Can You Support People?

Of course, the question that comes to mind after you create a list like this is: Do I have enough?

For most people, the answer is no. It can be over burdensome to assume that you can prep for all the people who might be on your list of survival dependents. When these people show up asking for food, though, you need to have something!


Unless you subscribe to the idea that you are going to turn everyone away who comes to your door. If that is your game plan than you better also prepare for some serious backlash. How many fathers with kids can you turn away before one of them says, “No, we are coming in.”

What happens next cannot be good, with lots of harmful outcomes.

This doesn’t mean you should be a pushover and let any old person into your home and feed them.


Tip: When people approach you to ask for something, if they come to your door or see you outside, simply ask them for something first! Open the door and ask for food and medicine: “Oh, I hope you brought some food, we haven’t eaten in a week!”

Put Them to Work Immediately

From that list of survival dependents, you will likely choose people who you will bring into the fold. However, don’t let them in free of charge. The best way to handle someone who comes asking for help is to immediately give them some form of work to be done.

This is also a great gauge of the depth of that person. Those who are outraged by the work that needs to be done at “their new home” are people that you can easily weed out. Just make it truly clear up front that there is plenty to do and if they cannot do what is asked, they cannot stay.

By the way, there will be plenty to do! If you manage a household of four and all the sudden it jumps to ten you will have lots of extra work. It is not so much about room but about dishes, laundry, food production, security detail in the neighborhood, general cleaning.

In an off-grid situation, it might be about things like water procurement and sanitizing, renewable energy system maintenance, gardening, canning and everything in between.

There will be a serious list of chores to be done and the last thing you want is a house full of freeloaders laying around all day while you are red in the face.


Using a basic Excel spreadsheet, you will be able to create chore lists TODAY for issues that might come tomorrow. Print a stack of them and save them. They can be filled out by hand when the time comes or if you know the system you could print them with the duties listed.

It’s high time we stop looking at neighbors and friends as threats in the downfall. Many people can see something resembling collapse just on the horizon. Its hard not to look around and wonder how the unprepared will react to a future of scarcity, uncertainty, with up close and personal violence.

If America is facing balkanization or civil war it will be particularly important that you have a secure neighborhood with plenty of able-bodied individuals. Many neighbors will leave for a safer environment and you must be aware of that. However, that might free up homes and living areas for more of your survival dependents.

Your survival dependents are not the burden you once thought. Believe me. While you know the flaws of the people around you, they have two ears, two eyes and a heart that wants to survive. If you can find it in you to lead these people they will provide you with a true survival group that will keep you and yours from being acted upon by anyone with a group larger and better trained than you and your spouse!

What if that were you? What would YOU do?



4 thoughts on “How To Deal With Neighbors And Friends That Come Begging For Food At Your Door In A Crisis

  1. Yet another one….. Unless one is elderly,or disabled,too bad for them. I have extended help to three friends of mine. One,55 y/o who has considerable experience in the construction business and owns her own company,and experience in animal care,in poor health,she has a blank check to my farm. Another,79 y/o,has experience in edible foods in the mountains and desert. One elderly couple, he,82 combat vet and his wife,70, makes food from scratch. These people bring skills to the table. All have excellent work ethics. Whiners,snowflakes,and the lazy need not come by.


  2. People that brag and run thier rmouth telling everyone they know they have food stashed and preps is an idiot. No one is obligated to anyone outside their immediate houshold, which does incl adult children or their kids who are responsible for themselves, cousins, friends or anyone else.


  3. Could not post this on FB..other soy boys found it “offensive”…probably due to their lack of preparedness!..great article though!


Leave a Reply to sylvia Cancel reply


You are commenting using your account. Log Out /  Change )

Google photo


Twitter picture


Facebook photo


Connecting to %s