Most are also on some sort of welfare program, so some are doing better than the working population by far.
Bookmark.
That's when I realized why: the guy could PLAY ... and I mean play ANYTHING. Popular tunes, classical tunes, patriotic songs around the Fourth of July, anything anyone requested. That guy must have made a boatload of money out there.
I rely on the Holy Spirit to tell me when someone is genuinely needy. It has been a rare thing.
There used to be a successful panhandler at Dupont Circle in DC who dressed in a business suit. His pitch was “Do you have 85 cents so I can call my office in New York?” It worked. He made about $50-70,000 per year for several years.
Eventually, someone mentioned him to the Washington Post and they wrote a story about him. He wasn’t there a whole lot longer.
“I once watched an operator working a metropolitan corner.”
I love this guy. He makes people who give money to these dudes realize they’re being taken for a ride.
I don’t feel sorry for these people. They set their own working hours and pay no taxes. They chose their job and I chose mine; they deserve nothing from me. We recently had a city program to try to get them off the street, offer job training and such, and less than 5% of panhandlers showed any interest at all. I would be shocked if it resulted in one single job.
Meanwhile, a law was passed to prohibit standing at medians and intersections, so most of them have moved on.
I have PROUDLY never given a dime to panhandlers, although my taxes more than make up for it.
I did, once, ask a panhandler for money. It was at a parking meter in Berkeley, CA. I knew the area, saw that he had a bead on me as I got out of my car, but just before he got to me, I patted my pockets and said to him: “Excuse me sir, spare change?” His response was “awwww shit, damn” and he walked away.
All the bums on corners in my mostly black/Hispanic city, are white males.
They always come out at every intersection on Sundays, hoping that some preacher has given the congregation a guilt trip over the poor and needy.
In Kansas City we had a guy named Jerry. He had some physical problems but Jerry panhandled areas like the Country Club Plaza shopping district for forty years. Finally the IRS went after him in the early 1990s. Found our he was not reporting 80k in annual income from his highly pushy endeavors.
It’s just a matter of time before there will be panhandling courses available for college students.
News reporters followed some “homeless” beggars home several years ago. They all had decent homes.
I saw a lot of beggars in Rome in 2006. It is street theater. Tourists sure handed over their cash freely. They were great actors, acting crippled,etc.
The world’s absolutely worst beggar / panhandler hangs out on San Antonio Road in Mountain View, CA. He’s a scrawny black guy with a perpetual scowl on his face and rather scary looking. His poorly lettered signs are usually unreadable, but you can sometimes make out few words and they usually say whitey ruined his life, whitey rules the world, he hates whitey, and he pretty much hates everything. He glares at you if you try to read his sign. Surprisingly a few people do actually give him a little bit of money.
He needs to attend Remedial Begging 101 to figure out how to do this productively. Maybe a little kid, a puppy or kitten prop would help him.
If I see homeless veteran it really POs me for I have extensive work at the VA hosp, state employment office, Army’s Transition Assistance Program, Navy USMC TAP and as an Army Retirement Service Officer — simply stated they dishonorable and usually in receipt of govt monies and usually in receipt of govt monies from multiple agencies.
Best scheme I saw was in Afghanistan. A “crying” boy at a corner with a flat of broken eggs at the curb. I knew it was a fake but gave him $1 for the impressive stunt and good acting. Interestingly I saw the same stunt with a different boy later that same day in another location. That made me think there was a ”pimp” behind the operation. It must not have worked well since I never saw it again my remaining 2 or 3 years in Kabul.
I had a ceteran homeless guy one day hand me a pizza someone gave him because he said he had no teeth to eat it. I was going to give him money for it and he told me he was fine, him and his dog fully fed by the shelter, and that those asking for money are 99% of the time drug addicts, and to not give them a penny.
He was a nice guy, a bit schizophrenic and into conspiracy theories, having had run ins with cops, telling me about the corruption and attitudes of the PD in that town.
That guy was gold. In those days you also had a few wandering groups or youth who looked like occutard students. Ironically these ofcutards were benefiting from Walmart tolerating them sleeping on the grass in their parking lot.
I never give to beggars.
We had a guy hanging out at our church asking for money because he was unemployed. At the time, I was putting in landscaping and I told him he could show up the next morning and I would pay $15/hour.
It was the most amazing transformation. Suddenly he “was passing a kidney stone” and “had a bad back”.
No money for that bum.
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I vastly prefer to give money, in the form of small temporary jobs, to people I know. I am seldom scammed, and it does improve their lives.