Years ago when going through school I worked night desk clerk at a motel near Tampa. Guy came in to the restaurant there and ordered the best dinner we had then came to the desk and told me he had no money and to call the cops.
I told him to get the hell out of there.
It was february and cold.
He thanked me and promptly walked across the street, picked up a cinder block and threw it through a shell gas station window,.
He wanted to get in from the cold and get a few meals.
When first published in 1970, Stations of the Lost won the C. Wright Mills Award for Best Book in the Area of Social Problems. The study considers the Skid Row alcoholic from two points of view, that of the alcoholic himself and that of the agents of social control who treat him. A major discovery of Wiseman's research was that Skid Row men spend only about one third of the year on Skid Row. The rest of the time is spent "making the loop"—going from Skid Row to city jail, to county jail, to the state mental hospital, to the missions, and back to Skid Row. While these facilities are designed to handle or rehabilitate Skid Row men, they are actually used by these men as a means of survival.