Posted on 08/07/2019 7:06:42 AM PDT by Red Badger
ABILENE, Texas (KTXS) — An Abilene man -- who appears to be homeless and handicap -- is making a good living by panhandling on weekends, according to the police chief.
Chief Stan Standridge said the man panhandles every Saturday and Sunday at the intersection of Hwy 83/84 and FM 707.
He sits in a wheelchair and the police department has gotten calls from people concerned about the man thinking he's homeless.
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Standridge said the department's homeless outreach team has been in contact with the man.
They learned he is not homeless. Standridge said the man lives in a home in south Abilene.
He is also not wheelchair-bound, according to Standridge.
Someone drops him off every weekend to seek charity. Standridge said the man earns about $1,000 a weekend.
KTXS found him at the intersection on Wednesday. Multiple people told KTXS he's there every day.
RJ told KTXS that he is homeless, handicap and is lucky to make $6 on a weekend.
But that conflicts with what Standridge said RJ told his officers.
"He has told our officers how much he’s making. We know where he resides. I have personally seen him dropped him off on weekends," Standridge said.
Ultimately, Standridge said his Facebook post is not about RJ.
If we each give $5 out the window, “what have we done to address homelessness? Nothing,” Standridge said.
Standridge believes the best way to address homelessness is to move away from charity toward philanthropy.
"Imagine if those dollars were given to non-profits to help get our homeless neighbors off the streets," said Standridge.
The police chief encourages people to give to non-profit groups like Hope Haven and Love And Care Ministries that help people who are down on their luck.
Yeah, we have the ‘dog’ owner types too..........
That I don’t doubt is true in big urban ares, but the ones around here appear healthy and well-fed...................
I don’t see any crime here.
Those who beg for others are usually contriving for themselves.
To panhandle when you’re not needy, is to steal from those who are.
People like that makes it hard to give to anyone that doesn’t have an obvious handicap. Wheelchair doesn’t count. Missing leg does.
And I see he has a cross on his sign. No fear of God.
I watched as one of those Road(those islands) panhandlers come out of a big house right at the intersection and go to work ,D’oh
One guy in Dallas cut his foot off to get more money. Kind of like wrappers who get shot just to see their careers take off.
Personally, I prefer people who simply work hard in a profession.
You'd be amazed where the meth centers are.
Iowa, Oklahoma,...
It’s hard to enforce the old panhandling and vagrancy laws. The ACLU will take up their cases pronto.
Now what the FWB city council did was pass ordinances that banned panhandling withing a certain distance of a traffic light, which seems to work, because these types have moved on to other locations without traffic lights................
We have our Meth heads here, too, but they are easy to spot...............
” An Abilene man — who appears to be homeless and handicap....”
It was a TV reporter story, which is a level or two down from the print types. All they care about is optics and visuals..............
Guys like this are all over the country.
I said this in another thread not long ago...
I read an article in Houston, a TV station went around and offered the street bums a job. All of them or most holding signs that said “will work for money”. (Might have seen it on TV rather than in print, don’t remember)
Only one accepted their offer of a job, a woman, who the company then hired full time at the end of the day. She did that well. The others all refused jobs, some even said they could make more money on the corner holding a sign.
Then on the other side of the coin, I read a newspaper article when I was in Norfolk Virginia. (I know this one was in print, didn’t have a TV)
This guy was bumming change for coffee, so a guy took him a half block up the street to a local downtown cafe and bought him breakfast. While they ate and talked, he noticed the guy had holes in his shoes, so he then took him a couple of doors up the street to a shoe store and bought him new shoes. (downtown area with a variety of businesses, like most towns)
They went back out to the sidewalk where they were about to say goodbye, when the bum said wait a minute... he pulled out a check book and wrote the good samaritan a check for $1,000.
It turned out this guy was a retired and wealthy doctor who dressed up as a bum every year at Christmas and went downtown bumming. He would find a good samaritan like this almost every time, see how far they were willing to go, then write them a $1,000 check. He saved up some old worn out clothes just for the act, didn’t shave or take a bath for a couple of days to make it realistic.
There is a happy ending now and then, but 99.999% of all street bums are useless, most never think past their next quart of beer.
I had to deal with them a few times when I was a street musician in Austin for about 4 years. I saw them every day. I did a duo thing with another guy and we were really good, played in clubs on 6th street for a while too. Always sober, dressed well, both very good singers. One night while shutting down, I had just pulled all the paper money out of the guitar case (around $75) and was scraping the coins into a pile, when one of the street bums walked up and tried to grab a double handful.. I slammed the case lid on his hands and shoved him backwards, knocked him down. (easy to do with him squatted down, just a light shove)
He followed us down the street yelling insults and cussing me, I told him leave me alone several times, then turned around and threw half a Pepsi and hit him in the middle of the chest with it. (Plastic bottle) He decided to back off since I was obviously ready to stand up to him.
They usually tried to bum money from us, we didn’t give, we knew they were all drunks, we saw them every night. Usually just walk by and say nothing is the best response.
It finally fell apart when we were playing in a club for several months and he ended up drinking way too much, people were telling me he was making me look really bad. (It wasn’t supposed to be me and he was my sidekick, but they seemed to think so)
I finally lost my voice, singing with the flu, and had to quit. It took over 3 months to get my voice back. It was actually pretty good income, if we didn’t clear $100 each or more on a Friday or Saturday night, something was way wrong. On a Saturday night $150 each was not unusual. Most of the other street musicians didn’t like it too much, they were doing good to make $30 a night...but then we were good musicians, not drunks looking for our next beer, which was the usual. At least until he got into a club and could run up a tab...we stopped telling them how much we made early on...Oh, we do ok...was all we said.
But again I stress, we were not typical street bums, we were good musicians. A number of people would go have a drink in one of the bars, come outside and listen to us for a half hour, go back in for a drink, come back to listen...and so on all night. We had a good regular audience. At times the bands playing in the clubs would come out to listen to us, after hearing about us from their audience during their breaks. The cops would shut us down almost every weekend when we drew a crowd that would spill into the street. “Time to take a break guys”...OK you got it...a half hour later we would start again, no hassle from the cops about it, they knew us and knew we would always cooperate. They would stop and listen too. Instant armed guard...
Thanks
Saw a similar item when I was stationed in Arizona back in the early 90s. A reporter for the Arizona Republic (back when they actually did journalism) decided to check out a couple that panhandled on a daily basis in Phoenix, their kids often in tow. Followed them to a nice home in the suburbs. When confronted, couple admitted they were not destitute; one of them had lost their job and discovered they could collect a fair amount of cash ($2-3,000 a month) by panhandling. The other still worked a night shift, as I recall, and between the job and the panhandling, they were doing just fine.
That’s been happening for eons.
As was posted by another FReeper, there was a Sherlock Holmes story, over a hundred years ago about this same exact scenario.
So, it’s been around awhile........
Yep!.........
They pretend they only know a little english, and prey on peoples' Christian beliefs.
I never give any money to people who beg on street corners. Through our church I know quite a few homeless and none beg on the street corner.
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