Posted on 12/03/2012 6:52:06 AM PST by rightwingintelligentsia
The barefoot homeless man who was given a pair of shoes by a kind-hearted beat cop is wandering the streets shoeless again.
Jeffrey Hillman, 54, was spotted panhandling on the upper West Side Sunday without the $100 boots NYPD Officer Lawrence DePrimo bought for him on a frigid November night in Times Square.
“Those shoes are hidden,” Hillman told The New York Times after he was spotted walking around with no shoes on Broadway near W. 79th St. “They are worth a lot of money. I could lose my life.”
A tourist from Arizona snapped a cell phone photo of DePrimo giving the boots to Hillman on Nov. 14, and the picture quickly went viral, making the selfless cop a national celebrity.
“I appreciate what the officer did, don’t get me wrong. I wish there were more people like him in the world,” Hillman said.
“I want to thank everyone that got onto this thing. I want to thank them from the bottom of my heart. It meant a lot to me. And to the officer, first and foremost.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nydailynews.com ...
>>>...I disagree. $100 doesn’t go very far. But a “YouTube” video of a cop trying to help a homeless man is priceless. It went viral. I don’t give nor do I encourage giving to homeless people. I give to the SA. I do believe in the Christmas spirit and that gesture by the cop got mine re-lit.<<<
But, when you find out the “homeless” man refuses offers to live with relatives, apparently sells the shoes for drugs or booze, and demands his “piece of the pie” from the photo of the generous cop helping his disgusting, ungrateful, self, it tends to quench any spirit of generosity in many people and replace it with a spirit of cynicism.
You are probably right!
He MIGHT be telling the truth about them being a temptation to muggers. A more sensible gift, maybe, would be a $7 pair of Wal-Mart slippers, and even that might make his fellow bums envious.
I wouldn’t consider it money wasted because God notices but I would certainly find a cheaper way to help in the future.
This reflects that a very high percentage of our homeless are in that position due to mental illness, rather than lack of economic opportunity.
yup... when they want food they show up at a soup kitchen, or beg outright for the food
If you have unused fare left on a metro ticket (or multiple tickets), you can go to a ticket machine and have the fare consolidated onto a single ticket, or if you have partial fare, you can add money to it. For example if your ride is going to cost $1.00 and you have two tickets with $0.50 left on them, you can either add $0.50 to one, or have the two combined into a single ticket. You can not, however, redeem them for change.
One evening as my girlfriend and I were returning to the car after a day in the city some female approached us begging for fare. I offered her our two tickets which still had a good bit of fare left on them, and most likely would have got her anywhere she needed to go.
She not only declined them, but got angry that we hadn't offered cash. It made a lasting impression on a 19 or 20 year old...
Misplaced sense of self-dignity. If you told them the sun rose in the east, they'd argue.
The 10% who are homeless, are so by choice.
They choose addiction over food, shelter and clothing.
Anyone who honestly needs temporary assistance has plenty of public and private options.
However, since those options prohibit the possession or use of narcotics, most homeless - more accurately described as bums - do not avail themselves of those options.
The only people who deserve the heartfelt concern of the charitable are the children of these vile addicts who are used as props and cash bait by their contemptible parents.
I read a book where a homeless man shared a scam called a "food drop."
The scam works like this. Scare up enough money to buy a hamburger, which is usually pretty easy. Then go to some building and hang out in front of the building right before lunch. Take a bite out of the hamburger, then put it in a trash can.
When people start coming out for lunch, start going through the trash can. "Find" the hamburger and start eating it. People will shove money at you so you don't have to eat garbage.
So you even have to be careful giving someone a sandwich. Like another poster said, make sure they eat it in front of you.
My Dad knew poverty having grown up on a Reservation. So did the black colleague having grown up on the mean streets of a large city. The third colleague did not, having grown up in a wealthy New York suburb and graduated from an ivy league college.
So when a homeless panhandler asks them for money, only one of the three reaches into his pocket. Guess which one.
The ivy leaguer turns to my Dad and the black colleague and remarks "I feel compelled to help those people out because there, except for the grace of God, go I."
The black colleague looks at him and says "I grew up around these people. If you gave him everything you had, including the clothes on your back, he might even thank you and he might even enjoy them for a few days. But the first time he felt he needed another drink, he would trade them off. He wouldn't change places with you long term if you made him such an offer."
Everyone who is homeless is, because they managed to burn every single bridge with everyone that ever cared for them.
Bridge ignition takes two.
I knew a woman at my old church who, when I met her, was a very respectable-looking middle-aged woman, above-average intelligence. You would never in a million years guess that she had once been homeless.
She told me that before she found Christ she had been a raging alcoholic who used to sleep in the streets and beg for cash. She used to tell people that she needed the money for food, that she hadn’t eaten for days, etc. But then she’d take it right down the liquor store to buy more booze.
And this is the socialist scam writ miniature.
And now the government is doing their panhandling FOR them.
My experience is that the truly homeless don't beg or panhandle. Most panhandlers don't have their stuff with them. If they have somewhere else to leave their stuff, they're not homeless.
Anyone who honestly needs temporary assistance has plenty of public and private options.
The public options are often dangerous. I wouldn't ever want to be forced to stay there. But you are correct that the truly homeless generally know where they can go to get a bed or a meal.
However, since those options prohibit the possession or use of narcotics, most homeless - more accurately described as bums - do not avail themselves of those options.
There's a lot of paranoia involved in homelessness. They need psychiatric help, but are too paranoid to get it. Also, many have a condition called "anosognosia" where they literally can't see they have a mental illness, so they don't get treatment. It's a much more difficult situation than the usual conservative bumper stickers can address.
The girls were all happy to pull over and give him food. I wasn't done; I pulled off of the cross road into a parking lot where we could see him but were hard to see. He took a drink, and ate a few fries while looking around, then walked to a dumpster an threw the whole thing away.
The girls were really mad! They wanted to go tell him off. My point? If he was really hungry, he wouldn't be bu the freeway. This is his job. He sells felling good about yourself. He, and all like him are frauds. Find a good charity, Churches are usually good choices, donate there, it's where people in real need go.
YMMV
Delph
Hey, the last time the guy panhandled barefoot, he got a hundred dollar pair of boots out of it. Why wouldn’t he try it again?
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