Angus Jung wrote:There are millions of reasons why people can't or don't work straight jobs. Most of them are things we take for granted to the point where we don't even consider them (like having a picture I.D., for instance).

Having worked with nonprofits that provide services to homeless people, I can tell you that many homeless people simply aren't able to deal with the regimentation and the basic social interactions that are required to work a normal job. It isn't always because of addiction, either. Some people are deeply anti-social. Others have never been able to deal with authority in any official capacity.

Living in a society requires many compromises that some can't or won't make. This inability usually results in great suffering and hardship. It doesn't necessarily have anything to do with ability or willingness to do work.

Where I live there are highly self-organized, consistent, hard-working individuals who go to different neighborhoods every night with shopping carts and comb through residential recycle bins that are set out at the curb, looking for items that can be exchanged for small amounts of cash at recycling centers. It's obvious that these people take their 'jobs' seriously.

Agreed.

Maybe if our country's welfare system wasn't so deplorable you'd see less of them begging on the streets.

A younger man (23-25) tried to hit me up for cash last time I was in Asheville. I said: "Sorry man- I'm only packin' benjamins."

I give to old bearded fellas every time I can afford to.

syntaxfree07 wrote:A younger man (23-25) tried to hit me up for cash last time I was in Asheville.

Only one?
Must have been a slow day...

This is exactly what I mean by the jam band kids edging in on the truly needy's turf.
The hippie kids that land in Asheville's Pack Place are usually educated and just out for an adventure.
They can "get a job" and pay taxes like the rest of us. Taxes that could go towards helping out people who truly have no options.

I've walked right past three of them to give a dollar to a 50 year old guy with half his teeth.

-A

Wow, this has been an amazingly divisive issue, which has made for some quite entertaining posting.

It's surprised me a bit that the "people who don't give out to panhandlers tend to be selfish pricks or, god forbid, Republicans" camp is so strongly represented on this forum, especially with all the Chicagoans on here.

Only in the course of a few visits to my bro on N. Point St, I encountered some of the more aggressive and hostile beggars I've ever seen. OK, never been to India and only been to New York once, but damn, in Chicago a lot of these guys were not the people I'd give money to. You know, the guys who try to hit you up for more if you just give 'em 50 cents, "can I get a dollar, man?" or just tell you to fuck off.

As has been cited numerous times before, it's a case to case basis, but there is really no excuse to act like a tool if you're trying to collect money on the grounds of general empathy.

Anyway, I've seen a million types of beggars, and its generally the cool guys who are laid back and don't get in your face that tend constitute the "true panhandlers" who get dragged down by the assholes who blatantly accost you. (This has been noted before, I know).

The "need money for the bus" tactic is consistently revolting, though. And around European bus stations, they are never just asking you for 50 cents or a dollar here, they want 10 bucks or more so they can go to some other city 100 miles away. One guy even claimed he locked his keys in his car and desperately needed 500KC ($20) to pay a locksmith to get them out, but his mobile was in the car, so he also needed money to call the locksmith, but at the end he just wanted to finish the can of beer I was drinking.

Another pitiful one is the "need money for the bus so I can go to the rehab clinic," which you hear all the time in hardcore heroin cities like Frankfurt, Bonn, and Cologne.

And then there's the "I just got mugged and need to make it to my parents' place, here's my ID - that proves I'm for real and not trying to bullshit you."

All of these guys would be better off just straight-up asking for money.

If you're talking about running scams, I too do not consider begging a scam, by no means. Begging with the help of an elaborate (yet familiar) story is also not necessarily "a scam" - it's just annoying as fuck and insults the intelligence of any prospective donor. It makes you feel like a yutz if you do end up giving the guy something.

And then there are the street musicians - a whole different, and in my eyes far superiour category, since they are requesting donations and not hassling anybody just sitting there on the street with their geetars...

Has anyone here seen Dark Days, the Marc Singer documentary about people living in an unimaginable community in the subway tunnels of New York?

For two years Marc Singer lived with the people who make their home in the tunnels beneath Penn Station in New York, creating an unflinching portrait of a part of society that is literally and figuratively beneath our notice.

"You'd be surprised what the human mind and body can adjust to," says Tito, one of the tunnel dwellers. He and his neighbors are homeless, but the tunnels offer them a degree of safety that doesn't exist on the streets above. In this strange place they manage to achieve a remarkable degree of domesticity, building shelters, keeping pets, and cooking meals.

Singer has an eye for telling images, such as Dee dragging a sofa along the train tracks like Sisyphus rolling his stone in Hell. With its grainy black-and-white photography and haunting soundtrack, this is a surprisingly beautiful film, but it is never sentimental, nor does it try to impose a false nobility on its subjects. Dark Days simply shows us a world that we never knew existed, and in this simplicity lies its power.

It's an eye-opener.

Cranius wrote:Has anyone here seen Dark Days, the Marc Singer documentary about people living in an unimaginable community in the subway tunnels of New York?

For two years Marc Singer lived with the people who make their home in the tunnels beneath Penn Station in New York, creating an unflinching portrait of a part of society that is literally and figuratively beneath our notice.

"You'd be surprised what the human mind and body can adjust to," says Tito, one of the tunnel dwellers. He and his neighbors are homeless, but the tunnels offer them a degree of safety that doesn't exist on the streets above. In this strange place they manage to achieve a remarkable degree of domesticity, building shelters, keeping pets, and cooking meals.

Singer has an eye for telling images, such as Dee dragging a sofa along the train tracks like Sisyphus rolling his stone in Hell. With its grainy black-and-white photography and haunting soundtrack, this is a surprisingly beautiful film, but it is never sentimental, nor does it try to impose a false nobility on its subjects. Dark Days simply shows us a world that we never knew existed, and in this simplicity lies its power.

It's an eye-opener.

Brilliant, brilliant documentary that nearly bancrupted the director. The story of how it was made is as interesting as the doc itself.

He ended up living in the tunnels, after plunging all his resources into the film. The cost of the film effectively made him homeless.

I don't really know what to do about giving to the homeless when I'm just out and about.

If I go for a walk around town, then chances are, I'll probably be asked by say, five homeless people for money.

I do occasionally.

But, I start to wonder if I'm just doing this to make myself feel better, or similarly to avoid feeling like a mean dick. I once wondered if charity existed just to make more fortunate people feel better, but I suppose that almost any form of charity is like that. Is it often about feeling good about yourself?

Anyway, that brings me to my problem of not knowing how much to give them, and how often. Not knowing someone's background makes things difficult too, or does that not matter?

DrAwkward wrote:Another time, someone walked up to me at the bus stop and asked, "You paying for the bus with cash?"

"Yeah." (i'm too lazy to go buy buss passes.)

"I'll sell you this one for $1.75." (Which is the cost of a bus ride in cash)

"Yeah, sure, OK." I mean, what the hell? Either way i'm spending $1.75, and this way he gets to use it for something else. Made sense to me.

I don't know how your bus passes work, but as a cautionary tale I got FUCKED on a similar-style scenario here in Saint Louis:

My girflfriend and I were about to buy our $1.50 tickets to get on the "MetroLink" train. Shady Dude hanging around swoops in and offers up two tickets he has - we can hear train coming, so we give him the cash, which was quicker than going through the menu of the ticket automat, anyhow...

A few stops on the train later, the ticket-checker security person asks to see everyone's tickets, and we naturally comply.

Ticket-checker-lady takes us off at the next stop, detains us, radios in to the police, and give us each a $75 citation for using bogus tickets.

Thanks, Shady Dude!

But back to the real crux:

I've worked in downtown Saint Louis for the past 6 years, so FYI this is my only sample pool:

PEOPLE WHO I KNEW OR BELIEVED TO BE LYING PIECES OF SHIT:

- There are at least 4-5 people I know here (know their faces) who have been apparently panhandling continuously for at least 6 years. These people deserve none of my money, absolutely none, and I will not budge on that. GET A JOB. I agree with the statement earlier, that I'd rather throw a "tip" at someone working a shit fast-food (or similar) job, and putting up with that shittiness all day TRYING to earn a living, rather than someone who wants my money so they can layabout in the park and drink in the sunshine.

- Once I got hit up by a "dapper" well-dressed man who looked to be in a legitimate state of consternation. He said he was from out of town, staying at a hotel up the street , and he needed a few bucks to hustle down to Walgreen's ASAP to get an inhaler for his asthmatic son. I think I gave him $5. About a year later, I came across THE SAME MOTHERFUCKER, laying down THE SAME RAP. Only this time he had two strikes against him a) I remembered his ass, and b) the Walgreen's at which he was gesturing had actually closed in the meantime between our last encounter. I give him some credit for attention to his craft though... he had a slick, believable rap (the first time around).

- there is the time I almost got in a fistfight on my way to work, because Pushy Dude asks me if I can help out with some dough, I politely said "No, sorry", and then after passing he turned and yelled out to me and everyone in earshot in the middle of the street "WELL, YOU LOOK LIKE YOU COULD HELP!"... Hey, Pushy Dude, not that it's any of your goddamned business, but I am carrying a debit-card, a driver's license, and shit-else. Fuck you, you young, healthy, lazy-ass. Is that his response to everyone who says "No, sorry"? If so, his voice would've surely been hoarse before an hour was through. If not, then why single me out with the shouting?

- there are the other Pushy Dudes, too numerous to mention, who I swear just capitalize on the fact that a lot of the "lily-white, suburb-dwellers who commute to the city for work purposes or ballgames only" are very easily intimidated (don't know how common this is in other cities?). You know the guys that see you from across the street and half a block down and start yelling out "Hey! Hey Big Man! HEY! Let me talk to you for a second!"

THE ONE KNOWN EXCEPTION I HAVE PERSONALLY ENCOUNTERED:

- one guy I met twice within 6 months and then never saw on the streets again. The first time was down on Laclede's Landing, and he was talking (very nicely - NOT PUSHY) to people as they exited bars, going to parking lots (but not following them to their cars). He would tell you at length about what happened to him, what he was trying to do to get going again, how it was frustrating to stay at the shelter because other dudes there are always stealing your stuff, but he was still overall positive on taking advantage of everything the shelter had to offer. The most important thing was I could really FEEL this guy's gratitude for what people were helping him out with. He wasn't INSULTED if someone only had a quarter or 50 cents. He had a full shoe-shine rig with him and offered to shine the men's shoes, although almost nobody took him up on it. I met this guy again about 6 months later, and he was happy to tell me about some of the things that were looking up for him, and how he'd gotten a job lined up, etc. He didn't even ask, but I gave him probably whatever total cash I had on me that day. I wish him well - to me, he was quite genuine and sincere.

So, while I generally lean towards the overall policy of "not giving", I guess I still follow my instinct somewhat when someone seems REAL.

I don't feel guilty about not encouraging the panhandling.

Now ask me if I *DO* feel guilty for not getting off my ass and doing bigger things to help people (doing volunteer work, etc.) and that is a different subject.