September 5, 2008
The Business of Panhandling
I have been noticing an upsurge of panhandling on the Delmar Loop these days despite a very healthy police presence (there are paddy wagons parked in the middle of the street on weekends). Personally, I find it aggravating and I am not sure why folks would be sympathetic towards it:
In 2003, San Francisco residents overwhelmingly passed a ballot proposition authored by then-supervisor (and now mayor) Gavin Newsom outlawing in-your-face panhandling. But the ordinance has been ineffective because scores of volunteer lawyers, many from the city’s biggest law firms, have fought every citation. People cited for panhandling don’t even need to appear in court. They simply drop their citations in boxes at various advocacy groups, and the lawyers pick them up and appear in court, where judges have ruled that cops must file lengthy reports in order to get a conviction. The courts are dismissing about 85 percent of all tickets handed out under the ordinance, frustrating police, prosecutors, politicians, and residents who voted for it. “If you had been here several years ago, before the ordinance passed, and came back today, you wouldn’t see a difference in the level of panhandling. There’s as much as ever,” says supervisor Sean Elsbernd.
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18 Responses to “The Business of Panhandling”
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Andrew, I’m one of those people who continue to give to panhandlers. Not all of them, but many. There are ordinances in Dallas against panhandling as well, the (very well-meaning) argument being that our money should go into shelters and rehab programs. I also support shelters and rehab programs, but I know that they aren’t for everybody. Some people are simply outside of this society. They do not wish to be in a shelter, they do not wish to be rehabilitated, they do not wish to be employed. Many are mentally or physically ill and do not wish to be treated. I feel nothing but compassion for these people. I have plenty of money, and if my giving them $20 is all it takes to bring a moment of happiness to them, I’m going to do it.
Maybe I have just seen too many bums walk around the corner and hop into Mercedes.
And I mean that comment in earnest, not as some rhetorical device.
Have you really? That’s interesting, considering how little charity I see in the world. Wow.
Yep. The article itself also talks about how much they can make:
“People’s generosity encourages the begging. About four out of ten Denver residents gave to panhandlers, city officials determined several years ago, anteing up an estimated $4.6 million a year. Anecdotal surveys by journalists and police, and even testimony by panhandlers themselves, suggest that begging can yield anywhere from $20 to $100 a day—though police in Coos Bay, Oregon, found that local panhandlers were taking in as much as $300 a day in a Wal-Mart parking lot. “A panhandler could make thirty to forty thousand dollars a year, tax-free money,” Baker says. In Memphis, a local FOX News reporter, Jason Carter, donned old clothes and hit the streets earlier this year, earning about $10 an hour. “Just the quasi-appearance of being homeless filled my cup,” Carter observed. That all the money is beyond the tax man’s clutches adds to the allure of professional panhandling.”
Wow, they can make about $10 an hour. That’s more than enough to buy a Mercedes. I think I’ll go out and stand in the blazing Texas heat for 8 hours straight, endure taunts, be spit at, and bring in $80 tax free. Then I’ll buy a Mercedes.
Andrew, forgive me for being so sarcastic, but please think about this for a while. Which would you rather be guilty of–giving to a panhandler who is undeserving, or passing over someone who is truly suffering? I’ll gladly take the risk.
I have listened for years to people who use “can’t get to heaven on good works” as an excuse to not be charitable and feel good about it. Also, the phrase “welfare Cadillac” is an old one that makes people very comfortable with not being generous. It’s so easy for people to think: I might turn out to have been foolish to offer assistance back there–so I’m never going to do that! Should I help that person change her tire–or might she be part of a set-up, and her hidden boyfriend will leap out and stab me! Better not ever risk that. I’m just sick of all the convenient arguments people come up with for doing nothing but complaining about how rich the poor secretly are. As noted in a recent post: the Queen, being driven through a blighted area, was moved to say “I can’t see what the advantage to being poor is….”
I rather organize community and governmental efforts to help folks. You should see the crazies we get during the winter at the Women’s shelter at my church. They definitely have no place to go and wouldn’t fit in any of the government’s programs.
I have no problem giving money to panhandlers; alms-giving seems a lot more central to societies (such as the Middle East and India) that don’t suffer under the the Calvinist illusions of the American up-by-the-bootstraps dream: wealth disparity exists, and poverty is quite often not punishment for sin, but simply the best one can manage. I just figure it’s the decent thing to do; if someone asks me to hold the door, I’ll take a second to help. If someone wants a dollar from me enough to stand in the sun on a freeway exit, they can have that too. What’s it to me–half a cup of Starbucks?
That said, the other day I pulled up to the gas pump and a guy hopped out of his Civic and walked over to me: “Hey bro, can you help me out with a couple bucks? I need to put some gas in my car.” “Sorry, only plastic,” I lied. I guess my generosity has its limits.
(I find this an odd topic to discuss, and I find that the kindness you show others should be something you do and rarely speak about, but because I think this is important… please understand I don’t say this to praise myself)
I have seen friends of mine pass by the homeless in the streets as if they were not there, and that breaks my heart. Perhaps as fellow humans they deserve to at least be told “No”, if you choose not to give. I try and distinguish between those who seem able bodied and well, and those who seem to be really… without ability to care for themselves. I’ve been on skid row in L.A. several times, and I have looked very seriously into working at the Dream Center, or L.A. Mission, (but I don’t live in L.A. proper, which makes getting there almost impossible given my living situation.)
The way I see it, giving money has less to do with the person who is recieving the money from me, but rather the fact that I am giving it up. If I am going into a restuarant and someone outside asks for money, I ask if they are hungry and if they say yes, if I may buy them some food. If they agree, I buy something to go along with my dinner and ask that it is brought out first. Then I run it outside and hand it to them without saying much, I don’t want to embarass them. They are always surprised to see me, no one ever expects me to come back with food for them.
We love you, Amanda Mae. I think you are exactly right–that it’s enough for me to think about the kind of person I want to be, instead of thinking first about who really deserves help. And this doesn’t mean that some sort of judgment about the particular situation shouldn’t be made. I have given out two or three dollars to people who then sneered at how “little” I was giving them–and the next time these people asked they got nothing. Some panhandlers make life worse for other people who need such help, and I try not to add to their efforts.
I actually lived on the streets for half a year or so when I was 15 and 16 years old (Sunset blvd, near Hollywod & Vine, 1969). I saw the full range of panhandling behavior–from givers and askers alike. Many of the people I left behind probably didn’t ever leave that life. Having absolutely no sense of a safety net is an introduction to the abyss that is not soon forgotten.
I’ve just heard such vitriol when people speak about the homeless or panhandlers. One of my friends told me about how she “screamed” in one man’s face about how she works three jobs and he was “lazy”. So many people have told me “Oh they just use the money to buy DRUGS and ALCOHOL.” And I thought to myself, “Perhaps, but what does that have to do with me?” I can afford to give a few dollars and release it with kindness. It’s really hard to give, but it’s been something I’ve been working on this past year. For me, the honest truth is it’s hard not to want praise for my actions. I partly want other people to notice the good things I do, and so, of course, I mustn’t draw attention to any of it. That isn’t and won’t be the reason I give or help.
I grew up in El Paso, Texas, on the US/Mexico border. The city of Juarez is literally a stone’s throw from the El Paso freeway. I grew up seeing houses made of cardboard, people burning tires for heat, children running through the snow in flimsy cotton clothing and bare feet. I remember asking my family about these people at a very young age, only to be told that none of it was as bad as I thought it was. When we visited Mexico and dirty children scampered around us, begging for money, my family always told me that those children were not really poor, that they would just take the money back to rich men who were using them.
It’s hard for me to write about this, because it’s one of the most painful memories of my childhood–the realization I had at a very early age that my own family was capable of being oblivious to suffering. I also heard all the stories about panhandlers getting into expensive cars, people on food stamps who wore diamond rings, and, of course, the ever-present “that dog isn’t hungry or lost, he’s on his way home.”
Many people choose to believe whatever is easiest for them and will find “facts” to support that belief. It’s much easier to believe that people or animals aren’t really in need than to face their suffering straight on.
For the record, every person I have known who has expressed the view that panhandlers are con artists has been a Christian.
Since I started my current job, my drive home puts me at the same traffic light with the same panhandler on most days. At first, I’d give him a little cash. Then I started to feel weird on the days where I didn’t have anything. So I started carrying a box of Clif bars with me and I’d give him those. Lately, I’ve been pretty strapped on account of I gotta get my teeth tuned up, so I don’t give anything. And I pull the jack-ass move of sneaking through the intersection during the last tiny bit of the yellow light.
It’s popular in our country to front like you came up poor. It’s an important part of the American dream narrative. It also enables, to a certain extent, the disdain we have for the impoverished.
I always think of Bill Murray in Groundhog Day, coming around the corner and patting his pockets as he walks briskly past the old man with his hand out.
I buy people food or gas. I very rarely give people money.
I am the same way, although the folks I see on the Loop (I spend most of my time not on computers hanging around there) who ask for food or gas are always the same people with the same story (they are from out of town trying to get back to such and such place, etc.).
Except for this older guy with a cane and some sort of terrible back problem. He’s alright.
Cindy, that is so difficult to hear, and I had a very similar experience growing up, sort of ignoring the poor and being told they were VERY dangerous.
Luckily, one grows up, and can make different choices. Stray dogs seem to flock to our home and we’ve found over four dogs in the suburbs where we live, and we’ve been able to find their owners or a good home for each of them.
And yes, in my experience as well, it is usually Christians who speak so loudly of the deceptive nature of panhandlers. ‘They should just get a job.’