I know you've seen them.
It's usually a man. He's disheveled, looks like he's gone a couple days without a bath. he usually has a cigarette.
His clothing has seen better days. He usually has a hat and a cigarette. There's usually a backpack stashed close behind him. He has the body language and the facial expression of a sad, beaten man.
Unless it's raining or snowing hard, he's on a busy street corner controlled by a traffic light and plenty of traffic. He positions himself so he can make eye contact with the driver of a car. He's seldom overtly or verbally aggressive, but he forces a pedestrian to walk around him. He's got a sign. The sign usually says this:
The sign is ALWAYS on a sheet of cardboard. It's usually misspelled. It usually says the above: anything helps and God bless.
He's a 'panhandler'. A bum. A beggar.
He is not always a 'he'.Sometimes it is a woman. They all share the same things, though:
a woebegone look and a sad story.
Sometimes they have a dog..or worse, a kid with them (although, in my area, it is illegal to have a kid or a dog alongside when you are begging). This is to encourage sympathy (for the kid's sake) or a desire to meet the dog, especially if it's a puppy.
In so many cases, these people are not homeless. They might not have a job, but there is always a place in the larger cities where they can find a bed, a hot shower, a meal. They're called 'homeless shelters'. Many beggars don't want to use them, though, as the shelters (especially the religious ones, i.e. Salvation Army) expect things of them: keep your drugs, your alcohol, your smokes OUT. No dogs, no sexual activity, and you have to earn the stay, meaning: do SOMETHING: pick up trash, look for work, etc.
I know some of these folks really are homeless. You can't help but see them, sleeping on park benches. You see them in the public library, looking at porn on the computers.
Some of them are, if not aggressive, verbally confrontational, in a way to make you feel guilty. "Can't spare a buck?"
In my town, there is an unofficial gathering place for these people next to a public well. The water is pure and clean, and best of all, free. You cannot get a jug of water filled, though, without a group of the beggars all congregating around you as you fill your water jugs. It's not so much that they want to fill their little plastic bottle with water. No, it's intimidation. It's saying to you, I am here, you have money, I want some.
They place themselves, legs outstretched to take up as much sidewalk as they can in front of restaurants and places of business so that you are forced to walk past them on your way into the establishment. They make comments, sotto voce, but loud enough to hear, a comment made to make you feel guilty that you are about to partake of a meal while they, a fellow human, are OBVIOUSLY hungry, cold and homeless.
But are they?
They depend on several things. They depend on you to feel sympathy for the plight. They look homeless. They have the expression of a beaten dog. And they know you are purposefully avoiding eye contact. Hence, they expect you to not be able to recognize them from one day to the next. But we do. We remember.
She was holding a sign: "Homeless, two hungry children. Anything helps."
No, I didn't give her any money. She looked too well fed to actually be hungry. Several months later, I saw her on the same corner, with the same worded sign: "Homeless, two children. ONE ON THE WAY. Anything helps."
Holy christ. You'd think if you have no job, no home, and are hungry, you don't MAKE ANOTHER KID. If she were homeless, she had no business having unprotected sex. No, perhaps she can't afford birth control (although Planned Parenthood would have provided it for her for free). But the answer isn't getting pregnant. It's finding a safe place for the kids and then getting some means of taking care of them.
Or:
He's on the corner with a beat up cardboard sign and a ballcap saying "US Navy" His sign says he's a disabled combat veteran. Homeless, hungry, anything helps god bless. He chain smokes with a shaking hand.
One of my friends works for the VA. He's a former Marine (although, once a Marine, always a Marine.) Disabled after three combat tours in Viet Nam, a pant leg covers his prosthetic leg, and only one eye is real. He makes a habit of seeking out panhandling veterans needing help. He can get them into programs to get them medical care, job counseling, even into a shelter. But he, like me and most other veterans, possesses a sixth sense to know when someone is truly a veteran..or just posing as one.
He approached the the so called US Navy veteran.
Without identifying himself as working for the VA, he asked the beggar what did he do in the Navy? Was he on a ship? How did he get hurt? I thought the VA helped veterans? What kind of job is he looking for ?
The beggar kept evading his questions, mumbling or making non-committal answers. Finally he looked my insistent friend in the eye and said, "Look, asshole, this is just my gig. Fuck off."
Or:
Not far from my home on the outskirts of town, I see a beggar with the sign and a handsome dog. It's the dog that catches my eye, a handsome, brown Australian Shepherd with a wiggle butt substituting for his lack of a happy tail. I'm an animal person. I see them before I see the owner. But I drive on. I've got things to do.
Half an hour later, I'm downtown. I'm waiting for a light to change. I see a large white passenger van stop at the cross street in front of a beggar. The side door opens, the beggar gets aboard....and the beggar with the Australian shepherd dog gets off. It's shift change!!
Or:
He's standing on a busy, business district corner controlled by traffic lights. He's walking back and forth, carrying on a conversation with himself, but directed at the cars waiting for the light to change in front of him. His sign is double sided. On one side, it's "Hungry. Homeless. Anything helps." He looks hard at the occupants in the car in front of them and makes a loud comment. They ignore him. The light changes. He flips the sign. It says, "Fuck you very much."
Or:
I was with a far quicker witted person than I. There's two beggars...the man, not much older than my admittedly older car, with his very pregnant girlfriend who is holding the sign. As we passed, he said, "We've got a baby coming." My friend snapped, "You should have thought of that BEFORE you knocked her up."
Or:
My friend was out with her seven year old daughter. There was a beggar on the corner in front of the fast food restaurant with the obligatory sign. Thinking she would teach her daughter that not everyone is so fortunate in this world, she purchased a meal (a fully loaded hamburger and a large order of fries) for the man. Watching VERY carefully, she told her daughter to go up to the beggar and give him the meal. She offered the bagged meal to him. He knocked it from her hands, shouting, "CASH, bitch, CASH."
Or:
There is one woman in my community who has a different approach..she approaches women in a parking lot with "can I ask you a question?" The first time she hit me up with this was about six months ago. I was caught unawares. She walked up to me as I was putting groceries in my truck. She pointed out the horse decal on my truck, smiling and said, "Can I ask you a question?" Thinking she was a fellow horseman, I said "sure". That's when she asked for some money to 'get back to Portland, I am escaping a bad situation and need gas money." I was stuck. I gave her a buck.
Fast forward to yesterday. Same area, same come on, and most likely the same beggar, although this time the woman was in her car. Which is probably where she is living, as it's been freezing cold. This time, although it took me a minute to recognize her, she pulled up in front of me, and said, "Can I ask you a question?" I stopped, looked hard at her and said "No." She pointed at my 1st Cav decal on my truck and asked anyway: "Were you in the 1st Cav?" I said yes. "Do you know Robert (I didn't catch the last name, and wouldn't have admitted it if I had). I said "no. It's a big unit." She began talking but I refused to be suckered again. Got in my truck and left, hoping she didn't follow.
I do not believe that these beggars are truly homeless.
That being said, I have, on occasion, run into people who truly are destitute. One time I saw a woman rummaging around in a clothing dropoff bin. She looked..rough. Not mean, but obviously, she was someone who had been on the streets for a while. There was something about her that told me that there was a mental instability issue there. She was NOT begging. So I rolled down my car window, said, Excuse, me, could you use this? and handed her a dollar. She was astounded and said Thank you.
Every once in a while, you will see a beggar who isn't trying to con you into giving up cash through guilt. His sign will say:
Only once have I run into a 'person' that I truly wished I could have helped.
He was sitting at the entrance of a busy highway gas station, one where the big rigs can fuel up as well as smaller cars. He was resting with his back against his backpack. He had a large bottle of water at his feet and a cigarette in his hand.
His sign was one of cartoons. It had: a caricature of a human face + that of a cat= Michigan.
He wasn't begging for anything. He was hitchhiking, looking for a ride for him and his cat to Michigan (he was a very long way from that state.)
I turned around and purposefully stopped in front of him, rolling down my passenger side window. He looked up, surprised. I saw the cat behind him...a handsome gray and white tuxedo cat wearing a harness. I handed the young man a five dollar bill. "Good luck!" I said. The cat said "Row?" with a dignified air of hopefulness.
The young man said "Thank you!" and to the hopeful cat, "No, buddy, it's not our ride."
That tore me up. Had I been able to, I would have given him and his cat enough bus money to make it to Michigan. I wish him good luck and fortune, and hope he made it to Michigan with his best friend...a cat.
