I dunno if it’s a “fake” homeless person, but I have given money to someone who was richer than I. Around 2003 I was working a fairly low-wage job and had stopped to buy a pack of cigarettes. A guy asked me for a handout, and I gave him a couple of bucks. I went in, grabbed the smokes, and while I was packing the cigarettes on the dash of the van, I look out the window at the parking lot on the side of the building. The guy is adding bills to a roll of cash I wish I had access to at the time.
So, I still give to panhandlers, but it’s rarely in the high traffic areas of Dallas that attract the professionals.
I used to go to a certain Walmart for business in another part of my city. It was a fairly frequent sight this store to see a certain guy holding a “homeless” sign.
The thing is, he drove a very distinctive pickup. I knew for a fact that he was NOT homeless–because he lived in my apartment complex.
True- but Big Issue is what I would call an ethical business.
I believe the folk running the business cover their costs (getting the content written; producing the magazine etc.) through selling advertising - but it doesn’t pay those folk much (if anything.)
The point is that homeless people can get some money with dignity through providing something and the generous donors also get a ‘reward’ (plus you know how much to pay.)
Win-win.
Your posts contains a couple of common but inaccurate assumptions.
First, and perhaps most important from the standpoint of trying to run a just society, not all homeless are unemployed. Over the past 15 years I have had several coworkers who, despite working full time were nonetheless homeless - two of them slept in homeless shelters, another couple slept in their cars and once every so often rented a cheap hotel room to stay in or did some couch surfing, and so on. Federal minimum wage is really low and it doesn’t buy much. I don’t want to divert this thread into a long dissertation about how effed up our society is that someone working full time can’t afford a place to live in many places but it is a real thing. You don’t notice these people because they’re highly functional adults and don’t have the “look” of being homeless - they keep clean, they have decent clothes, properly groomed, don’t have debilitating addictions. etc.
There are some highly profitable scamming things going on. This thread has listed a few. For myself, I recall a couple in the early 1990’s in Chicago who’d cruise the “museum campus” in downtown Chicago near Lake Shore Drive with a gas can claiming to have run out of gas and needing a few bucks to get home. They looked like and dressed like middle-class White suburbanites and made a nice chunk of change doing this (they did, in fact, live in a Chicago suburb). The big objection there, when they were found out, was the fraud aspect - asking for gas money is one thing, asking for gas money over and over when you didn’t really need it and making a profit out of lying is what pissed people off.
But most of the panhandlers out there with cardboard signs are not making a ton of money, and they probably get robbed from time to time. The money they make likely does help them eat, might pay for a room now and again, and yes, may be going to drugs and alcohol but not always. Some of them have mental problems, some have addiction problems, some have both. But hey, at least their honest about being beggars. Some will even admit they’re buying booze with the money if you ask them, some won’t.
The “newspapers for homeless to sell” are fairly common in large cities - the one in Chicago is called StreetWise. Wikipedia says they’re called street newspapers. The Chicago version is apparently sold to vendors for 90¢ each and they in turn sell them for $2, keeping the difference.
It would be superfluous to add to George Orwell, but in response to your query about whether people asking for handouts are “just doing it for money”, yes, they absolutely want you to give them money.
That’s hard to fake once you place the bow and start playing.
Now those Three-Card Monte tables I keep seeing— why? How much action do they see a night? This isn’t The Sting.
Just like the phrase “welfare queen”, “fake homeless” might be used in certain circles to avoid helping people in need. Of course there will be notorious cases of people cheating and taking advantage of others’ generosity. But should we stop being generous because 1 in 10 are cheaters?
A common argument against it is:what if they use the money to buy drugs/booze?” I don’t know of a good response apart from “Why assume that’s where it’s going?”
I was thinking of the Sherlock Holmes story too… so the meme existed over 120 years ago.
I recall a news article from the 1980’s(?) about a legless beggar who would spend his time begging in Washington, DC. He was quite well known, but would disappear for the winters. When he died, it came out that he’d go off to Florida for the winters, where he had a quite luxurious life financed by the begging.
I’m reminded of the song by Lazyboy, “Underwear Go Inside the Pants”…
We’re in one of the richest countries in the world,
But the minimum wage is lower than it was thirty five years ago.
There are homeless people everywhere.
This homeless guy asked me for money the other day.
I was about to give it to him and then I thought he was going to use it on drugs or alcohol.
And then I thought, that’s what I’m going to use it on.
The thing is - “beggar” as an occupation goes back to before we had welfare. Today, there is government social assistance of various sorts and charities dedicated also to those who cannot manage their finances - soup kitchens, homeless shelters, etc. Generally I refuse to give money to panhandlers because whatever the begging routine, whether it’s standing on the traffic median at lights, or Naked Cowboy or Elmo infestations in Times Square - once one person discovers a new vein of money, it becomes overloaded with copycats. I make an exception at times for buskers and others who provide some value “earning” the money they receive.
That panhandlers are homeless
That homeless people are panhandlers
That people involved in a despised activity are worthy of our sneers and deserve to be ignored if not actually abused because they (fill in the blank)
are actually making a lot of money
are LYING to us about how in need they are
are lazy
are drug or alcohol addicts
could get a real job if they wanted to
are anyway using all those fat cushy social services that the US government dispenses so freely to people who deserve nothing except a kick in the pants because they are lazy addicted liars who don’t pull their weight and are dirty, conniving, shameless hucksters and as proof I have this second or third hand self-justifying anecdote.
I have known some people who work with the actual homeless and ‘street people’. According to these workers, the actual lives of the actual people they work with are a daily horror show of tragedy, mishap, discomfort, mental and physical illness, and exhaustion.
The set of those who are homeless street people and those who beg are two sets of people; there is an intersection set, but they are not a union set. I assume the OP’s question is about the beg set that aren’t also in the homeless set?
I have no idea about the relative size of each set, other than some general observations you will hear regularly - “That panhandler is dressed better than I am!” (Despite the whole point being to look down-and-out); or people panhandling far from the regular haunts of street people. Maybe the take is better in the affluent suburbs, but it’s at least an hour and a half walk to get there; and then back again.
Decades ago, I remember being panhandled in the terminal while waiting for the greyhound bus. The old “I haven’t eaten” routine. I told the guy (maybe 20yo) I wouldn’t give him money, but I’d buy him food. When I returned with a sandwich I’d bought, he was nowhere to be seen - so I ate it.
Yeah, the deceit is probably what gets people’s goats the most. Similar to the story above about the couple in Chicago that made a decent living with a gas can, there was a couple of folks who would shuffle a mid-80s Buick back and forth between two gas stations at Mockingbird and I-35 all day long. I was working a job where I was delivering A/V equipment, had to stop at these two gas stations in the work van a couple of times a day, and passed through this intersection several times on my way to and from the shop. So, I’d noticed them.
When I was going home for the evening, I stopped at one of those stations in my own truck to get gas. They approached me, and started to tell me a story about how they needed gas money. I told them I’d seen their Buick moving back and forth between the gas stations all day long, so I wasn’t convinced. They didn’t argue about it.
On the other hand, I have given money simply because even if the story I was handed was bullshit - it was a good story, and well worth a couple of bucks.
We had a brief flap a few months ago about these folks. They are people who play electrically amplified violins, but the amplifier plays a prerecorded track, not what the violinist is doing with the strings.
I’ve seen reports from other areas; apparently it’s a nationwide thing.
I think it’s intended to emphasize “see, I’m a hard worker, I’ve mastered this difficult thing; I’ve fallen on hard times, but I’m here to give you some value for the money you give me.” Which, of course, makes many (including the writer of the link above) even more enraged when they find out it’s an instance of deception.
I always learn something new on the Dope. Never heard of fake violinists! I’m definitely familiar with traditional buskers and I don’t have a problem with them unless you’re a captive audience. That means NOT an underground train station waiting area with low ceilings.
EDIT: I was referring to the buskers in Chicago for the red and blue lines which are partially subways. I have no problem with London buskers in the train stations but not performing on the waiting platform.
One of our favorite things to do in New Orleans is to roam the streets listening to buskers. Pay what we feel each one is worth. All with drink in hand.
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