I always hear stories about beggars who bought mansions with the millions they got over the years. I’ve heard it told of a beggar in Dublin who owns a house in a salubrious South Dublin area that he retires to at night and also about millionaire beggars in NYC. Are there any documented cases of beggars being found to be rich and having acquired their riches through begging?
Not rich, although I recall reading that a hustling panhandler in a good-sized city could make $10,000 a year. Since that works out to less than $200 per week or about $28 a day, it doesn’t sound too outlandish.
When I moved to Washington, D.C. in 1967. a common sight on F Street, NW between 10th and 14th Streets was a very well-dressed begger (tie, white shirt, suit coat) who was also legless. He used to get around on a little wheeled platform (sort of like Porgy). I saw an interview with him once in the Washington Post during which he was asked if he was really rich; his answer was something like “Do you see the hovel I live in? Do you think I’m rich?” About ten years later he died and in the obituary published in the Washington Post it said that during the Spring, Summer, and Fall he begged in Washington. During the Winter he lived in Florida with his wife and children in the house he had bought with the money he had gotten from begging.
This story http://www.city-journal.org/2008/18_3_panhandling.html says that a panhandler could make anywhere from 10 to 300 dollars an hour. I suspect those at the upper end are more grifters than panhandlers. It also mentions the figure of 40k$ a year. That isn’t enough to make one a millionaire, but since its tax free 40k ain’t hay.
This 2002 article from the Toronto Sun estimates one woman brings in $2500 a week or more. (I imagine it went down after the article was published.) It’s certainly within the realm of possibility.
I had a friend who made $35 panhandling for less than an hour. She was young and not unattractive, though, I’m sure if she looked like your typical homeless person not as many people would have given her the money.
I’ve noticed that the panhandlers who work the intersections at traffic lights have someone give them money more often than not when I’m waiting. Since they work both directions at the intersection, if they only got a dollar once per light cycle, they could still make $10-$15 an hour.
Thing is, most panhandlers don’t work for 8 hours a day straight. They work until they have enough money for what they want and then quit for a while. If somebody had the motivation to panhandle for 8 hours a day, they could probably do OK, but if they had that level of motivation, they could be a lot more comfortable by applying for government aid and/or getting a job.
Regardless of how common it is in the real world, the widespread idea that it’s highly profitable is probably due to the Sherlock Holmes story “The Man with the Twisted Lip”, which features a very successful beggar.
cite? Sherlock Holmes is a widely-known character, but I have doubts that any single story is so widely known.
I think the perception is much more likely to stem from many people’s reaction to the grifter element of homeless panhandlers, as opposed to the truly needy and desperate.
Meaningless anecdote alert! I read “The Complete Sherlock Homes” when I was in 5th grade. That is one of the few stories I still remember.
This anecdote might have more meaning if we knew how old you were now…16? 25? 70?
A local homeless man is a disabled vet. Due to not having a mailing address, he was unable to collect his disabilty benifits for several decades. When an advocate was able to help him collect his accumulated back benefits, he came into a large windfall. He was able to buy a modest house, which the last I heard, he was going through an adjustment process to actually live there, having become accustomed to life on the street. I’m not sure if he was still panhandling or not. It’s been a couple years since this made the local news, and I’m not having any luck finding a cite. Some of the details above may have been altered by my faulty memory.
I know another panhandler that lives in a tiny shithole apartment. I know that from having visited other apartments in the complex. He has diabetes and both of his legs have been amputated. He wears fatigues and gives the appearance of being a veteran, but I have never heard him actually say that he is, and I am pretty sure he is not. I think he draws a social security disabilty pension that pays for the apartment and ramen noodles, and beyond that he panhandles. No mansion, no caviar, no car.
Beggar in India, millionaire**** in Bangladesh.
To compensate for that gap, Bangaldesh’s beggars demand minimum donations fixed by law.
:d
There is a woman in Hamilton, Ontario, who commutes to Toronto to beg on the streets. Her husband used to head the Hare Krishna movement in Toronto from 1971 to 1985.
Their house is worth several hundred thousand dollars.
http://www.tribemagazine.com/board/showthread.php?t=84439
If you are a begger who has something to give back in return, you can clean up in NYC. I’ve seen singers and musicians board subway cars, perform for 2 minutes, and get $10 or so (some change but a couple dollar bills too)…and then they can move onto the next car, perform again for another 2 minutes and make another $10. That’s $100 for maybe a half hour worth of work, and then you have a totally new audience on your return trip. That isn’t shabby at all!
Advice to musicians and beggers who play at a fixed location - do not pocket the money every single time someone drops in your bucket. I’m more likely to give to someone who looks like he’s cleaning up AND having a good time than someone who is either noticably acting paranoid about his earnings (stopping the song to reach down sometimes) or doesn’t look like he’s getting donations from previous commuters…its psychological for me to want to add to a money pile rather than starting one.
There’s a difference between street performing and panhandling. Street performers aren’t beggers.
Eh, but some beggars will do some lame-ass annoying non-performance, some demented off-key singing that is far from artistic, to try to burnish their active panhandling.
Aren’t they just a higher class of beggar? What distinguishes them isn’t that they perform a service. Windshield washers perform a service, too, and we still regard them as beggars. Service/performing beggars are just beggars with a niche. Of course that changes when the performer is (say) an acting student doing mime work for the practice (or for whatever reason they do it) and not soliciting donations.