Same here - I played guitar on the streets a few times when I was short on money. I didn’t put up a sign, though I did throw some of my own change in my guitar case to give people the right idea. My guitar playing must suck, as it never earned me much.
I don’t think I’d ever get in a situation where I had to hold up a sign and beg, though.
When my parents were losing their abilities they would complain that parking lots were too large and it was difficult in the winter to walk from the car to the store. So I told them that I would arrange for them to have disability license plates so they could park closer to the door.
My mother was horrified, “Absolutely not! What if someone finds out we’re not disabled?”
I come from a long line of independent Scandinavians who would die before they would ever beg for money. I mean that in the most literal sense. During the depression the famers in the family helped the townspeople in the family. But I am unaware of anyone ever asking for “outside” help.
When they came here they were poor but they were very proud. My grandma’s family lived their first winter here in a mud hole they had dug out of the river bank. Makes me think it must have been pretty rough in the home country for them to leave.
I, on the other hand, would and have traded various of my talents and abilities in exchange for things I didn’t want to buy.
Is there any need to ask for money any more? Where I live we have good food and shelter programs.
Have you tried them or do you know someone who did? Wherever you could be from, I’ve doubts about the availability of “good shelter programs”.
A bunch of us panhandled once on Peachtree in Atlanta in the early '70s. We’d been to a concert and the car got stolen and we were trying to get back to TN (without alerting parent-types.) Since most of us were already there, it took us awhile to think of somebody to call who had a car and possibly enough money for gas. Luckily she drove down and got us. Most everybody else sitting on the sidewalk was selling mesciline and got all the traffic.
Here lately, while out early, we drove behind the pickup dropping off the people with signs…must be lucrative for somebody.
A while back we were so broke we didn’t have anything to eat for a week, until one of the boys got his paycheck. We had some teabags so drank a lot of tea. We tried to go to a food bank but weren’t familiar with the area it was in. We only had a little gas in the tank and didn’t have fifty cents to use a pay phone for directions so we drove back home empty-handed. It never occurred to us to panhandle but sad to say, I found an old jar of green olives in the back of the fridge and ate one or two a day, without announcing I’d found it. What does that say about me. 
3 or 4 years ago I would have said that I’d have to have been evicted with no place to stay before I would panhandle. As a parent I’d seriously be considering where to go with my sign if I were unemployed and my savings account got down to slightly more than one month’s rent. If it is just me I’m fine hitting rock bottom but with my daughter I couldn’t ever allow myself to get less than 6 weeks from eviction.
Being slightly short for bus fare, frankly.
The panhandlers I see aren’t living-under-the-bridge homeless. They are folks who live in flophouses, the rent of which is paid through disability checks. They get an EBT card to cover the bare minimum of groceries, and that’s it for them.
Panhandling provides them with “extras”. Like cigarettes or alcohol. And it’s easy for me to go tsk, tsk tsk at these choices. A few years ago I would have. But now I understand. If all I had to look forward to was a roach-infested flophouse, $50 worth of groceries, and a whole heap of mental and physical disabilities, then I’d probably want to get drunk too.
They are good. People here care. Of course it depends on your definition of good. I have three friends who work in that business and am aware of the issues.
And they are also crowded/have waiting lists. They are so good that we are inundated with people who come here. Funding is almost always a problem.
The city is building very nice apartment buildings in good neighborhoods as well for housing for those in need. But we don’t have a limitless amount of money.
I know of roach-infested flophouses around here but they are not maintained by city, county or state workers. They’re full of people who want money but don’t want help. I’ve been in more than a few (with a few bags of groceries) and offers to go to social services which are usually refused.
Our Salvation Army has recently completed brand new housing right downtown so transportation isn’t a problem for their clients. It’s right next to numerous bars, the library and a full service grocery store. People need to maintain sobriety while they stay there so often they opt to sleep under the bridges or the flophouses.
It’s difficult to have sympathy when people are being helped with a hand up and take advantage of the help but refuse to make changes to the lifestyle which is causing them the problem. But most people who work in that business seem ever hopeful. It must be nearly overwhelming.
I’m sorry but I 've been around long enough not to buy the story that everybody out there is a victim and not getting help. Some people want help on terms that have already failed them. It doesn’t work.
I saw a story today about a woman begging for money to get plastic surgery.
If a parent is truly homeless, their child(ren) could be place in foster care. Not such a great option, but surely better than living on the streets, panhandling, etc.
I was a homeless teenager for over a year. My cat and I lived in my POS car. That really sucked.
I would kinda beg at times. I’d go into a store and get catfood and something for me to eat. When I got to checkout and got the total and didn’t have enough money, I’d look sad and tell the cashier to take my food off so I could buy catfood.
This worked about half the time. People would see a skinny kid counting pennies to buy catfood and would buy my food for me. When it didn’t work, my cat got dinner and I waited until I went to work at the fast food place. I got a free lunch every day.
I never had the talent to busk. That’s not panhandling to me.
I would never have to panhandle, thankfully. I don’t know in what situation I ever would. I guess if my very life depended on it, but I think I could make it back on my feet somehow. I’m not ever going to be addicted to any drugs or alcohol, so I think I could use charities and shelters and whatnot to get back on my feet, if worse came to worst and I lost everything, and all my friends and family disowned me or died or something, I don’t know.
The book looks interesting, but you have to wonder why he was estranged from all his children. That in itself is a big red flag for people.
Why wasn’t your employer paying you? 
They didn’t just wind up in the roach-infested flophouse through bad luck.
Panhandlers probably can’t afford babysitters. 
I don’t know what it’s like where you are, but around here, there are a lot more able men and women than there are jobs for them. Especially since at the lower end of the pay scale, one person may need to take up two or three jobs to get a living wage. And one thing I noticed in my three-year job search (now thankfully over) is that the worse the job market got, the less pay was being offered for the work required. Positions with a long list of essential and desired skills and certifications were paying not much more than minimum wage. So even if you did manage to get hired, you might not be able to make ends meet.
Pride, independence and ability a person may have in abundance, but none of these pays the bills and feeds the kids all by itself. In this day and age, you can’t just wrest a living from the earth with your hands wherever you find yourself, you have to find someone willing to trade a living for your labour. Or rely on the state, or ask your fellow man for charity. And I don’t know what it’s like where you are, but here the state sometimes falls down on the job, so the last option is the only one left, if one doesn’t want to resort to a life of crime. I would consider that a step below begging, depending on the crime I suppose.
I’m not supposed to have sympathy for someone who may or may not be in their predicament because of a couple of bad choices?
I know I have done plenty of dumb-ass things before, and it was just through sheer luck that none of them (so far) have resulted in me being knocked down on my ass. I think you have a similar story, IIRC.
Someone in another thread talked about panhandling often. This was a week or so ago, I think.
Found it.