I heard one time, I think it was Washington state, of an ad agency who would hire homeless to hold signs like that except it was advertising. Dunno whatever became of that, but reports were it was going well.
This seems to be a thing with McDonald’s. I don’t eat there often, but there are two of them within a couple of blocks of my office. Both of them permit panhandlers to take over their doors (there are no drive-through windows, or any other kind of windows – this is New York City). One of them tolerates panhandling inside the restaurant, and quite aggressive panhandling, at that. And this isn’t a “bad” neighborhood – this is midtown Manhattan on the east side.
Right, them. We’ve got them here in NYC too, except we call them crusties.
Many are truly homeless. Some are voluntarily homeless. I suppose they all started out that way, but if they stay in that life long enough, there’s no way back to normalcy for them, so they end up truly homeless.
They are somewhat migratory. They disappear to warmer climes in the winter. More so these days, since available empty buildings in which to squat are few and far between these days.
Here in NYC, I have multiple encounters with homeless people every day. I commute from my home in Brooklyn Heights to my job in midtown Manhattan by subway, and I would say that on the majority of my subway rides there’s a panhandler working my subway car. I work kind of weird hours, which may skew things a bit. I go to work at around 2:00 and usually return home after midnight.
I just about never see homeless people in my neighborhood. But where I work, they’re all over. And I’m sure they’re actually homeless, because I see them sleeping in the street at night when I leave work. There’s some panhandling, sometimes aggressive.
The most aggressive panhandlers stake out the Interstate off ramp intersections into downtown. I630 & Chester and I630 & Broadway are the two I use. The Broadway st panhandlers will also pop up in the parking lots of the fast food restaurants. Usually just after you get your. food from the window. I have heard they are a problem on other downtown intersections. I don’t drive in those areas enough to know.
I see a panhandler on the off ramp intersection of I430 and Rodney Parham. There’s several at the red light every day. So far they haven’t been aggressive.
I almost never leave my house so it’s rare, but mostly it’s outside around the area of the hospital where my daughter goes for speech therapy. There are people who wander the parking lot between the hospital and the Walmart across the street asking people for help buying diapers and baby formula. They live in the woods behind the hospital from what I’ve been told.
Where I lived before in Memphis I saw homeless people every day often without leaving my yard. We lived in a cove about a block from a tent city and people sometimes come through neighbors’ backyards as a shortcut. Whenever a house becomes vacant they will squat in it until they’re forced to leave.
I’m in a medium sized left-coast city, so yes, our downtown is inundated with homeless and young travelers. I work downtown, and their sense of entitlement to handouts is galling. I never give them anything.
I haven’t personally seen anything this bad.
Look close at the photo.
Vows action…against the homeless man.
So… your outrage is that homeless people exist, your solution is sic the cops on them, you’re a politician and you don’t mind proudly displaying your complete lack of empathy or solutions to the public.
Seriously, Fuck You, Mayor de Blasio.
[URL=“De Blasio shocked by Post’s photo of man sleeping on train, vows action”]
You think it’s acceptable for someone to sleep under the bench you have to sit on?
That wouldn’t be just a little awkward for you?
It depends on how you define “homeless.” I often see 2, 3 or even 4 generations living together in a dilapidated 3 bedroom trailer, because Granny is the only one with a check coming in. I have met people who had no home, and just hitchhiked all over the country. I’ve known people who couch-surfed for weeks on end. I’ve had patients in flophouse motels. Just this week, I was behind a school bus that let 2 kids off at a motel I know to be a flophouse. My ex was a cop in a moderately sized city and frequently had to break up homeless camps in wooded areas of the city. I remember hearing about one man, well known for his alcohol addiction, who was found dead in the cave in which he had been living. So by my definition, I see the homeless frequently.
Panhandlers, now, are another story (to me.) I see 2 to 3 of these a day in the small city in which I work. One has a sign that says “I need work.” The place he stands is ONE BLOCK from a workplace staffing office that that has weekly job fairs. He is there 3 to 4 days a week. Last week there was a “workers wanted” sign stuck in the ground next to him.
I see something like that nearly every day.
I’m not the biggest fan of Bill DiBlasio, and I won’t be voting for him on November 7 (although his victory is all but a foregone conclusion), but this *is *a police issue.
People sleeping on the subway are a problem. They make the car they’re in nearly unusable. They’re sleeping on the seats, rather than under them, most of the time. Many, maybe most, of the homeless on the subway are unstable, and even if they’re not dangerous, they appear to be. I don’t feel all that threatened (most of the time) when I’m by myself, but when I have my wife and/or my two small children with me? Yes, I avoid subway cars that are being used as flophouses.
I have no issue whatsoever with sleeping homeless people being removed from the subway. I’d rather they were moved into a shelter, where they have a bed and whatever assistance they need to move to permanent housing, or a care facility, whatever is needed, but the subways have to be available to, and safe for, those who depend on them to get around the city.
And, for the record, the DiBlasio administration has made significant efforts, in the face of considerable opposition, to increase the amount of shelter space and transitional and permanent housing available. With varying degrees of success, to be sure. Again, I’m not his biggest fan, but credit where credit is due, etc.
The story (and it should be noted that the story is from the New York Post, which hates DiBlasio – keep that in mind) says:
So DiBlasio has actually *relaxed *police action against people sleeping on the subway.
Food for thought: Hurricane victims, this month - give what you can!
…a year from now: Damn homeless people.
Good to know. Very not clear from the article, may have been quote mining.
If he’s taking steps to address the housing situation, good for him.
The panhandlers in my area are often people who have been banned from every shelter in the area for refusing to follow the rules.
How often do I encounter homeless people? I don’t know, because you can’t tell just by looking at someone if they’re homeless.
As I said, the *Post *absolutely *hates *DiBlasio. Every story that involves him is slanted to make him look bad. It’s owned by Rupert Murdoch, DiBlasio is a Democrat, what do you expect. . .
I see them nearly every day in Albuquerque. Most of them stand at intersections with a sign; my friend and I sometimes hand them lollipops or bags of chips. They are generally grateful for it.
Along Central Avenue, especially on the east side, there are crowds of people who appear to be drunk or mentally ill (or both) and who just hang around certain areas. The city removed a few bus benches there because of people crowding around and passing out on them.
Other homeless people build a shantytown in the brush by the river. Periodically there are fires in the area and the firefighters happen upon the shantytowns. The shantytowns are then destroyed and the homeless put in touch with shelters, but it appears that when the fuss has died down they just come back and rebuild.
I think the city sometimes puts the more functional homeless people to work at day jobs like picking up litter. There also a few shelters, 1 county dry out clinic, and a few low cost motels (which are being torn down) for the homeless.
I lived for a spell in Albuquerque, from 1990-91, just after my first return from living in Thailand. Briefly considered panhandling on Central Avenue just to see how much money one could bring in. It would be the ideal time, before I’d found a job and while no one knew me yet except for my buddy and his girlfriend whose couch I was sleeping on until I could get my own apartment. But then I found a job and started knowing people and so gave up the idea. Even back then, Central had some colorful characters:
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The Poet, fairly lucid and always dressed in black.
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The guy who would always ask you for $20. I guess if you ask for a quarter, you’ll get a quarter, but ask for $20 and you might get a buck.
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The guy who would ask you for money, and then when you gave him some would stare in absolute wonder at it for quite a few moments. I mean really astonished, like he was thinking, “What the Holy Fuck is this???” Then he would snap out of it, say, “Fuck you very much” and leave. He met a sad end that winter I was living there. While he was sleeping on a mattress out in the open, a group of teenagers, three I think, doused him with gasoline and burned him to death.
I don’t know how many are homeless, my wife says not many of them. Today, I saw several sitting on the streets, one of them apparently asleep, but here in the Philippines, apparently, most of the beggars have family that they live with, and there is not much homelessness.
Meanwhile, one of my best friends in the USA is homeless, she and her teenage daughter live in her car, and from time to time they do a stint in a motel. She is disabled and cannot work, and because of SSA, money is not the issue. For a number of reasons, she cannot get accepted to housing, except by predatory landlords, and she is sick of enduring their abuse, preferring homelessness.