About mendicants

Somebody recently shared the following perspective on panhandlers. I think that her wisdom is well worth sharing.

I know of several people who regard begging as their job. There's a community of such people out there, in fact one of the local newspaper columnists occasionally runs a story on some of them. For a while, a popular story was "My wallet got stolen, can you give me a couple bucks to help me get home?" I always offered to buy the "victim" a cup of coffee while I called the cops so that they could file a police report. The "victim" always remembered an urgent previous engagement.

I have also been quite poor, though not homeless. I took babysitting jobs, I worked several newspaper routes (walking them, and with my baby in a stroller with me). I was grateful if someone gave me a tip, or just money in general. However, I never begged, and I certainly didn't get up in people's faces about it. I knew that if I wanted any little luxuries, that I'd have to earn them myself, without depending on others to give them to me. At that time, a little luxury was a cup of tea...I had cut my food budget to the bone. In fact, I had cut all my budgets to the bone.

Some of us are more private than others. Many people, especially women, are not comfortable with a stranger, especially a large scruffy stranger, accosting us in public. Even if the stranger is not overtly threatening, it goes against all of our safety training. Sure, it would be nice if we didn't have to be wary about such things. But the fact of the matter is, that we do have to be careful. Men don't have quite the same worries, but I think that it's reasonable for even a large, strong, physically able man to be wary about a stranger approaching him out of the blue. As it happens, I am willing to physically defend myself, but I am not really in the best of shape to do so.

Some panhandlers are polite and laidback. Generally, I just shake my head without making eye contact. It's IMPORTANT for safety's sake not to make eye contact with strangers. Other panhandlers are more aggressive, and will follow their target for a while. They won't back off, and can be pretty scary. A polite panhandler can turn into an aggressive one if the target makes eye contact. With these folks, I WILL call the cops or notify the store manager or whatever. Obviously, the aggressive panhandler has problems recognizing other people's boundaries, and I don't know how far he'll go.

Basically, I feel that the vast majority of panhandlers could find other legit ways to make some money. I'm sure that there are some folks out there who have no other choice but to panhandle. However, I really don't think that I've come across them.

Yeah, I do give to some charities. In this way, I'm sure that most of my money is actually giving necessities to people, rather than funding another binge.