this post was submitted on 10 Nov 2023
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Are those reports of people panhandling and walking home with a few hundred bucks a day at all accurate? Always seemed kind of like bullshit propaganda to me. I'm sure location matters quite a bit.
The world is a huge place and people suck. I’m sure it happens. But, in most places it’s hard to accomplish that. Here, if you’re spotted begging by the cops they’ll run you off, or arrest you.
Here we have laws that keep people from begging on the side of the road. So, that leaves gas stations. Gas stations are usually ok with it for a little while. There is an etiquette to it. Like, only ask people AFTER they go in and get what they need, and don’t go to the same spot more than like once a week. Don’t be there all day. Get what you need and leave. Bonus points if you can buy something from the gas station before you leave.
I personally only did it as the very last resort. It’s humiliating and you always have a chance of seeing someone you went to school with.
A couple of decades ago I gave a dollar to a guy begging in front of a grocery store. When I was leaving I overheard him telling the security guard that he's taking his family on vacation next week so he won't be around. Then I watched him walk all the way to the very furthest spot in the parking lot, get into a brand new van, and drive away. I was pretty pissed off because I was poor myself and a dollar meant a lot to me. This dude was taking from poor people by acting poorer, when he actually had enough money to own a brand new van and take his family on vacation.
This can't possibly be true... The math doesn't add up,
What math?
being able to fund a rich lifestyle by begging.
Welp, it's a true story. Whether the beggar was telling the truth when I overheard him or not is debatable, but I watched him get into a brand new van with my own eyes.
It's out there, it exists. My coworker experienced it firsthand same guy tried begging off him three times. "Needs food"...wouldn't take food, only wanted money. "Needs gas for car"...won't take the gas in a gas can, only wants the money. So he can totally do it himself.
He said he called the cops & threatened to beat the shit out of him if he tried to run. The cops were aware of the situation. Says the wife "drops him off" in front of a store, business, gas station, whatever every day so he can "work" / beg for money.
Pretty sad because he should have a real goddamned job, he's basically stealing from people, he delegitimizes actual people in need/is basically stealing from them too, and yeah even the wife is in on it.