If There Were Any Money In It...

December 23, 2019

Duarte, California

     I am something of an amateur student and critic of American panhandling.  Throughout my life, particularly as a former briefcase-carrying barrister walking the sidewalks of Hartford and Los Angeles, I've encountered all types of beggars, and I do sometimes give them money.  I don't begrudge a person who has to ask for handouts from the passing public, but sometimes I think they're going about it the wrong way.

     It is important for purposes of this discussion to differentiate between begging, on the one hand, and conning and bullshitting, on the other.  Those who con and bullshit--for instance, the woman carrying a baby on the streets of Pasadena, looking like a gypsy out of central casting and holding a sign saying she needs food for her infant; or the guy in the gas station who tells you he needs money for fuel to get to some remote hospital in order to visit his cancer-stricken mother (there's always cancer involved)--are not worthy to be called beggars, and are beneath contempt.  They're simply criminals trying to obtain money under false pretenses, and are no better than telephone and internet scammers and TV preachers.  They're the ones who try to strike up a conversation with you, as if they were interested in you as a person.  If they don't get to the point right away, that's a dead giveaway.  These people with long involved tales of woe, designed to tug at the heartstrings of the feeble-minded and unwary, are the ones who give street beggars a bad name.  Honest panhandling is a simple proposition: if you have any spare money, may I have some?  It needn't even involve words--just a hangdog expression and an empty paper coffee cup will do the job.  It's the simplest of social interactions.  If you feel like giving you give, and if you don't, you don't. 

     As simple as it might be in principle, panhandling is hard work.  You're outside in all kinds of weather, being looked down upon with contempt and fear and condemnation, run off by police, and often abused by your competing fellow-beggars.  It can be a dog-eat-dog world, especially in urban areas where there are too many mendicants chasing after too few dollars.  No one who begs in the street is on a winning streak of any kind, and no one who does it is getting rich from doing it, as much as we might like to fantasize that they are.  There are no Artful Dodgers and Fagins behind most of the poor schmucks who ask for handouts--they are about as much on their own as a person can be in this country.  The con artists and the bullshitters might do pretty well, but not the beggars, which is not to say that they make nothing at all.  But just put it into context:  they may have to get food, clothing, booze, or drugs, and even in some parts of the city to pay rent or protection money to some self-appointed "sheriff" of the homeless, who controls the block on which they strike their tiny tent.  Those things cost money.  When you and I say we "need money," we generally mean we're looking for an ATM.  When the panhandler says he needs money, he means he needs any amount of chump change you might deign to give him.  Given these sad facts, who am I to criticize any poor hobo's modus operandi?  Well, let me assure you that I only have the beggars' best interests at heart.  I'm thinking of what would appeal most to me, an affluent passer by; that is, what would make me wish to contribute to the exchequer of a bum. 

    My first rule would be to keep it simple, but keep it simple in a positive way.  There was a guy who used to stand at the corner of Hill and Temple Streets in downtown LA, who would sort of lunge out at you from a doorway and snarl "Gimme a dollar!"  Perhaps that was taking it a bit too far in the direction of simple, and it didn't work well, because he scared a lot of people when he approached them.  But I admired his no-nonsense approach, and would occasionally give him his dollar.  Of course, he was completely crazy, and would grab the money and scamper back into the shadows like a wounded dog without even acknowledging the gift.  There was another man who panhandled in the same area who would simply lie in the middle of the sidewalk, looking pathetic, forcing people to walk out of their way to avoid stepping on him.  Come to think of it, I don't know if he ever asked for money, but occasionally I'd drop a dollar onto his filthy, shoeless, recumbent body, and he'd take it.  So I don't recommend either of those two approaches as a way of doing business, as straightforward and stripped-down as they were.

     However, it's equally possible to err on the side of repleteness.  Recently I was coming down off the freeway ramp, and at the bottom a guy sat in a folding chair holding a cardboard sign that was just chock full of unnecessary information.  It started out with something like, "71 years old.  No alcohol or drugs.  Homeless..." and it went on from there for several more sentences.  The light changed before I could come to a complete stop and finish reading it, but I wouldn't have given him anything anyway, because his pitch was just too long-winded.  "Homeless.  Need money" would have sufficed, in my opinion, or better yet, just "Need money."  I don't care where a beggar lives or what he does with his money, any more than I would expect the folks who pay me my pension to ask me what I intend to do with the money they send me each month.  My dollar, when I give it, has no strings attached.  I know that some people don't give to panhandlers as a rule because they'll "probably just spend it on alcohol or drugs."   But you, my gentle readers, probably buy booze, and maybe drugs too, with your money, and nobody would gainsay your right to do so.  If you wish not to give, that's your choice, and indeed, it's the choice of the great majority of people who encounter beggars.  The decision to give or not to give should not be questioned any more than the decision to ask for money should be.  Nevertheless, those who don't give on nominally moral grounds are probably right about where the money is most likely to go.  Of course bums buy booze and drugs.  If you took all the alcoholics and drug addicts, sane or insane, out of the homelessness picture, there wouldn't be very many homeless people left.

     So my advice to the bums out there is to keep it short and sweet.  Another fact that I needn't be told by a panhandler is that he's a veteran.  It's one of those tug-at-your-heartstrings things that repels me.  Also, because it appeals to a general kind of knee-jerk patriotism in some people, I view it askance, and tend to think, "Oh, this guy just wants money from Republicans.  Well, fuck him, then."

     Finally, do not give me any of that God Bless You crap.  Maybe in some cultures the beggar is considered closer to God, and hence more able to rain both the blessing and the curse of the Almighty on the passing citizen, but not in this country, mister.  Here, God Bless You is the most meaningless piece of inflated verbal currency we have, a close relative of Have A Nice Day, and not a whit more meaningful.  If you want my money, leave God out of it.  And if you really think you have the moral authority to call down God's blessing on another person, have a talk with the man upstairs about getting you a more reliable source of income.  It's bad enough that people are forever telling me "No Problem" and "Have a Blessed Day."  Don't add to my irritation by putting a pointless benison on your grubby piece of corrugated cardboard.

     My favorite panhandler--and I've had a few I've liked over the years--is a guy named David who sits at the northeast corner of the Los Angeles County Hall of Administration in downtown LA.  David has been there for several years, and I assume he's still there now, unless he's met with some misfortune.  He likes the warmth of a heat vent near the sidewalk.  Often he has a cardboard sign bearing a few nonsectarian words of wisdom or ironic commiseration, designed to catch the eye of the harried office workers and civil servants who frequent the area.  Sometimes he doodles a caricature of a famous person (Marilyn Monroe is his favorite).  Without asking for anything he manages to do pretty well, for one important reason.  He is completely nonthreatening--diminutive, reasonably clean, a little effeminate.  You know he's homeless and wants money, but you also know he's not going to ask you for it.  As a result, he's the only beggar I've observed to have regular female patrons ("matrons" sounds odd there; perhaps I should say "benefactors").  Women go out of their way to say hi to him and give him their leftovers from lunch, and sometimes a dollar or two.  Now, I know every homeless person on the street does not have his felicitous personality traits, gentle demeanor, and comparative lack of stench and overt insanity.  But if you're looking for an edge out there, you might consider taking a page or two from David's playbook.  He's got it pretty well down.  And he's one of the more fortunate of les miserables, in that he only tends to go off his medication occasionally.  I've seen him at such times, and he can be a bit of a handful.  But the rest of the time he's a peach.  Which isn't to say that he doesn't have extensive health problems, not to mention an inability to adjust to anything like what we'd call regular indoor living.  He's just been homeless too long, and the streets and parks and freeway embankments are his home, to which, despite the best efforts of the social workers and other authorities, he always returns.

     I'm so full of helpful advice about how to beg, that I feel as if I should hold seminars on the techniques of applied panhandling, to try to implement some of the suggestions I've set forth here.  And I'd do it too, by God, if there were any money in it.