Bus fare

[soup]

Waiting for my husband in the parking lot of Eckerd's last night, I noticed a clean-cut, fairly well dressed young man approaching people coming out of the store. A couple of people reached into pockets and handed him change.

He saw me sitting in the car and came over to the window. "Ma'am? I'm sorry to bother you but I really need busfare, anything you could spare would help. a dollar would be great, even a quarter - anything."

My son, who lost his license (leadfoot), takes the bus regularly, and I'm thinking what if he found himself in this situation. (Well, he'd call for a ride, or take his bike - but still, it could happen, I guess.) So I dug around and found a dollar in the console for him. Between that dollar and whatever change other people had given him, I know he has more than enough ($1.25) for a bus ride.

The "thank you so much." I got in return felt really good. Everyone who helped this kid (including myself) probably felt a little better for doing it.

Good story. hey?

the end?

not quite.



He walks to the other end of the parking lot, and I see the person he approached handing him a dollar bill (or a $5 - shrug - who knows).

My radar goes up. What the heck?

So, a woman comes out of the store and gets in her car parked a couple of spots over from ours.

Here comes the kid. He says something to the woman, and she reaches into her purse. I'm thinking this is just wrong. So I roll down the window and tell her 'If he's asking for bus fare, don't give it to him. He has more than enough. $3.00 buys a whole daypass, and I know he has at least that much just from the time I've been sitting here.'

The kid turns and glares at me, and walks away back to the front of the store.

The woman and I have a short conversation before she pulls out. She thanks me, we talk a little about people who really need help getting hurt by scammers like this, because next time someone asks for help, ya gotta wonder if they really need it, or are just playing - like this kid seems to be doing. Who knows how long he's been in the parking lot. Who knows how much money he's pocketed from well meaning people. It's just wrong.

Anyway-

she leaves, and the kid goes behind a really big pillar by the entry - blocking my view of him.

Next thing I see is my husband coming from behind the pillar, throwing a 'you're welcome.' over his shoulder. He's wearing the same 'that felt good' look I had after handing this kid a dollar.
He'd given him the 80 cents in change he'd gotten back in the store.

Thought about telling the manager of the store, but figured the kid would just disappear and move on to another store before I even got in the door.

I bet he made more in that parking lot than quite a few working people did yesterday.

What Really bothers me about this is the next time I'm approached and asked for a little help, I'm going to hesitate and wonder if it's a valid request, or not. I don't want to think that way, but now feel like I have to.

Punk.

[Beaker]

1. nothing new under the sun...

you run into these kinds of scammers all over the place in downtown chicago...although it's usually train fare to get back to indidan cuz their car broke down...or was towed...or something.
i usually either ignore, or laugh at them.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

3. You could do something similar to what I do

"What bus/train?"
"So-and-so."
"Come over there, I'll put you in the bus and pay the fare."

See what happens.

[soup]

8. um, I was in jammies and slippers.

just rode along with my husband to the store.

But it's good advise for the future.

[soup]

6. I'd find it hard to live with myself

if it turned out someone really needed help and I'd turned them down.

That's what makes me so angry about being duped like this.

[Beaker]

10. It doesn't bother me one bit to turn down a panhandler-

i don't even give it a second thought.

it's all part of life in the big city- if i gave something to everyone who asked, or claimed to have "needed" it, I'd be broke.

[truthspeaker]

9. don't forget the young daughter in the car

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

2. When a begger comes up to me asking money for food

I say "come over there with me, I'll buy you a snack."

About half the time they go poof (boy, I wish I could vanish as fast!) but the another half is worth it.

[Bertha Venation]

4. that's what I do

Mrs. V. and I were being tourists in DC one day and a woman -- a very unfortunate woman, unaware that she needed some serious hygiene in many ways, and on drugs -- asked us for some money. We had just bought four dogs & some sodas at a hot dog vendor. Mrs. V. asked her, "are you hungry?" She mumbled "yes ma'am I need to get something to eat." Mrs. V. gave her her dogs, and the woman sat down right there, where she stood, and ate like she hadn't eaten in a week.

Drug addicts need food too.

If a panhandler needs food s/he won't say no to that offer.

[soup]

7. I love your story.

Thank you for sharing what you had with her.

[Bertha Venation]

12. She was hungry.

What else would we do? :shrug:

I pass a homeless man every day on the way to work. He's always sitting on top of a blue crate on the same steam grate, usually picking at various folded articles of clothing. His coat is ripped to shreds -- it's a very old one with gray fluffy padding/stuffing just spilling out of it. I took a rarely-used down parka out of the closet, and a spare sleeping bag, with me one day and stopped to offer them to him. He declined and it broke my heart.

Some things I just can't fix.

[BiggJawn]

20. I think I met the same woman

I was in DC in Oct. and got "the touch" put on me by a woman. took me by surprise so much I gave her a buck. Next I saw her she was chowing down on a Subway sandwich....

You never can tell...
All the ones at home spend it on booze, since they get everything else at the Mission...

[Bertha Venation]

27. "You never can tell" -- that's one of the reasons I give.

That's one of the reasons that, in the absence of obvious signs of a scam, I give more often than not.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

21. On a completely unrelated note:

Did shinee thingee arrivee?

[Bertha Venation]

26. It did! Oh, thank you so much!

I wish I knew how to say "Thank you" in Portuguese! (All I know is "como vivo say?" and I know that's not spelled correctly)

The Chiphead Goddess of the Hard Drive hasn't used it yet. She's been unwell. But when it arrived it gave her one more thing to look forward to. Every little bit helps.

Thanks, good friend. I hope someday I can return the favor.

[Beetwasher]

5. This is an OLD Scam

These guys can make 100k a year doing this...The best beggars are the well dressed one's pulling this scam.

[soup]

11. I believe it.

and he was. clean-cut, great smile, nice looking young man. (18 - 21 would be my guess)

Wasn't an obviously drunk person begging for change in front of a liquor store - which you just know is going for more booze.

or a kid trying to get someone over 18 to buy them cigarets.

I've turned down people before when it just didn't feel like the right thing to do. This was a new one for me.

[Bertha Venation]

13. Makes me think of John Cusack's character in "The Grifters." eom

[soup]

14. Thanks. I'll have to watch it. John Cusak is so good.

Watched and enjoyed 'Runaway Jury' last night.

[Bertha Venation]

16. Beware, though, soup.

"The Grifters" is a very dark film. VERY dark. The end is . . .

Just beware.

[Beaker]

15. if they have kids with them, they usually do well too

nt

[Bertha Venation]

18. Then it's a good thing the hungry addict & homeless guy had no kids

with them. It would've been a sure sign to me that they were scamming, and I wouldn't have wasted my time or hot dogs.

edited to add: </sarcasm>

[Lydia Leftcoast]

23. There was a young woman in Portland

who used to walk around downtown at night with three kids under six (one in a stroller) asking for "money for food."

The first time I gave her some money, because she told me that she was going into a shelter the next day.

However, I continued to see her around downtown for weeks afterward, and she would actually turn away when she saw me. One of my companions noted that she looked awfully well-dressed and clean (as did the children) for someone who was supposedly living on the streets.

Finally it bothered me that these kids were spending their evenings walking the streets of Portland in all kinds of weather. I called Children's Services and gave a description and the locations that she tended to hang out in. I didn't see her after that.

The children all looked alike, so I suspect that their father was some worthless lout who sent his girlfriend and children out begging and beat them up if they didn't come back with enough.

[Bertha Venation]

25. There's no easy, or universal, answer to this problem.

The right wing says "screw 'em all." Great answer. Many of us just give & give & give & give and too often what we give is used for purposes we deem unnecessary. Does that mean we ought to stop giving altogether? I don't think so.

I don't have any answers. I have to do what I have to do for my own peace of mind, one homeless person or panhandler or beggar or whatever at a time.

[BiggJawn]

17. Same thing has happened to me. Pan-handlers find me stoney.

Guy accosted me one night outside the library. He had his patter down cold, I'll tell ya, really had it honed. I gave him a buck and said "I don't know if you're bullshitting me or not, but that story was worth a buck just for the entertainment value..."
2 weeks later, same guy, same story, no donation. "That story's OLD! It's the same one you used on me 2 weeks ago..."

The there was the older guy who came up to me in my front yard with a tale of running out of gas, and he didn't want to leave his car sit all night in front of the bar next door because it was embarrassing, etc. So gave him $2. he jumps in his car and drives away. I think "WTF???" so I jump in my microbus and take off after him. Followed him to a liquor store 4 blocks away

"Hey, you, gimme back my $2!"
"Fuck you, Honky!" (turns and walks into liquor store)

Yeah, I don't give money to bums anymore, either.

[soup]

22. You, sir, always seem to make me smile.

"Hey, you, gimme back my $2!"

Don't imagine it was funny at all at the time it happened, but the retelling of the story conjures up great images.

On second thought, glad he wasn't carrying a gun and there to rob the place. It might have turned out much differently.

[Kolesar]

19. I had a panhandler in Boston literally screaming at me to give him $1.00

I was walking around downtown in the twilight with three friends and this young panhandler started following us and begging relentlessly. We acted like he wasn't there and he escalated to screaming.

The job market in Boston in 1994 wasn't that bad, was it?

[Lydia Leftcoast]

24. When approached by panhandlers, I would try to meet their stated need

such as buying them a slice of pizza or a sandwich. If they were really hungry, they'd take it, but I once had a supposedly "hungry" man refuse my offer of a meal card from Sisters of the Road (a local cooperative, non-sectarian charity) with the words, "Naw, I just had lunch."

I once gave a bus ticket to a man who needed "change for the bus." When I came past the same spot, he was trying to sell the bus ticket.

Once a young couple, looking like heroin addicts from central casting, said they needed money to call their families in Boston. I whipped out my cell phone and asked them what the number was, that I would make the call. They ran off.

There was a busy crossing near Portland's Lloyd Center that had regular shifts of panhandlers working. They would take turns standing in the "island" on the four-lane street. You could actually see them handing off the signs to each other.

I was assured by a friend who worked in social services that there were so many free meals in downtown Portland, between the churches (most of which did NOT require attendance at services) and the private and public charities that no homeless person need go hungry. The local homeless newspaper, Street Roots, printed a full page of free meal sites in every issue.

Most of these places served from 5PM to 7PM. Sure enough, if I was downtown transferring buses at or just after 7PM, I would encounter "starving" panhandlers. Once another homeless person warned me off a panhandler, saying, "Don't listen to him, he's a crack addict."

There was one fellow, a double amputee, who sat on the sidewalk at the corners of buildings. The thing was, I also saw him walking around with crutches on artificial legs, so the legless look was just a ploy.

An elderly woman spare-changed me at the bus stop, saying that she needed to do laundry for her grandson. A few days later, there was a power outage in my neighborhood, so I needed to go out for dinner. The first place I came to in the "lit" area was a bar that had a reputation for good food. I went in, and there was that elderly woman playing video poker.

I made an exception for kids, because I knew what kinds of backgrounds most of them came from. I'd ask if they were registered with any of the youth agencies, and if they were, they knew that I knew they could get food and other services there. If they were new in town, I'd buy them a slice of pizza and direct them to the appropriate agency for their age group.

I haven't been panhandled since moving to the Twin Cities, but then, I haven't been downtown much, and it's been cold for the past few months.