Do panhandlers / hobos make you nervous?

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Simple math shows that it's not that hard to earn a lot of money while begging. Let's consider the following, using typical statistics for a downtown area (where most homeless hang out):
-> A beggar sees 10,000 people each day.
-> 1 in 20 people walking by him will give him money.
-> The money amount given by each passerby averages to $0.25.

So, 10000 * (1/20) = 500.
-> This means that 500 people will give a beggar money.

Then, 500 * $0.25 = $125.50.
-> This means that the beggar makes $125.00 a day.

Now, with that amount, they can afford at least a studio apartment, along with healthy food that people should be eating. Instead, they spend it all on drugs and alcohol. Shame!

http://www.scripps.edu/newsandviews/e_2 ... hlers.html

Where I live they hold their signs on the corner, I won't give them money but I will go thru a drive-thru and buy them a combo meal. No one should be hungry, I also leave bags of food by the dumpsters. and when I lived in Sacramento CA I'd make a bunch of little sack lunches and ride the bike trails and give them to the homeless.(They hung about there for some reason). It always made ME feel good to help them. selfish in it's own way. I might not be able to "Stop Global Warming" by myself. But I can allievate one human beings hunger for a few hours by myself and even through it's a small difference it is something that I as an individual can do.
And I'm not completly sure, but I remember hearing that "Reganonmics," the economy when Reagan was President, they like let all of the people whio weren't a threat to anyone out of the mental health facilities cause they were costing too much and there was a big influx of homelessness, because some of these people were incapables of taking certain responsiabiltys and maintaing a "Normal lifestyle" A lot of these people have very tragic stories and are using alcohol to self-medicate, and some of them are just lazy drunks and druggies, but whatever their circumstances, no one should be hungry. (And if that makes me a bleeding-heart-liberial, then so be it.)

I was looking for the name of an old movie where a man dressed as a beggar goes into a London lawyer's office to make a will. After initially scoffing at the beggar, it turns out that the beggar was making more money than the lawyer, who then turned to begging by pretending to be blind). Anyway I couldn't find it but found this:

http://www.wmctv.com/Global/story.asp?S=1522655
That panhandler pestering you for change in Downtown Memphis just might have more cash on him than you do. A Target Five investigation found many beggars in our area - making big bucks .... "They down here hustling and begging and while I'm here working 8 hours a day and they make 150 dollars while I make 90 dollars.

The problem is most of the people on the street are not going to be socially skilled or confident enough to pull off some begging schemes that earn them a living wage.

I told a WP user who is homeless in the UK (she uses library computers) to dress nice get an empty gas can and tell people she
needs a small amount of money to get fuel to get home and even offer to get their address to pay them back(and do so if she gets rich some day). With her social skills and anxiety that was an impossible suggestion for her.

No, I just ignore them. If I have too much change on me, I will give it to them just to get rid of it.

I see more of them downtown standing on the sidewalks or sitting holding signs. Some of them even have dogs. One time one of them held up a sign saying "I bet you a dollar for reading this sign." I read it and they said I had to give them a dollar, so I gave them a dollar and they all clapped. That was the last time I ever read a sign. I try not to look at them and see the words or else I know what it says.
I do see some hobos collecting pop cans and last year at work we had a homeless man that kept coming back to our hotel and sitting on the couch urinating and the security would ask him to leave and they also kept calling the police and he kept getting arrested. We had to keep taking the couch down to the housekeeping office and cleaning the cushion where he peed and bringing it back up to the lobby. The guy finally stopped coming back after coming back like nine times. We also get some interesting panhandlers there. There was this one guy who would pull out his cellphone and start talking on it and act all upset and then say to the people who are standing next to him his wife is in the hospital and he needs money to get there and can he borrow twenty bucks. They give him some money and he take off and then come back and do the same thing again. He also did it at other hotels downtown I heard and one of the security took a picture of him so he can fax it to the other hotels and the guy just punched him and took off. I also hear of people who come into the hotel and ask a room attendant to let them in their room because their key isn't working. So none of us are allowed to let guests in their rooms. We have to tell them they have to go to front desk for a another key or for a new one. I've even seen guests come back to their room and the room attendant be in there cleaning and they would ask if they can get in their room. The room attendant would ask for their key and they give it to her and she put it in the door to verify it's their room and give it back to them and let them in. I heard they aren't supposed to do that because they could have just taken the key from someone else but I think it be pretty slim for them to pick the right room the key belongs to, we have over 700 rooms.

""Now I pretty much don’t even look at panhandlers or homeless people for fear they might bother me""

Real nice attitude pal. Me, i would much rahter hang
out with the homeless and panhandlers, i trust them
more then the "regular" people and they are much
nicer. Of course you who run away feeling superiour
wouldn`t know this since you would have to talk to
them to find out.

Shame on you all, its people and they have it tuff.
I`d rather help them then anyone of you that write
things like "i ignore them" or "walk by them fast so
they dont bother me". Yeah, thats the important
thing right? that you are comfortable and not bothered,
we should all think about that. F-ing selfish idiots!
I hope you one day stumble and fall and end up in
the street an i hope no one helps you, just as you
help no one. And to all you who walk by them so
they dont bother you, could you be any more selfish?
holy hell thats selfish wow

I`m just so thankful i dont have the rotten attitude
you people have, i`m ashamed of you all.

There are people out there who pretend to be homeless to make money or people who pretend they are in a crises to make money. There are suckers out there who give them money so they do fine getting it.


If everyone gave every single hobo money they saw, that be a lot of money they are giving out total.

Yes, they make me nervous. But then, anyone coming up to me who doesn't actually know me makes me nervous.

I usually don't give money to beggars. When I'm visiting the US I sometimes do, but in Britain there are all sorts of government programs for people who have no jobs or can't afford homes of their own, and I feel like I do my part simply by paying higher taxes for these sorts of services.

People who need to panhandle are doing it wrong. Theres many other ways to live on the streets which involve zero panhandling.

if you do not know where they are, then you do not know where not to look.

some panhandlers will act personally offended ("disrespected") if you ignore them.

panhandlers do not make me any more nervous than someone that is not panhandling.

plenty of times, when i was not panhandling, some gave me $$. 4, 5, 4, 1 dollar. once someone gave me 50 dollars. and i did not even ask.

plenty of times, someone has given me food. peanut butter sandwich. today someone offered me a rice bowl (about 5 dollar value from whole foods). someone offered me a pastry. someone offered me Panda Express leftovers.

it was kind of peculiar. at least 2x, someone asked me "are you hungry?", while i was eating .

and that was awkward. peculiar. wierd. strange. b/c if i answered "no", then it's like then why were you eating. if i answered "yes," then it would be like they expected me to eat whatever they gave me. regardless of nutritional value, allergies/sanitation/preferences.

but in any event i answered no. and they left me alone.

and then once, i saw someone give a homeless a takeout tray of (indian?) food. something ethnic and specific. the homeless brushed his fingers through the food and then tossed it.

and then once, saw someone give a homeless some chinese pastry. or something like that. and he ate it immediately.

so if you are going to give someone something, offer it to him. b/c if you just give it, he might just toss it.

once i offered a homeless bread. and he told me it was too fat.

another time someone told me he was hungry. and i offered him food. "no", he answered. okay, maybe he was not "hungry" if he was just going to reject anything.

and yes i get there are good reasons why someone homeless might not just eat anything. it could be poisoned or unhygienic. i get it. and i am a pretty picky eater too.

but seriously, then maybe he shouldn't've told me he was hungry.

but whatever.

some precious lil "people" act totally entitled.

and then once, i was sitting at the bus stop. when a driver stopped at a red light offered me cash. and i declined, b/c paranoid of getting hit by car. within seconds, the light changed and he was off. the woman sitting @ the bus stop next to me told me that if it was 2 dollars she would've taken it. indeed, of course she would have. then what, get run over? seriously, i would've had to dart across the street to get 2 dollars. and medical and legal bills cost how much? seriously.

I don't like being actually approached in the street, by anyone - so beggars and people like fund-raisers or advertisers who come at me tend to make me uncomfortable.
That said a dude came at me in the street in the city not so long ago, and asked if I had $10. I was taken off guard but checked my pockets and had $2. I said I didn't have any other change but I had $2 if that helped, and gave him that.
Which was perfectly true - I'm not confident with money so I usually pay by bank card and don't tend to carry around lots of notes and coins. He then started harassing me, chasing me down the street and demanding that I go to the ATM and get him more money.
I have been homeless myself, and am always short of money. I really didn't appreciate someone I had literally just given all the money I had on me chasing me down demanding more.

I rarely if ever see panhandlers or even homeless people, which is kind of odd since the town-city I live in isn't exactly known for its thriving economy or plentiful employment opportunities. In the summer, however, there seem to be a growing number of people, tourists maybe, asking me for money and telling me some sob story that they need it to get a cab or bus and one guy even tricked me by pretending he was injured with a bandaged-up leg, but then afterwards he was walking perfectly fine. I only lost a couple of dollars but it reminded me why I don't trust people.

An old homeless man in ripped old clothes who I think was drunk walked past our car one day when I was in there by myself. He was laughing in a creepy way and staring at the car, and I didn't know what he was thinking or what he was going to do.

I had a broken leg, so I would have been trapped in the car if he had tried breaking into it. I tried putting my head down to hide. It felt like it took a long time for my parents to get back, and I was glad to get away from there.

That made me nervous. I've never been anywhere by myself, so I've never had to do anything about people asking for money, but sometimes I have felt nervous when that has happened when I was with my family. It hasn't happened very often.

No, I wouldn't say they make me nervous, I would say it makes me uncomfortable seeing them, because I've been homeless myself, and know how sucky it is. Also, I might say that I'm a bit cautious around them, because so many have mental illness, and one can't really ever be totally sure, how they're going to react----whether or not you give them money----because I've had different ones get angry that I didn't give them more, or cuss me cuz I didn't give them anything; and, in that situation, you can't always be sure that their cussing and/or anger, will be all that there is (meaning, the ONLY way in which they'll react).

I almost always give them money, when I have it----even if I sense that they're, most probably, lyin' their butt off, as to why they need it----but, the ones that I sense are just begging, to be playin' me (or anyone else), then I don't give them, anything.

I live in NYC, where I'll see at least 20 or so homeless people every day. It's a really sad situation now in NYC. There's much more homeless now than there was about 10 years ago.

I wish I could talk to some of them---but they do make me nervous because, like some posters have said, many of them have some sort of mental illness. Some of them happen to have lots of good stuff in their head---but they have difficulty organizing this "stuff" to the point to where whatever they say makes some sort of sense.

Some of them are so arrogant that they think their seat on the subway is THEIR seat, and two or three sets to the right and left of "their" seat. If you "interrupt" them, they might go off on you, try to start a fight with you. One time, I wanted to use a public phone--but the homeless guy thought he had "dibs" on it (even though he wasn't making any calls!), so he started to yell like a banshee when I picked up the phone receiver to call somebody.

I rarely give to homeless people because at least some of them are scamming, or use the money to buy drugs/alcohol. If somebody has body sores, or has half a foot or something, while either walking with crutches or in a wheelchair, I am more likely to give money.

Some of them have really interesting stories to sell, even if many of the stories are really, really sad.