junkie panhandlers

[secundem_artem]

Here, there's usually a panhandler at the bottom of each exit ramp on the interstate through town.  Standing at a stoplight on the divider of a divided roadway is also a popular location.  I usually keep a few $1 bills tucked into my visor and hand them out as circumstances allow.  I have no idea if these folks are homeless, meth addicts, alcoholics, or mentally ill.  But dear gawd, they look like they are doing life the hard way.  I really don't care where they spend the money.

The only time I got pissed off was when what I surmise was an Afghan refugee accepted his dollar, pointed to his wife and child sitting on the grass and asked for more money. He got another buck and light turned green. 

I don't shop at Walmart.  I wouldn't even shoplift at Walmart.  So I've never had Kay's problem.  Target does not seem to attract the same kind of poor people.

[apl68]

We don't see a great deal of this sort of thing in our small town, but there is some panhandling by transients around the highway and businesses there now and then.  I don't recall having ever witnessed it for myself--even at Wal-Mart.  Local churches and aid groups are hit up all the time.  They compare notes to keep an eye on "frequent flyers." 

Those who work with people in need regularly often develop a pretty good sense regarding who's scamming and who's not.  Mostly the ones they encounter around here are not.  Of course there's no way not to get conned at least once in a while short of never giving any help at all, which is not an option.  The occasional gift to the undeserving is just a cost of doing business.  As one guy I know says, "If you help the needy, get ready to deal with the greedy."

I've worked with several of the local helpers some.  The director of the local Chamber of Commerce maintains a "blessing box" with canned goods and hygiene supplies open to all comers.  The head of the local food pantry just raised money for 300 Christmas hams to give to their clients tomorrow.  And we've got somebody local who gives out $200 gift cards every year anonymously to needy households recommended by some of those mentioned above.  I once recommended one of my staff members for one when she was going through a tough spot.

It's rather shocking, when I go to cities like Little Rock and even Fayetteville, how many panhandlers can now be seen at the highway exits.  I've given to some panhandlers in the streets and parking lots now and then.  Or bought food or lunch for them.  Sometimes they want somebody to talk to.  Sometimes they'll accept prayers, although I don't push it if they decline.  Since the pandemic I've pretty much stopped giving cash, since there's food available in more places than before for those who are honestly hungry, and cash is so very easily abused.

[kaysixteen]

Random clarifications and observations:

1) I meant what I said wrt approaching suddenly could have depressing consequences- what if the intended donor had been armed?   In any case, I cannot, this time of year, just gas the car up and depart, because I do need to warm up the windshield enough to clear the fog and be safe to drive.

2) The reason, at least the main reason, that I do not tell such people to head on into the store and apply for work is that, well, I do not want to insult 'em, as I know that, however low our hiring standards in Rusty City are nowadays, these folks still would not meet them and thus be able to be hired.   That said, I certainly do support, and have said things like this on these fora before, the notion that those who can work should be working (and the state should give them work if needed), and that  those who, for reasons of mental illness or active addiction, cannot work should be placed somewhere where they would not have to freeze to death whilst wallowing in their own human waste.   In the case of the mentally ill, this would of course be clean, decent hospitals where they can get whatever treatment would be available, and forced to accept such treatment, and in the case of irredentist (and lawbreaking) junkies, well.... hi ho hi ho, it's off to jail you go.   For both their own good and the good of society, which does have some rights.

3) Similarly to the point I have been raising wrt expensive dental crowns, I am constrained to point out that people like me, who work very low wage jobs in depressed areas, simply cannot afford to pony up beaucoup bucks for all solicitors, and are also much much less likely to  be interested in supplying any of our limited supply of funds to junkies who call us 'assholes'.  And bear in mind that my encounter with this woman was after 11pm, and after I had been on my feet for 8+ hours working the register-- my lymphedema-laden legs felt like telephone poles, and I just wanted to go home.   Nothing in the life of the average tenured university professor equates to this.

4) Someone pointed out that Tarzhay does not generally attract such denizens, and this is no accident.  They do not want these folks around, and their much more affluent core customer demographic absolutely does not want to encounter them there.   So what do you think is likely Tarzhay's response when and if such people appear in their lots (or inside the stores, which, BTW, are usually not placed in sites like Rusty City, in the first place)?  Of course, Wallyworld could and should police its parking lots to keep its associates and decent paying customers safe, and we could probably debate/ discuss, why it does not do so, in the main...

[apl68]

With regard to the lack of panhandling around Target vs. Wal-Mart, it appears to me that Targets tend to be located in more affluent areas that are harder to get to on foot or by bus.  That said, I've personally never seen panhandlers around a Wal-Mart (apart from the very occasional driver begging for gas), but have seen them near (though not right outside) a Target before.  So the dichotomy of Wal-Mart attracting panhandlers and Target not doing so may not be a thing in all locations.

[Wahoo Redux]

2)  the notion that those who can work should be working (and the state should give them work if needed), and that  those who, for reasons of mental illness or active addiction, cannot work should be placed somewhere where they would not have to freeze to death whilst wallowing in their own human waste.   In the case of the mentally ill, this would of course be clean, decent hospitals where they can get whatever treatment would be available, and forced to accept such treatment, and in the case of irredentist (and lawbreaking) junkies, well.... hi ho hi ho, it's off to jail you go.   For both their own good and the good of society, which does have some rights.

God bless'ya, brother, but if working with the indigent were only so simple.

From my experience, keeping a mentally ill addict in a safe, clean place is no small task: these folks don't want to be constrained any more than you or I do, and they are often compelled to seek their fix out in the world no matter what.  Add to this the lack of available money and space and we end up with all sorts of people wandering the streets.

Who is going to pay for clean, descent hospitals?  These are very expensive facilities and treatment is often extensive and can take years; some folks have difficulties so intense we do not have viable treatments for them.  As the many debates about funding academia have repeatedly illustrated, we have a lot of priorities to pay for.

Then there is the problem of basic freedom.  It is not illegal to be eccentric, even in extremity, and there are often regulations against panhandling, but it is not illegal to casually ask someone for money or to insult them----nor should there be. Society has rights, after all, to be weird. 

[kaysixteen]

Additional points:

1) Tarzhay cannot control panhandlers who are active off of its property.  I stand by my assessment that you are likely never going to see such folks ON Tarzhay land, however, and my assessment as to why this is the case.

2) Those clean and decent hospitals into which I wish to place homeless mentally ill folks will cost money.  Yes  indeedee.   As Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes well noted, 'I like paying taxes, for when I pay taxes, I am buying civilization.'

3) There is a difference between 'eccentricity', which certainly must be allowed in a free society, and dangerous, threatening, neighborhood-blighting behavior.   Really, there is, and of course, those mentally ill folks, not being in right possession of their faculties, ought not to be allowed to wallow in their own filth howling at the moon, and/or 'self-medicating' with street drugs, either.

4) A question for fora Canadians and Europeans: from all that I have heard, you simply do not see the homelessness issues, and associated problems, such as everything from open drug use/ sales to nip bottles and assorted detritus dirtying up the streets (even to the point of causing puddling owing to clogging up of storm drains)-- is this true, and, if so, why is it?

[Hegemony]

I was panhandled in the supermarket parking lot today, and in memory of this thread, I gave the panhandler a substantial bill.

As for Europeans — I spend a good deal of my time in Cambridge (UK), and Cambridge certainly has homelessness problems. It has had for quite some time — when I lived there in the '80s, my housemate worked nights at a homeless shelter, so I heard a lot about it.

[marshwiggle]

4) A question for fora Canadians and Europeans: from all that I have heard, you simply do not see the homelessness issues, and associated problems, such as everything from open drug use/ sales to nip bottles and assorted detritus dirtying up the streets (even to the point of causing puddling owing to clogging up of storm drains)-- is this true, and, if so, why is it?

Not true for Canada; we have homeless problems, although usually not to the extent of the U.S. *Better social programs make a difference. The Downtown East Side in Vancouver is legendary for drug problems. One of the confounding issues is that "safe injection" or "harm reduction" sites make those areas magnets for people with drug problems.

(*AND more than two political parties, so every issue isn't flattened into some simple FOR or AGAINST dichotomy. There is still some room for nuance. For instance, in the debate about harm reduction it's usually not a debate about the cost, but rather about whether it works.)

[ciao_yall]

Additional points:

1) Tarzhay cannot control panhandlers who are active off of its property.  I stand by my assessment that you are likely never going to see such folks ON Tarzhay land, however, and my assessment as to why this is the case.

2) Those clean and decent hospitals into which I wish to place homeless mentally ill folks will cost money.  Yes  indeedee.  As Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes well noted, 'I like paying taxes, for when I pay taxes, I am buying civilization.'

3) There is a difference between 'eccentricity', which certainly must be allowed in a free society, and dangerous, threatening, neighborhood-blighting behavior.  Really, there is, and of course, those mentally ill folks, not being in right possession of their faculties, ought not to be allowed to wallow in their own filth howling at the moon, and/or 'self-medicating' with street drugs, either.

There is a difference between, as a buddy of mine puts it, between the person who is homeless due to a brief spell of bad luck and "naked machete man."

4) A question for fora Canadians and Europeans: from all that I have heard, you simply do not see the homelessness issues, and associated problems, such as everything from open drug use/ sales to nip bottles and assorted detritus dirtying up the streets (even to the point of causing puddling owing to clogging up of storm drains)-- is this true, and, if so, why is it?

Affordable housing, healthcare, and a generous social safety net.

[Ruralguy]

But isn't this a bit of a myth?

I saw obviously homeless folks in Finland and Canada for sure. Possibly not as bad of a problem.

[dismalist]

But isn't this a bit of a myth?

I saw obviously homeless folks in Finland and Canada for sure. Possibly not as bad of a problem.

Myth? It's the opposite of the truth.

Homeless per 10,000 inhabitants

UK       54
France   45
Sweden   36
Germany  31

USA      18

[downer]

How is "homeless" defined in these stats? Is it the same for each country? It's not the same as rough sleepers. People are homeless if they are living in their cars, or in shelters, right?

Presumably there's some reasonably good social science on the causes of homelessness and on which policies  reduce homelessness. I guess the interpretation of the info has some ideological component, but I'd hope it is possible to get at least some widespread agreement about what the science says.

Though doing 10 mins of internet searching makes me less optimistic about finding neutral ground on the issue.

[dismalist]

These are all countries that create and report point-in-time estimates.

Australia, Belgium (Brussels CapitalRegion), Colombia, Costa Rica, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, the Slovak Republic and the United States
collect homelessness data based on point-in-time estimates. [OECD]

I'm guessing that our perceptions of the extent of homelessness are biased by its concentration. So, in the US many homeless move to California where the sun is warm, the legal tolerance of the homeless is high, and the money spent on the homeless is generous. That, then, is where the news stories about the homeless originate, and that's what we see. In highly decentralized Germany, where average homelessness is higher than in the US, the weather is chilly everywhere, benefits are the same everywhere, legal tolerance is much the same everywhere [except perhaps in Berlin] there is little concentration, so one doesn't see much in any one place.

There was a thread about homelessness a while back. I reported that high rents make for more homelessness, and high rents are caused by little new building, in turn due to zoning by NIMBY's, in other words our fellow man.

[Wahoo Redux]

Additional points:

2) Those clean and decent hospitals into which I wish to place homeless mentally ill folks will cost money.  Yes  indeedee.   As Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes well noted, 'I like paying taxes, for when I pay taxes, I am buying civilization.'

Well...I might be willing to agree with you, but many Americans do not.  That is a whole big can of rotten worms there.  Reagan is infamous for shuttering mental health facilities, and his devotees love him for these sorts of actions.

3) There is a difference between 'eccentricity', which certainly must be allowed in a free society, and dangerous, threatening, neighborhood-blighting behavior.   

We already have laws that address these things.  If someone becomes violent, run and dial 9-1-1.

Really, there is, and of course, those mentally ill folks, not being in right possession of their faculties, ought not to be allowed to wallow in their own filth howling at the moon, and/or 'self-medicating' with street drugs, either.

Kind'a gotta disagree with most of what you are saying here.

We already have laws regarding drunk and disorderly or drunk in public or simply disorderly and the use of illegal street drugs.  No need to create them.  If these are a problem, call 9-1-1. 

As for walling and howling, those are protected activities even if you or I don't like them. 

It's pretty important that we not go down the road of curtailing people's behavior as long as it is not directly threatening or violent----this includes howling at the moon and bathing.  That is a slope we do not want to slip on.

4) A question for fora Canadians and Europeans: from all that I have heard, you simply do not see the homelessness issues, and associated problems, such as everything from open drug use/ sales to nip bottles and assorted detritus dirtying up the streets (even to the point of causing puddling owing to clogging up of storm drains)-- is this true, and, if so, why is it?

Homelessness has existed as long as their have been human beings.  We used to call them "beggars" or "witches" or, apparently, "Jack."

People don't know or forget this.  Homelessness, insanity, and panhandling are as old as civilization.

[marshwiggle]

Additional points:

2) Those clean and decent hospitals into which I wish to place homeless mentally ill folks will cost money.  Yes  indeedee.   As Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes well noted, 'I like paying taxes, for when I pay taxes, I am buying civilization.'

Well...I might be willing to agree with you, but many Americans do not.  That is a whole big can of rotten worms there.  Reagan is infamous for shuttering mental health facilities, and his devotees love him for these sorts of actions.

This is one of those things that can come from either end of the political spectrum. In Ontario, in the 90's, the push to get people out of mental institutions was from the left, concerned about their personal freedom. (The problem was that without additional community-based resources, many just became homeless.)

Like many other problems, these issues are complex and trying to strike the right balance is always going to result in some cases where the result seems unfair or unreasonable.