Ex-cop: Don't give money to panhandlers

Yeah, I'll invariably give a dollar to someone honest enough to say he wants it for booze.

Generally, however, I only give to the guy on Madison between 48th and 49th streets every morning. Bad karma, I'm sure, to walk past him.

 

As a buddy of mine was stepping over a bum laying across a sidewalk on Yonge St. in Toronto, the guys said "Spare change?" My buddy said, "No thanks. Got lots."

 

I like to help everyone I can. But some people have to want to help themselves. If you feed a man a fish, you feed him for a day. If you teach him how to fish, you feed him for a lifetime.

 

So you take panhandlers fishing?

 

I had an encounter a few years ago that has helped keep my cynicism from completely taking over, serving as a reminder that there are people who legitimately are in need of help.

Late-ish one night, I was headed into a grocery store near my apartment at the time, in the downtown of a major city where you couldn't go a block without being hassled by panhandlers. A guy comes toward me in the parking lot, and I'm thinking, "Here we go again" and getting ready to blow him off.

He just says, "I'm really down on my luck. Is there any way you could get me something to eat?" He seems earnest, and after all, he didn't ask for money, so I say sure.

"What would you like?"

"I don't care, sir. Anything you want to get is fine."

"Like, a sandwich, something like that?"

"Honestly, I'll eat anything you'd be kind enough to get me."

So I brought the guy out a sandwich, a bag of chips and a bottle of juice. He thanked me profusely and rushed off to eat. For some reason that encounter really stuck with me. I'd dealt with so much bullshit living in that neighborhood, and here was someone truly hungry, so much that he would have been grateful for anything I'd given him.

I still don't give money to panhandlers, but I have no problem giving to food banks and shelters.

 

If you are Tim Tebow you get the man one fish, turn it into 40 and go solve world hunger, just in case the man does not like fish.

 

Agree with this but I will add that Vancouver is probably twice as bad. In addition to the junkies and other derelicts you also have the "kids" that go west (usually from Quebec) and panhandling is their source of income.

I lived right downtown in the west end and there were usually about 3 to 4 begggars per block.

At least the bottle and can pickers have a work ethic. I would see those guys in one part of town in the morning and a different part at night.

 

San Francisco, San Diego, New Orleans (the most aggressive in the country), New York (of course), Boston all come to mind just as being as bad as Toronto.

 

I don't know Toronto all that well, but can vouch for chet that Vancouver is freaking ridiculous.

 

Certainly wouldn't dispute that. Never been to Vancouver but have read enough about the problems there to know it might even be worse than Toronto's.