Ex-cop: Don't give money to panhandlers

That is fiendishly devious. Is the Legion of Doom operating in your town?

 

Who would've thunk it?

 

Same message should be applied to Wall Street.

 

Solomon Grundy looks like the kind of guy who would panhandle for meth.

 

If it's fishing for tail, I can think of one neighbor he helped.

 

In the late 1990s, there were signs all over the Deep Ellum section of Dallas advising people to not give money to panhandlers. "Don't make it economically viable for panhandlers to stay in Deep Ellum. Instead, give money to shelters and services." And it went on to list several of those services.

I gave part of my pittance of a salary to one of them because I went to Deep Ellum all the time in 1998-99 to check out bands. So when a panhandler hit me up, I could say, with a clear conscience, "Sorry, I can't spare anything, but I did give to the Oak Lawn rescue mission. You can go up there and get a meal and a place to sleep." More often than not, I got a dirty look that said, "Hot meal and warm bed ain't gonna get me my next score, rube." Oh well. Their problem, not mine.

 

Holy shit.

 

To borrow from an old phrase, if you loan someone $10 and never see them again, it was probably worth it.

 

Years ago, Memphis put up parking meters along Beale and in Handy Park. Every coin that went into them went to help local homeless agencies. Don't know if they're still there or not.

 

Of course, for every dollar you give to those charities, only 50, 60, 75 cents or whatever is actually used to help the homeless. You give a pandhandler a dollar, the whole dollar helps him get whatever he wants or needs at the moment.

 

We used to have a mentally retarded guy come wandering into the building on a near-daily basis. He was so regular, the front desk would just buzz him through. He was specific in what kind of spare change he wanted. Always asked for quarters.

Later, I found out he was the publisher.







OK, I'm kidding about the last part.

 

In my travels, I found the late-night walk from Minute Maid Park back to the hotel is absolutely littered with aggressive panhandlers.
A very, very uncomfortable situation.