Ex-cop: Don't give money to panhandlers

The panhandling situation is awful in Winnipeg, too, and they're aggressive.

 

Yeah, don't get me started on the United Way. Every year, they would do their big drive, and my paper would make us sit for a meeting/guilt trip by the United Way to get us to donate. I would always refuse and after the first one, I skipped the meetings. I figured that I had enough work to do without wasting time sitting in a meeting for which I wasn't going to make a donation.

The UW would say that we could designate the charity that we could have our money sent to. They really didn't have an answer for when a fellow employee asked them why they should send their money to the UW when they could just send it directly to the other charity.

 

My personal policy is that I don't speak to bums.

 

I used to feel the same way. until one day I saw a good friend of mine, who was out on his luck, panhandling not because he wanted to, but because he neeed to. His luck has since changed for the better but when something like panhandling touches close to home, your views can change greatly.

 

United Way is an epic racket. So, regrettably, is the Red Cross, the way things stand now. Choose carefully.

 

Must not have been too good of a friend if you didn't know he was so down on his luck that he became a bum. I call BS on your story.

 

BULLSHIT?!!!!
On a Drip story!?
NO! WAY!

 

It's true. He was a very successful human resources professional in better times, too.

 

So is the American Cancer Society. The CEO makes more than a million a year, last I looked.

We've got all these folks in the community thinking they're doing a great thing with all the Relay for Life BS. If only they knew that most of what they were doing was lining someone's pocket.

It galls me even more knowing that a friend of mine in this shop died several years ago of cancer, and at least four current employees (and one other former one) have fought it. One is my direct boss.

On their behalf, the American Cancer Society really pisses me off.

 

I recall a story from a friend of a friend who a few years back picked up a panhandler, telling him he wouldn't just give him the money but he had some yard work he'd pay him $100 for. He agreed. After an hour or so, the story goes, the friend of a friend left the house to go get some burgers, some of which was the panhandler's lunch. When he got back, the panhandler and about $700 in power tools were gone. He was found and arrested because a neighbor had spotted him.

 

the panhandlers in Europe are much worse than anywhere I've seen in North America. The gypsies run complete scams involving their kids, grandparents......it's a family affair.

 

It's quite the business these days.