Comments on: Panhandle: Strange Ways to Make Money

By: zoey

zoey — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 15:47:14 +0000

One day i was humgry
And i decided to ask for money from a stranger. Within minutes my belly was full. I hav mental illness and have suffered 32 yrs w it. Bfor panhadling id.starve didnt hav soap and was getting real bitter at mankind
Im a christian and hating pp alarmed me. The kimdness of ppl amazes me. God bless them all

By: Jon Doe

Jon Doe — Sat, 23 Feb 2013 18:45:09 +0000

After losing my job of 9 years 2 years ago,and losing all my personal belongings and place to live,I fly a sign daily.I do so without shame. I make a living at it,and dont go hungry. Leave panhandlers alone.If you dont ewant to give,then dont give.

By: Trina

Trina — Mon, 01 Oct 2012 03:19:25 +0000

My dad used to know a pan-handler that stood at the same busy corner. He knew him personally. Way before the recession, this guy had a full-time 9-5 job. He would pan-handle every weekend. With the money he’d buy his wife a new car every year and donate the old one. The way I see it, if people want to give you a few bucks, then do it… it’s ultimately up to the person giving whether or not the pan handler’s keep doing it. And to be honest – I’ve made a small living off of it when I was homeless and no one would hire me, all because I was homeless. It’s a cruel world, and when you get caught up in that cycle, homelessness, jobless, ect. it can be very hard to get out of it.

By: Allan

Allan — Tue, 21 Aug 2012 18:13:19 +0000

You my friend are uneducated about homeless people, or non homeless people who aren’t employed to no fault of their own.

I was homeless for two years do to situations that where not under my control from age 17 to 19. I begged a bit, and didn’t like it. I was also using my brain to imagine making a living some other way while begging. I watched other human(s) washing car windows at self-serve gas stations and realized they made more money than begging in my experience, and I averaged $10/hour. A lot of people who were washing car windows like beggars where doing it for a drink or to get high and didn’t dress very well. Washing car windows is working not begging.

So, I started washing car windows, but I was dressing in clean work cloths, and stayed in one spot for 8 to 10 hours until I made $100 for the day. In the mean time, I was still looking for a 9 to 5 from time to time so that I could hopefully land a job. Not everybody who is out of work or homeless is scamming, actually most of them aren’t scamming anyone at all FYI. Surviving is a very noble thing to do, opinions like yours holds no value and no truth which makes you very ignorant.

If I didn’t do these things I would not have survived. I never in my life have use drugs or use alcohol. I never hurt or bothered anyone when asking for money when begging, that was only in their small thinking brain(s) if they thought that way. I never cussed anyone out or flipped them off. I never lied why I was homeless, I was always clean because I took showers at a local community center and stayed away from the shelters because they waste peoples time for those who really want to get off the streets. Shelters in most cases will have you wait up to 4 to 8 hours to take a shower. In that time, I could be looking for a job and clean up somewhere else much faster.

That was 23 years ago.

Now with the way things are with the economy and the ever escalating job discrimination with American companies, which by the way I have been a victim of it for the past three years. I’m almost out of money, I have to survive and I am married with no kids. I have been thinking a lot of begging with a sign again after all this time to take care of my wife and myself. My wife is in East Africa, where I plan to move to, because that is where she is from. I’m stuck here now and had plans to save money before I moved. Well to no fault of my own for the second time in my life, just like many others are in a situation of being out of work and homeless. My wife depends on me to send her $200 a month for rent, food, and among other necessities. I need to raise $20,000 before I can go there. That is not too much to ask for when we can live on that for three years and start a small business in Nairobi to be self-employed. I also have to pay for the plane ticket which cost between $1500 to $2500 depending on what time of the year you buy the ticket.

For the last 23 years, my profession has been in computer training, IT for SOHO/SMBs, and sales. I have made a lot of companies a lot of money and being highly trained does not guarantee work. Once I make that money, I’m leaving and your ignorant self will never have to complain about me again. Homeless people begging on the streets have not been and will never be the cause of anyone’s problems in this country the (United States) or any other.

Knowledge is power! Get some!

By: Jen

Jen — Sun, 01 Jul 2012 16:55:31 +0000

Hi William and YES YOU ARE CORRECT about the high profile charities. Case in point: St Vincent DePaul in Eugene Oregon just signed a lease on an ultra fancy new office building to house its area administrators – while telling the destitute and unfortunate and soon-to-be homeless that there is “no money” to help them. Worse yet the SVDP employees are advising people to fraudulently file for Social Security Disability when they are not disabled – happened to a friend of mine just last month when she approached them for rental assistance with the SVDP website says it offers to help prevent homelessness. They told her to go to the Eugene Mission to live and “accept and embrace homelessness” – yeah, those words – and file for disability benefits even though she isn’t disabled. I wonder if the federal government is aware that this charity is doing this kind of thing, telling people to defraud the government!

By: Jen

Jen — Sun, 01 Jul 2012 16:49:52 +0000

Saer, too bad you didn’t realize how awful the Oregon economy is before you decided to go to college here. I hope you are able to survive on FinAid. My stepdaughter just got her master’s from UO and even at age 25 with seven years of job experience (the usual, fast food, retail, office staff, paid internships, etc) she can’t find a job to start paying on her $100K of student loans. Oregon seems like it is liberal but trust me it isn’t and the cops in Oregon are SUPER hard on homeless and panhandlers even aggressively arresting (sometimes shooting) homeless and panhandlers that they decide are some kind of threat. The harassment by cops of low income/no income people makes headlines daily here esp. in Portland and Eugene. The best places to panhandle are the rest stops but some established panhandlers in rest stops can be quite “combative” so please be safe. The attitudes towards low income/no income people in Oregon are really, really nasty and the “safety net” charities are the worst. For some strange reason even though the recession hit Oregon very hard on top of years of losing timber industry money, the people here who have even a dollar-an-hour-over-minimum-wage jobs seem to think they are oh so superior to the jobless, the homeless, and the soon to be so. I mistakenly moved here before the previous recession leaving a fabulous job in another state under the mistaken impression I could start my dream business in Oregon. Instead Oregon turned out to be a decade and a half complete nightmare. My advice to you is as soon as you get your degree use the last of your FinAid money and go somewhere with a better economy! Your very survival will depend on it. Sign me: destitute and getting moreso daily.

By: Ren

Ren — Tue, 12 Jun 2012 23:15:49 +0000

I just want to say for people thinking churches and charity’s should only handle help services , and they can’t get duped or are fair with it, think again,They may have people working there to handle it, but most of the people are volunteers with no training to spot the ones who really need help and those that don’t, and sometimes you get racist bigoted people only willing to help the people who resemble themselves. ( Have been discriminated against been strait out told because I am white I do not qualify)Meanwhile the people who don’t need,with a car, a house, and a job spending there money on crap get, Id rather a person deem where their money goes and does not go choose to help or not, then a corrupt money making charity out to get the biggest government hand out (research)

By: Bob Lew

Bob Lew — Thu, 31 May 2012 06:03:24 +0000

I worked hard all my life until accidents screwed up my back and knees so now I have to make do on SSDI. It hardly covers anything and occasionally I will panhandle for extra income. Do I feel guilty? No. The jobs I worked for over 30 years put me at risk and I always paid my taxes, so I was definitely a contributor to our society. For the past 4 years it’s been hard to find a job for most people but especially older people. One or two dollars won’t break anybody…

By: Armando

Armando — Sun, 27 May 2012 12:22:38 +0000

Obviously, you’re not familiar with Wall St executives. At least panhandlers “entertain” you. With Wall St. execs, all you get are layoffs.

By: Edward T.

Edward T. — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 22:29:13 +0000

Thank You for this story, I very much enjoyed it. I’m 45 and homeless since October 25th, 2012. I am estranged from my family ( those still living )for 25 years and have recently failed to get 2 of them to let other family members know how to contact me. I think every day about begging so I can save my life and future, and maybe locate family members who are decent. I am being helped by an organization that has emergency night shelters 7 months of the year, and have to deal with doctors from the county which is difficult. Homeless people are people too.