4/21/20 Don't Feed The Roaches?

    I absolutely hate panhandlers, they make a city look dirty and they aren't adding anything to the communities they live in.  I saw a story from John Stossel this weekend and he talked to several "bums" and some of them are faking their look for free money.  The first part of the story had a woman with a sign that said need help, trying to get back home, or whatever.  For some reason she was followed and she lived a few blocks away in a decent looking house and she was then followed and she seemed well to do and was spotted shopping and enjoying a normal lifestyle.  When confronted, she said she wasn't hurting anyone, she didn't demand money from anyone and it was an easy way to make like $150 a day.
    Stossel then went undercover and put on a fake beard and dirty street clothes and sat on the street without really begging and ended up making what he said would have amounted to $90 or so if he had stayed there for 8 hours.  People easily give $1 here or $5 there.  He was good enough to follow the people that gave and he interviewed them.  It seems to always be people barely getting by trying to help, which bothers me.  These are good hard working people probably making minimum wage and to give your hard earned money to someone who won't get off their own ass to feed themselves.  He went through and offered those a-holes with signs that say will work for money, of the 20 he offered to come work on his yard, only one showed up.  He cut the grass for $20, but did also mumble that he would have made more staying where he was panhandling, so absorb that bit of irony.  There was also a conversation with another homeless guy who was asked about a full time job somewhere and he seemed offended and asked "why should I waste all my time at a job?"  He was willing to work part time, maybe, if the work was agreeable to him, nothing too hard.
    Then there were the groups of stoners hanging on a street.  One of the dizzy girls they talked to was going on about this was their street, they just wanted to hang out all day, why should they be weighed down by a job?  She could panhandle for a couple hours, make her bit of money then spend the rest of the day doing what she wanted with her friends.
    Please people, stop giving your hard earned money away.  There is nothing I hate more than one of these bleeding hearts slow down and give some piece of shit dollars.  Like the story says, there are soup kitchens for the real hungry and destitute to eat, nobody is really dying of hunger on the streets.  Like I always say, if you leave food out, the roaches will never leave.  Cut off the money supply and I bet they would move along.  You don't see them in the nicer parts of the city, because richer people have more sense than to give them money for their drugs and alcohol.  I remember when I moved to Austin back in 1991, at least they tried by selling roses, at least they did on Riverside Drive.  I haven't seen them with roses or anything useful since I moved out here to Slaughter Lane.