Panhandling

[Larysa]

Greetings!
For those of you who feel really good about giving your hard earned cash to pandhandlers in downtown Sebastopol: Please know that they not only use the money to buy booze for themselves (which I don't care about), but to share it with minors.
A few weeks ago, a few of us saw 3 old guys drinking out of bottles of booze and passing it to kids not older than about 15 - 16 in the downtown area at night. They may not have been your kids, but they were children none the less.
May I suggest:
1) Giving food, instead of cash.
2) Giving money to a restaurant, letting the person choose whatever they would like to eat or drink, w/ the difference being left as a tip for the server.
Thank you!
Larysa

[Tars]

Right on! No money, you aren't doing them any good by financing their habits. Food, shoes/clothing, blankets. More ambitious donations might include setting up a per-day expense account for them at your preferred local restaurant.

I'm trying to work out a deal for one prominently-seen Sebastopol street person, who is also a friend. Like many street people, he really wants to work, to do right in life. But his mind has been fractured by crystal, crack, and alcohol. He can't function consistently at all.

There's a low-cost living venue in downtown Sebastopol. It provides a private room, access to a shower, and two meals/day for under $500. I'm trying to provide him with a bicycle, and pay him for menial, non time-critical work. The catch is, I'll pay his landlord, not him.

It's disappointing that there isn't a men's shelter in Sebastopol. Children and women have shelter opportunities, but when I searched, I found there was nothing for men.

[galephil]

Good ideas, Layrsa. I have worked and volunteered in the field of homelessness for 30 years and your suggestions are ones that are suggestion by many in the field. Water and hats, gloves and scarves are also helpful. A smile is good if you don't have any "things" to give, since many folks who are homeless feel outside the mainstream.

There is a group working to provide permanent supportive housing in West County. That is affordable housing with services attached to support residents who have challenges to live within the social norms and keep their housing. I hope you will support such projects when they are proposed.
Gale

Greetings!
For those of you who feel really good about giving your hard earned cash to pandhandlers in downtown Sebastopol: Please know that they not only use the money to buy booze for themselves (which I don't care about), but to share it with minors.
A few weeks ago, a few of us saw 3 old guys drinking out of bottles of booze and passing it to kids not older than about 15 - 16 in the downtown area at night. They may not have been your kids, but they were children none the less.
May I suggest:
1) Giving food, instead of cash.
2) Giving money to a restaurant, letting the person choose whatever they would like to eat or drink, w/ the difference being left as a tip for the server.
Thank you!
Larysa

[uncledave]

Greetings!
For those of you who feel really good about giving your hard earned cash to pandhandlers in downtown Sebastopol: Please know that they not only use the money to buy booze for themselves (which I don't care about), but to share it with minors.
A few weeks ago, a few of us saw 3 old guys drinking out of bottles of booze and passing it to kids not older than about 15 - 16 in the downtown area at night. They may not have been your kids, but they were children none the less.
May I suggest:
1) Giving food, instead of cash.
2) Giving money to a restaurant, letting the person choose whatever they would like to eat or drink, w/ the difference being left as a tip for the server.
Thank you!
Larysa

I dont think the problem is the giving of money instead of goods or services;the problem is the sharing of substances with minors... these are not responsible adults doing this Bust there ass personally,,,go over and say "Dont give drugs or alchahol to minors".. be the change you want in the world
and make it personal.... these are your kids whether you gave birth to them or not///
the next time you have a problem,if you dont like the cops call a HIPPIE
one of the old men or woman on the bench at whole foods will be glad to back you up Make sebastopol and the world better
uncle dave barsky

[justme]

Don't give them any money.... Problem partially solved.......

[The Owl]

I dont think the problem is the giving of money instead of goods or services;the problem is the sharing of substances with minors... these are not responsible adults doing this Bust there ass personally,,,go over and say "Dont give drugs or alchahol to minors".. be the change you want in the world
and make it personal.... these are your kids whether you gave birth to them or not///
the next time you have a problem,if you dont like the cops call a HIPPIE
one of the old men or woman on the bench at whole foods will be glad to back you up Make sebastopol and the world better
uncle dave barsky

I love how people don't at all question the person who originally began this thread's accuracy of perception... old guys giving alcohol to kids at night... Were they old? were they kids? Was it even alcohol or do you just see all homeless people as alcoholics or drug addicts? It was, after all, at night... Then there's the "string 'em up" guy's response... "Arrest their ass!" Need I remind you that there is a depression going on and a lot of people who wouldn't ordinarily be in the streets right now, are and that a lot of down and out people share what they get given and that many things come in bottles besides alcohol. Don't go spreading stereotypes. Things are hard enough as they are without calling Sebcops or Sheriffs down on people who may have just been sharing food and drink with friends who from a distance in the dark may only appear to be under age.

[hearthstone]

I have yet to meet a homeless person who could afford "affordable housing".
Hearthstone.

There is a group working to provide permanent supportive housing in West County. That is affordable housing with services attached to support residents who have challenges to live within the social norms and keep their housing. I hope you will support such projects when they are proposed.
Gale

[Tars]

I have yet to meet a homeless person who could afford "affordable housing".

I can't say that I've met one, but I think I did see one. He was in line in front of me at the Rite Aid. He purchased a 12-pack of beer, a half-gallon of what looked to be whiskey, and a large bag of chips....with a credit card.

You may recognize the description of this man - he's the 60-70 year-old one who rolls his belongings around on a hand truck dolly. You can usually see his hand truck parked outside the Old Main Street Saloon on most days. If he can maintain a credit card, he should be able to afford housing. Yet he apparently chooses to live outdoors.

The huge majority of homeless are in that state not as a matter of choice. But there appears to be some who choose to be there.

[The Owl]

I can't say that I've met one, but I think I did see one. He was in line in front of me at the Rite Aid. He purchased a 12-pack of beer, a half-gallon of what looked to be whiskey, and a large bag of chips....with a credit card.

You may recognize the description of this man - he's the 60-70 year-old one who rolls his belongings around on a hand truck dolly. You can usually see his hand truck parked outside the Old Main Street Saloon on most days. If he can maintain a credit card, he should be able to afford housing. Yet he apparently chooses to live outdoors.

The huge majority of homeless are in that state not as a matter of choice. But there appears to be some who choose to be there.

Being that age would make it likely he's a Vietnam Vet, the majority of whom never received the help they needed when they returned from that horror... having been homeless for a while myself, I've felt the unspoken judgments of people when I'd go into a public place like a store and buy something THEY felt was inappropriate. Sometimes it's a choice between eating and sleeping in your vehicle OR having the rent for a place... you can't do both.
I say to you that you don't walk in that man's shoes, you don't know what he's been through or if he has the choices you think he has. Some of the trauma suffered by ex military makes them feel unsafe indoors and our government makes the hoops these damaged people have to go through just to get a minimum of help they need to not feel that way so difficult and humiliating that a lot of them just forego the entire ordeal and self medicate with alcohol or some other substance. .

[Tars]

having been homeless for a while myself, I've felt the unspoken judgments of people when I'd go into a public place like a store and buy something THEY felt was inappropriate.

If a person has and can use a credit card, then they or their support group who provides the card, would do better to set the person up with a place to live and meals. "THEY", (meaning "I") don't see any value to the individual, or society, by providing a street person with the easy means to acquire their drug of choice, in this case alcohol.

If "THEY" are going to try to provide healing support to a person, giving them a beer/booze credit account, is the wrong way. It worsens the problem.

[The Owl]

If a person has and can use a credit card, then they or their support group who provides the card, would do better to set the person up with a place to live and meals. "THEY", (meaning "I") don't see any value to the individual, or society, by providing a street person with the easy means to acquire their drug of choice, in this case alcohol.

If "THEY" are going to try to provide healing support to a person, giving them a beer/booze credit account, is the wrong way. It worsens the problem.

Here is a perfect example... thank you, my friend, for providing it... You assume so much because all you know about the issue is what you read or suppose based on what others you are in with think and say. Im my case I DON'T drink, or smoke... I was merely buying food treats that some in line felt inappropriate for some reason... and at that point in my life my income would either pay my monthly card debt OR rent somewhere, not both... so I lived out of my vehicle for many months, showering at Coaches Corner, learning the location of all the free toilets in town... all by way of being "loyal" to my debts until the banks did their number a year ago and I decided my loyalties were being wasted... stopped paying them and now pay rent with that money instead. So you see, it IS JUST POSSIBLE that someone without a home IS PAYING for his cards and therefore should be able to buy whatever the F@#& he/she wants with it.

[photolite]

Pardon me for noticing, but it appears to me that you're the one that assumes here. Having had occasion to be homeless myself, your characterization of it hardly rings true. The fact that you had a credit card and a vehicle and a gym membership at all is inconsistent with most homeless I've known or encountered when I was on the streets. I don't question that you may have lived in your car for awhile but you sound more inconvenienced than truly destitute. Your eagerness to justify the questionable choices and behavior Tars observes also undermines your contention. Many, many homeless out there engage in exactly the type of behaviors being questioned here, such as buying alcohol for kids (which is how I got it when I was a kid). Drop your gym membership and go camp out with these guys for the next year then come back and talk to us. Until then, I'm sorry, but you sound more politically correct than experienced.

Here is a perfect example... thank you, my friend, for providing it... You assume so much because all you know about the issue is what you read or suppose based on what others you are in with think and say. Im my case I DON'T drink, or smoke... I was merely buying food treats that some in line felt inappropriate for some reason... and at that point in my life my income would either pay my monthly card debt OR rent somewhere, not both... so I lived out of my vehicle for many months, showering at Coaches Corner, learning the location of all the free toilets in town... all by way of being "loyal" to my debts until the banks did their number a year ago and I decided my loyalties were being wasted... stopped paying them and now pay rent with that money instead. So you see, it IS JUST POSSIBLE that someone without a home IS PAYING for his cards and therefore should be able to buy whatever the F@#& he/she wants with it.

[erimbaugh]

The reality that has been constructed: a few humans (mostly white,
mostly male, mostly eurocentric) who have the whole planet at
their disposal, to dispose of as "a resource," to fulfill their quote needs
unquote. THAT reality must be de-constructed so that panhandlers
can become Pan-handlers; so that those who have nothing in public
but the public display of their needs can have their basic needs
(physical, sexual, spiritual) fulfilled for free, simply for the admission
price of their own existence, even as the depleters of existence
have to display their riches (and how they came by them) in public
and be publicly demoted (for them) to inclusion in a Pan-demic
transcapitalist neo-indigenous addiction-free zone of entangled
rhizominous airyfaery livenletlivedness. In sum, it's past due time
to get past crackpot realism and its emotional default in resentment.
Time to get unrealistic, very unrealistic about things. Time to imagine
how we make reality in our own image. Time therefore to imagine
who we are and what we're doing Here.

If a person has and can use a credit card, then they or their support group who provides the card, would do better to set the person up with a place to live and meals. "THEY", (meaning "I") don't see any value to the individual, or society, by providing a street person with the easy means to acquire their drug of choice, in this case alcohol.

If "THEY" are going to try to provide healing support to a person, giving them a beer/booze credit account, is the wrong way. It worsens the problem.

[The Owl]

Pardon me for noticing, but it appears to me that you're the one that assumes here. Having had occasion to be homeless myself, your characterization of it hardly rings true. The fact that you had a credit card and a vehicle and a gym membership at all is inconsistent with most homeless I've known or encountered when I was on the streets. I don't question that you may have lived in your car for awhile but you sound more inconvenienced than truly destitute. Your eagerness to justify the questionable choices and behavior Tars observes also undermines your contention. Many, many homeless out there engage in exactly the type of behaviors being questioned here, such as buying alcohol for kids (which is how I got it when I was a kid). Drop your gym membership and go camp out with these guys for the next year then come back and talk to us. Until then, I'm sorry, but you sound more politically correct than experienced.

I'm terribly sorry I didn't fall as far as I needed to in order to qualify with your measure of validity here. If you're going to fault me for having my wits about me enough to not allow myself to just fall all the way to the forest floor... then I guess I was... what, then? I had no address for 2 years, cops kept waking me up and telling me I had to move on, but I guess having a car is having it too good. I dropped my gym membership as soon as I got a place again, thank you, and I no longer have credit so next time could be far worse.... so maybe I'm still a contender?
If you're going to play who had it harder then be my guest... you win!
I wasn't aware there was a goal here. I certainly wasn't competing with anyone for bum of the year. I was trying to get my life back on track and feel good that I was able to do that. Sorry that upsets you.

[BizWrangler]

I would just like to point out that having a plastic card and using it for purchases does not automatically mean it is a CREDIT CARD in which things are being bought on credit. It could just as easily be a DEBIT card in which they are using to access whatever funds they have available in their own bank account. Food stamps are also issued on a card - so without looking closely you have no way of knowing what kind of card is being used.

You should not automatically assume someone is buying on credit. The negative assumption here bothers me. Personally, I think this is a case of mind your own business.

If a person has and can use a credit card, then they or their support group who provides the card, would do better to set the person up with a place to live and meals. "THEY", (meaning "I") don't see any value to the individual, or society, by providing a street person with the easy means to acquire their drug of choice, in this case alcohol.

If "THEY" are going to try to provide healing support to a person, giving them a beer/booze credit account, is the wrong way. It worsens the problem.

[Tars]

You should not automatically assume someone is buying on credit. The negative assumption here bothers me.

Debit/credit/cash, whatever. The point is, if a person has the support, or personal wherewithal to maintain money, in whatever form, then they have the wherewithal to get shelter for themselves.

By using their resources to buy drugs instead of shelter, they are either choosing or are compelled by their addiction(s) into living outdoors. Anyone wishing to help them would best help them by providing tangible shelter, food, clothing. Giving them money (in whatever form) just enables them to maintain their life-ruining addiction.

[photolite]

My point is not that you didn't fall far enough but that the most visible segment of the homeless are often practicing alcoholics, drug addicts and/or criminals and most of us who have ventured there discovered that PDQ. I believe Tars and others get that and that is the concern. There are certain segments of the homeless society we need to keep away from our kids and not, necessarily, give the benefit of the doubt..

I'm terribly sorry I didn't fall as far as I needed to in order to qualify with your measure of validity here. If you're going to fault me for having my wits about me enough to not allow myself to just fall all the way to the forest floor... then I guess I was... what, then? I had no address for 2 years, cops kept waking me up and telling me I had to move on, but I guess having a car is having it too good. I dropped my gym membership as soon as I got a place again, thank you, and I no longer have credit so next time could be far worse.... so maybe I'm still a contender?
If you're going to play who had it harder then be my guest... you win!
I wasn't aware there was a goal here. I certainly wasn't competing with anyone for bum of the year. I was trying to get my life back on track and feel good that I was able to do that. Sorry that upsets you.

[mykil]

I used to love panhandling in the streets in order to by a few beers and enjoy the afternoon, I don't think I was all of fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, oh it goes on. I finally grew up around twenty I am guessing, moved to the country and had to hitchhike into town to buy my beer.. The point being yes panhandling for booze used to do it for me in a dramatic way. I lived in a nice house and had all the food I could handle. I even had no problem coaxing cash out of a few adults around, but why? All I and a few friends had to do was hang out in town and ask a few folks to buy us some beer.


LOL, as I am writing this a homeless friend just walked in to ask for six bucks so he can get some smokes. I will give it to him out of respect for his habit, altho I will tell him he needs to quit! I am writing him a song so he can make some extra cash outside me store. I just started yesterday but is goes something like this:


“I NEED A PACK OF SMOKES AND MAYBE SOME COFFEE


IF YOU LOAN ME ENOUGH CASH MIGHT GET A MATE'!”




“COME ON MR PLEASE YEAH THROW ME A BONE


AT LEAST ENOUHG SO I MAY BUY ME SOME ROLL YOUR OWN !”


If you see a homeless dude in front of my stroe with a guitar singing with his case open please trow in a dime...


I will have to work on it some more. Hell one year all the kids got together and panhandled enough money to get a keg together for my girlfriends birthday party. Twas but a blast, she turned fourteen that year. I think it was a simpler time back yonder in history, and a hell of a lot easier to get away with. Now a days you have a website that narcs on folks even before they begin. LOL! WE did live in the small town of Monte Rio and not in a big city like Sebastopol this is fro sure! But still are you afraid that the kids might take to this habit and start living in the street as well? A few well balance children around might actually do this little town some good. I find it easier to express ones self when they have actually went out and done did it for themselves. The homeless will not go away, all they can do is teach, teach in a way that none of the folks reading this little site can teach. If you are truly afraid for the little ones and the corruption that the homeless will bring, you might want to get out there and pass the bottle around with them to make sure there is an even balance on the home front and that all is being learns is nothing but good.

[The Owl]

My point is not that you didn't fall far enough but that the most visible segment of the homeless are often practicing alcoholics, drug addicts and/or criminals and most of us who have ventured there discovered that PDQ. I believe Tars and others get that and that is the concern. There are certain segments of the homeless society we need to keep away from our kids and not, necessarily, give the benefit of the doubt..

There are segments of the population PERIOD that we should keep away from our kids, not just homeless. Most of the career politicians deciding the fate of our lives and nation are as addicted to alcohol as any homeless person and just as addled of thought. My point is, times are rough, people are homeless NOT necessarily because they have substance abuse issues... but they all get unnecessarily run through that grid in peoples thinking and it isn't at all helpful.