To Give or Not to Give? : More Sympathy Than Money for Panhandlers

The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.

--Anatole France, “Le Lys Rouge”

From a street corner opposite the panhandler, the eye frames a tableau-in-progress of lives converging for an instant. In the lunchtime rush around City Hall and the Court House, people with food and business on their minds stream by, averting their eyes as beggars seek the legal tender in their pockets.

On one corner stands a muscular little man with a scrubbed clean face, a soiled T-shirt and slacks, lint in his soft Afro and a panhandling approach based on pit bull aggression.

Some, with compassion written on their faces, acknowledge his presence but say no. Others, annoyed, shake their heads, shake their whole bodies, trying to dodge his dog-at-your-heels presence. He follows them about half a block in any direction before giving up.

A Sheepish Smile

“No habla Ingles? “ the panhandler demands. The Spanish-speaking man, backing away from him, smiles sheepishly, insisting that he does not. He is finally left alone.

Avoidance or the truth?

How do you feel when a panhandler approaches you?, the Latin man is asked. But he really doesn’t speak English.

“I look for sincerity on the part of the panhandler,” offers Millage Peaks, a captain in the Los Angeles Fire Department. The tenacious beggar got nothing from him.

Insufficiently sincere?

“Well, after I told him I didn’t have any change he says, ‘How about a $20 bill.’ So I knew he was hustling.”

Peaks says the most he’s ever given a panhandler is a dollar. “I’m not rich.” But he is never indifferent. “I always think about it,” the significance of people in need. “I hope there is a resolution in sight, on the larger social scale.”

His dollar alone won’t do it, he says. “But I know there’s a dollar out there somewhere that could take care of it. I mean, we’re sending (money) all across the world and taking care of other people. But we’re not really concentrating on our own so much.”

What do we really think when confronted by panhandlers, most of whom are homeless, as well: “There but for the grace of God go I”? “For ye have the poor always with you”?

A poll put out this month by the Washington, D.C.-based National Coalition for the Homeless found that “helping the hungry and homeless was second only to reducing the federal deficit as the problem most Americans want the next President to work on,” says Tim Hager, assistant director for the coalition.

The national telephone poll of 1,000 registered voters, conducted in February by the Washington, D.C. research firm, Mellman & Lazarus, found that “83% of Americans agree that it is embarrassing that there are so many homeless and hungry people in the United States,” says Hager. And “78% believe that adequate food and housing is a fundamental right.”

Further, “57% said that the government should guarantee food and housing to every citizen,” says Tim Fuller, executive director of the Campaign to End Hunger and Homelessness--an umbrella group which includes the National Coalition for the Homeless. A “majority” went on to say that they would be willing to pay more taxes to fund such a government effort.

When asked specifically how much more in taxes they would be willing to pay to end hunger and homelessness, the answer was “$100 more,” Fuller says.

Concern for the hungry and homeless among those polled cut across political, racial and economic lines, Fuller says.

Hager, of the coalition, says the type of homeless and hungry people the average person most often encounters are the “panhandlers and the more mentally disturbed.”

If these people are viewed with “any sort of disdain,” he believes it’s because their plight hits too close to home. “It frightens people. They feel that they, at any moment, could end up on the streets as well.” They are seeing that the population of the homeless has changed “from just panhandling bums . . . (to) a broader range of people. They see that it doesn’t take very much to be put in a position where you have to seek assistance.”

Back on the street corner, the tenacious panhandler perceived to be insincere says his friends call him Lucky. “But I know I’m blessed.”

About the 20 bucks he demanded of the Fire Department captain: “I was joking when I said that.” But on the other hand, “I was serious, too. I could eat all week on that. Maybe I’m not coming across as sincere, but I am. I’m hungry.” He shifts his short stack of silver coins from hand to hand.

When he came to Los Angeles in 1985 from Chicago he had “$30 to my name.” He was sure his training in the Army, “aviation electronics,” would net him a good job.

‘It’s Hard to Get Hired’

But he got robbed of the little he had as soon as he arrived, says Lucky. When he applied for jobs, he had no address. “And what’s the second thing they ask you on a job application? If they have no place to contact you,” it’s hard to get hired.

He speaks precisely. He sounds rational. Though he lives on the street (“If anybody’s got any blankets to spare I wished they give ‘em to me. Somebody stole mine.”), it appears he takes care of his body. He has pride. Perhaps that is why his approach is so aggressive. To panhandle with the mentality of a beggar might be too demeaning.

“I’ve had some people say some very obscene, insensitive . . . things. (But) I look at it this way. I’m asking somebody to give me something they worked for. So I already know what I’m in for at the beginning.”

But even when he’s rejected, “I still tell ‘em, ‘God bless you.’ Cause the way this happened to me, it could happen to anybody over here, over there, anybody.”

He’s in pursuit, again. This time after a tall man who, unable to ignore him, smiles disdainfully, contemplating the air over short Lucky’s head.

The tall man in dark glasses--a 28-year-old city water department employee--analyzed the plight of the panhandler this way:

“I just feel what they’re asking for is not enough. They got to make some noise somewhere and it’s not on the corner. They should organize, get serious. The homeless are doing better than the panhandlers as far as their movement” is concerned.

Aren’t panhandlers and the homeless usually one in the same?

The Bottom Line

He shrugs, getting to the real bottom line: “I don’t feel any emotion at all. I’m too used to this.”

“I pray for them,” says a man who gently refused Lucky. He is clutching papers in his arms, a copy of Charles W. Colson’s “Loving God,” and sticking envelopes on car windshields. The card inside the envelope reads: “Scott Trading Ltd. Specialize in Diamonds-Jewelry.” Printed on the card is “Jesus is Lord” and the bearer’s name, “Donald W. Scott.”

Scott, his green eyes filled with guilt, the sun beating down on his vanishing red hair, says, “I don’t know how much money that man is looking for, but I probably should have given it to him, being a good Christian person.”

He knows, he says, that panhandlers “are just trying to find enough money to eat or to find a job. The economy is in such a state that there are a lot of unemployed people.” His church, Now Faith in Whittier, goes down to Skid Row and makes donations to the Salvation Army every week.

Scott, who is on jury duty, says, “I have 33 minutes before I have to be back in the court building.” But “most of the time I do give money. The Bible says if you give to the poor, you lend to the Lord and he will repay you.”

The man has his hands in his pockets before the writer can even ask the question.

“Oh,” laughs Mark Montes, 26, “I was going to give you a dollar.”

He gave money to Lucky. But he says, “I use my discretion. If I see somebody that looks like he’s going to go buy a drink, obviously I’m not going to give him a dollar bill to . . . go get drunk. But if he’s fairly in control of his . . . faculties, yeah.”

Lives Out of Control

The Boyle Heights resident--his portly build contained in Western boots, jeans and suspenders over a crisp white shirt--has passed through the downtown area for years, he says, observing lives out of control. “I feel frustration because they can’t get a hold of their lives,” says the City Hall clerk-typist. “And I feel frustration because our system . . . seems like . . . they (can’t) do anything about it.”

He also feels a sense of “personal connection,” adding: “Individuals who have been very close to me” have had to live on the streets.

Montes’ attitude was in evidence among the polling subjects interviewed by Mellman & Lazarus for the Campaign to End Hunger and Homelessness. According to Fuller, the more direct personal experience a person had with the homeless--and most panhandlers are perceived to be homeless--the more sympathetic the response.

On Main Street, at the edge of the park in front of City Hall sits Gerald. “They call me Okie. I’m from Oklahoma City.” He is in overalls, a gray T-shirt underneath. His blond hair is cropped close. His body is muscular and hard--he was in the Army, says the 26-year-old. But his teeth, at their roots, are black. And every minute or so, he spits--the mucous thicker than saliva and greenish yellow.

He came to Los Angeles three weeks ago and plans to head for Central American to save “the young ‘uns.”

A priest passes by. He searches his body for change but comes up empty-handed.

He seems chagrined when asked how he feels about panhandlers. “I’m really moved by the problem. There are so many people in need,” says Father Alfred Hernandez, a priest at St. Ignatius in Highland Park. “I wish I could help him. But I really can’t.”

The woman on the ground in front of the Goodwill Thrift Shop is passive. If someone gives, she takes.

Watts resident Mandy Patterson, 69, looks at her benignly.

Though she has been a domestic most of her life, Patterson owns property and has “tenants” of her own. She knows “how to accumulate,” she explains, “something these young girls don’t understand.”

Her reaction to the panhandlers? “I feel sorry. They have to live like anybody else and that’s a way to survive. But I think it could be done better. The federal government should build hospitals for them--some of these people are crazy--and have doctors give their time. They should be bathed and fed.”

The reason many of these people are on the street begging is because employers “didn’t pay them nothing to work when they were young and they didn’t have a chance to have nothing. Don’t you agree?”

Patterson, who says she has worked in the homes of the rich all her life, is disgusted with the way “the wealthy waste.”

“They have so much to throw away they could give it to (the poor). That’s what I think. In fact, that’s what I know. They can’t use all they got. They ought to share.”

In the early evening, just before the the rush-hour crowd heads home, Main Street between 1st and 2nd seems nearly deserted. Then a man--not old, but no longer young--walks north along the street. His face is brown and broad and reminiscent of an Aztec mask. His dark hair brushes the shoulders of a worn, dark brown jacket.

“Can you spare 50 cents?” he asks.

The writer has already given $5 to Lucky. And to open one’s purse would be more than inconvenient, it might be dangerous. But half a block away, the words still resonate: “Can you spare . . . ?”

But he is gone. In a few seconds, he has vanished. He can not be spotted in the open parking lots nearby. And he is around no corner turned. That moment, when the connection mattered most, is lost. And it as if he never existed.