A FORUM FOR COMMUNITY ISSUES : Platform : The Panhandled

CHRISTY REYES, District sales manager, 27, Cypress Park.

First of all, one thing I have noticed is that very few of the people in the street asking for money are Latino. When Hispanics came to this country, most didn’t know the language, and also, many people, like me, had to start all over again here. I had gone to the university in Mexico but then I had to start over again in high school. If we can do it, how come they can’t? If people ask me for money in the street, I say: Come on, I’ll buy you some food. But I never, never, never ever give them money. Because I think most of them use it for drugs. Once a woman asked me and I said: “Come clean my house. I’ll pay you $20.” But she told me that she makes more by asking for money in the streets. Another time in downtown L.A. a man asked me for money and he had a car. I said: “How come you have a car?” He said he paid his rent by panhandling.

OK, I admit that as far as handicapped people though, maybe I do give them money sometimes. Whenever I go to the bank I see this man in a wheelchair, a World War II veteran, and I give him a dollar or a sandwich, or maybe I take him something from what I cooked the day before.

But lately he’s been demanding money. And he’s sort of shaking. I think he needs drugs. He got aggressive and said some really bad things to me, cursed me. Food is all I will offer people any more.