Can You Spare Them Some Help?

While I am terribly hurt by the jobs situation, and that lack of the opportunity for working people to support themselves and their families in any comfort, there is a problem with begging on the streets. Although I did propose that funding for certain programs in MD should be funded by Repugs begging in the streets, since they were creating the problem, I do see that some begging has gone pro.

At a place I worked near the LBJ Freeway, you could observe vans driving up in the early hours and letting out a contingent equipped with signs, lunches, that whole setup, to beg from the commuter traffic. That is the kind of approach that gives the right wing bases for insisting that anyone can work if he/she wants to, and gives them purchase in the public mind.

The professional panhandler, 'spanger', is the subject of this article by Steven Malanga:

Unlike their predecessors in the '70s and '80s, many of these new beggars aren't helpless victims or even homeless. Rather, they belong to a diverse and swelling community of street people who have made panhandling their calling.

Like most countries, America has always had its share of itinerant travelers, vagabonds and hoboes. But panhandling became a more pervasive and disturbing fact of urban life in the 1970s – a byproduct of the explosion in homelessness that resulted from rising drug use and the closing of state-run mental institutions.

By the crack epidemic's late-'80s peak, New York City in particular was home to a massive panhandling presence. The problem soon turned from irritating to alarming, as incidents of aggressive panhandling leading to violent crime began showing up regularly in the headlines.

The escalation – and other cities faced it, too – shouldn't have been surprising.

"If the neighborhood cannot keep a bothersome panhandler from annoying passers-by ... it is even less likely to call the police to identify a potential mugger or to interfere if a mugging actually takes place," wrote political scientist James Q. Wilson.

New York, fed up with the disorder, began to crack down on panhandling in the early '90s. Its success prompted other cities to follow suit – adopting community courts, forcing beggars to register for licenses (which discouraged them) and passing new anti-panhandling laws. These measures helped spark new development and interest in downtown districts across the country.

But over the last several years, the urban resurgence has proved an irresistible draw to a new generation of spangers.

There are a lot of organizations that will help out the really needy, and there are places like the Red Cross to go for help. It isn't actually necessary to beg on the street, and it's something that needs to be stopped for all of our sakes. We need to strengthen social support systems. That will be a lot easier if we aren't fighting the image of elements that want to prey on our generosity.