Panhandling - El Paso, TX

[bmbsqd]

Being here at Bliss for a month I am seeing more panhandling than I have ever seen anywhere else in a town this size. LA, Detroit, etc....to be expected. But the volume of panhandling here is staggering! Lots of alleged homeless vets. Has anyone else noticed this?

[RAT]

Come east about 800 miles. El Paso aint shit...

LoL. It is a bad time of the year because,like the flyways for duck and geese, the panhandlers come south for the winter.

RO!!!

[agonyea]

Life is cheap on the border. You think it is bad in El-Paso, then go to Juarez, its a way of life there.

[Spinner]

Come east about 800 miles. El Paso aint shit...

LoL. It is a bad time of the year because,like the flyways for duck and geese, the panhandlers come south for the winter.

RO!!!

So do Canadians, eh...:biggrin:

[Sharky]

Come east about 800 miles. El Paso aint shit...

LoL. It is a bad time of the year because,like the flyways for duck and geese, the panhandlers come south for the winter.

RO!!!





I dont know bro. I have been to Houston many times. Maybe I wasnt in the right spots. But, I have never seen the amount of beggars anywhere in the US that could compare to El Paso. The Oaxacans are the primary culprits, especially the females. Nothing like going to a nice restaurant only to have an 18 year old chick who looks 50 with a newborn hanging from a nasty saggy tit and her other six kids sitting next to the door begging. I have picked up 50-60 a day many days when I was with USBP.

[SOTB]

Nothing like going to a nice restaurant only to have an 18 year old chick who looks 50 with a newborn hanging from a nasty saggy tit and her other six kids sitting next to the door begging....It is disgusting, and I fucking hate it. Strangely, Mexicans seem to apply a different logic to allowing this in Mexico. Thankfully/fortunately. You don't normally find them outside of nice restaurants here, but you do find them hanging out near McDonalds -- sometimes. I can only guess that the reason is because McDonalds might have a policy against paying police officers to fuck with beggars on company property....

[bmbsqd]

I dont know bro. I have been to Houston many times. Maybe I wasnt in the right spots. But, I have never seen the amount of beggars anywhere in the US that could compare to El Paso. The Oaxacans are the primary culprits, especially the females. Nothing like going to a nice restaurant only to have an 18 year old chick who looks 50 with a newborn hanging from a nasty saggy tit and her other six kids sitting next to the door begging. I have picked up 50-60 a day many days when I was with USBP.

My shock was the amount of non-Mexi's doing it. Around Montana, Dieter, Airway and all the intersections along I-10 it has really gotten bad. Also the intesections along Transmountain (375 Loop). In the just the last week I am starting to see many more groups of young kids. At first it was just the old guys/gals, the fat ones with walkers and canes, etc. Now it is the young Seattle-looking crowd hanging together with the backpacks, guitars, dogs, kids, etc.

Sharky, have you seen the new BP museum on Transmountain? It is a beautiful facility and has a great memorial to BP agents. I bought a few bracelets last week from the memorial collection. I have been pleasantly surprised at how many visitors that place gets!! But it really is impressive inside.

[Sharky]

Havent been to the museum since I left there in 02 but yeah it's pretty nice.


I did see the best panhandler sign ever at one of the I-10 intersections though. Dude was holding up a sign that said "I need money to buy beer. Fuck it. Why lie?".......I gave him 5 bucks.

[RAT]

Sharky,

Oh yeah... Did not know where you went in Houston, but some areas are very bad with them.

I was in El Paso a few months ago and it was not as bad as home. I'll try and take a pick of the all sitting around tomorrow morn.

It is crazy.

RO!!!

[8Ball]

Havent been to the museum since I left there in 02 but yeah it's pretty nice.


I did see the best panhandler sign ever at one of the I-10 intersections though. Dude was holding up a sign that said "I need money to buy beer. Fuck it. Why lie?".......I gave him 5 bucks.
Same thing a couple of years ago...
"I just want to get drunk".
I bought my 12 pack of Newcastle and a 12 pack of Bud Light for him. No cash, just in case.

[0699]

Saw a guy begging at an exit off of I-95 last week. Sign said "Homeless. Need help. God Bless." When he realized he wasn't going to get any money out of me (I was stopped at the light at the bottom of the ramp...), he pulled out his cell phone & started making phone calls. :rolleyes:

If you can afford a cell phone plan, you can't be hurting that bad... :biggrin:

[B 2/75]

Bah.... carry one of these with you... they'll "get the point..."

http://www.interamer.net/ProductImages/52411.gif

[Massgrunt]

Same thing a couple of years ago...
"I just want to get drunk".
I bought my 12 pack of Newcastle and a 12 pack of Bud Light for him. No cash, just in case.

He'd have probably just spent it on food anyway. :tongue:

[MacDuff]

My personal favorite...

[MBTex]

Sharky,

Oh yeah... Did not know where you went in Houston, but some areas are very bad with them.

I was in El Paso a few months ago and it was not as bad as home. I'll try and take a pick of the all sitting around tomorrow morn.

It is crazy.

RO!!!

There at every corner around here. Even starting to see them in Pearland and Friendswood

[bmbsqd]

I've actually seen here in EP, Tx how the panhandling can negatively effect the local economy in small ways. There is an area here where newspapers, flowers and shit like that are often sold at intersections. In the past few weeks those have been taken over by the panhandlers. I suspect that many of the newspaper and flower sales associates :rolleyes: are probably just a higher class of panhandlers, but at least with them there is a product going inside the vehicle instead of just money going out.

As for signs, there was this old white dude the other day that had a sign that said "American Indian, please help.......". This guy was about as much an American Indian as I am Asian! Yesterday another panhandler, a chick, had the same sign...I guess they just pass them on to the next shift!

[Papa Smurf]

Being here at Bliss for a month I am seeing more panhandling than I have ever seen anywhere else in a town this size. LA, Detroit, etc....to be expected. But the volume of panhandling here is staggering! Lots of alleged homeless vets. Has anyone else noticed this?

Denver - there is one on ever $%^&* street corner (except downtown by the courthouse)... :mad:

[Parajuevos]

I remember a very depressed and sad looking woman, who used to sit on the road island, in the middle of a busy street, in her wheel chair, panhandling. She looked like she was on the verge of committing suicide. I actually felt sorry for her and wondered what it must be like to be suffering like she apparently was.

Then one morning, in another part of the district, I saw her walking briskly across the street, in the direction of the local methadone clinic, to get her fix. Her wheel chair was nowhere in sight.

Some of these street urchins are suffering from mental illness and would probably be locked up, if there were enough facilities to accomodate them which there are not.

Others are cracked out drug addicts and alcoholics and yet others are just lazy shiftless bums.

Although it's hard, sometimes, to tell what category they are in, one thing is for certain. They are a blight on the cities that they infest, with their filthy habits and bothersome behavior. The litter and the stench of human waste that they leave in the doorways, alleys, parks and streets is a blight and a health hazard.

Alot of these people are aided and abetted in their vagrancy by the local govenments in the cities they infest. Take a look at the Civic Center Plaza, Market Street, Golden Gate Park and the Haight Ashbury, in San Francisco, but beware that the shit that you step in may not be dog shit.

There is a church, in the Haight Ashbury, that serves the street people a hot lunch every day. It is a lunch that would be acceptable on any restaurant menu. The lines for this lunch stretch for a city block or more. Many of the urchins, who eat there, receive SSI checks, as government assistance, for being in alcohol and drug rehab programs. The check cashing place is two blocks away from the church that feeds them. The checks are supposed to be terminated if rehab is stopped but is always reinstated when the chemical abuser claims to have redeemed himself/herself by reentering the program. The money that is received is used to buy more drugs and is often supplemented by the sale of more drugs and panhandling.

I used to arrest and cite these people, on a regular basis, in the park, where they had huge campsites. We would warn them first, sometimes for several weeks, that they were going to have to leave. We would give them a list of places that were willing to take them in, feed them and give them shelter. Most of them refused the offer of aid, preferring to live in the park, with their shopping carts and sustain themselves with free food, panhandling, drug pushing and government checks. The main reason that they refused the shelters was simple: THE SHELTERS HAD RULES WHICH INCLUDED A NIGHTLY CURFEW, LIGHTS OUT, NO DRUGS AND NO ALCOHOL. These people do not like rules and that is just one of the reasons that we continue to see them clogging up our streets.

To further complicate matters, if we called out the Department of Public Works to clean up the filthy campsites and haul away abandoned property, we were sued. Eventually the city forbad us from doing this.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that when the average citizen sees a panhandler, he often doesn't see all of the underlying conditions that the citizens of a city that is being blighted by these people have to endure, a blight often made worse by the ineffectiveness or unwillingness of the city fathers and well meaning charitable organizations to address properly.

[KidA]

These people do not like rules

Well shit, neither do I. :biggrin:

[SOTB]

I remember a very depressed and sad looking woman, who used to sit on the road island, in the middle of a busy street, in her wheel chair, panhandling....Then one morning, in another part of the district, I saw her walking briskly across the street, in the direction of the local methadone clinic, to get her fix. Her wheel chair was nowhere in sight.Same for the ones with babies. In Mexico (and I have no doubt that it is in the US as well), women rented babies to keep while putting their hands out for money. Fucking disgusting -- and is just one more reason I give not a fucking thing to them.I guess what I'm trying to say is that when the average citizen sees a panhandler, he often doesn't see all of the underlying conditions that the citizens of a city that is being blighted by these people have to endure, a blight often made worse by the ineffectiveness or unwillingness of the city fathers and well meaning charitable organizations.A little over 20 yeas ago, I remember Japanese citizens telling me that the police were very strict to remove these people from view so as to not have everyone else have to see them and deal with them. I don't know if that is the case any longer (in Japan), but I think panhandling should be illegal, their homeless huts and crap in public areas destroyed, and they themselves either use accepted shelters or run the fuck out of town....

[Lagnaippe]

New Orleans' Homeless Rate Swells

RICK JERVIS

March 17, 2008

The homeless population of New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina has reached unprecedented levels for a U.S. city: one in 25 residents.

An estimated 12,000 homeless accounts for 4% of New Orleans' estimated population of 302,000, according to the homeless advocacy group UNITY of Greater New Orleans. The number is nearly double the pre-Katrina homeless count, the group says.

Hundreds of homeless people sleep beneath Interstate 10 in New Orleans each night. An estimated 12,000 people in the city are homeless, nearly double the count from before Hurricane Katrina struck.

The New Orleans' rate is more than four times that of most U.S. cities, which have homeless populations of under 1%, said Michael Stoops, executive director of the Washington-based National Coalition for the Homeless. The cities with homeless rates closest to that of New Orleans are Atlanta (1.4%) and Washington (0.95%), he said.

A 2005 USA TODAY survey of 460 localities showed one in 400 Americans on average were homeless.

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin appealed to federal lawmakers this past week to provide funds and housing vouchers to help the city's homeless problem.

The percentage of New Orleans' homeless is one of the highest recorded since U.S. housing officials began tracking homelessness in the mid-1980s, said Dennis Culhane, a University of Pennsylvania professor who has studied homeless trends for more than 20 years.

"In a modern urban U.S. city, we've never seen it," he said of New Orleans' homeless rate.

Many of the homeless are Katrina evacuees who returned to unaffordable rents or who slipped through the cracks of the federal system designed to provide temporary housing after the storm, said Mike Miller, UNITY's director of supportive housing placement.

There are also out-of-state workers who came for the post-Katrina rebuilding boom but lost their jobs, and mentally ill residents in need of services and medication, he said. Many of the city's outreach homeless centers and public mental health services have been closed since Katrina.

Nagin has pledged to move the homeless from encampments around the city to more permanent shelters. Last year, the city and humanitarian groups found shelter for nearly all of the 250 people living in an encampment across from City Hall.

Nagin has suggested reinstating a city ordinance that would make it illegal to sleep in public places. Homeless advocates say the law would just crowd the jails.

"It just shows a real disconnect" between the city and the problem, said James Perry, head of the Greater New Orleans Fair Housing Action Center. "The answer is not going to be jails."

Copyright 2008, USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.

We feel the pain everyday and our homeless have perfected the art of panhandling! I went to a Christmas luncheon last week at a restaurant on St. Charles Ave. that has a parking lot (a rare occurence). A guy in a wheelchair is "assisting" potential parkers. He finds me a spot, I pull in, he rolls up and says that he's diabetic and needs money for lunch and can I help him out. It surprised me and I just looked at him. He growled, rolled away and mumbled that I was a b*tch.

Well, I guess I am..:rolleyes:.

[bmbsqd]

Some of these street urchins are suffering from mental illness and would probably be locked up, if there were enough facilities to accomodate them which there are not.


We can thank Jimmy Carter for that! He essentially created 10's of thousands of homeless perople overnight.

I'm embarrassed to admit he is from my home state.

A good link to this incredible failure:

Deinstitutionalization: A Psychiatric "Titanic"

From the article: "Deinstitutionalization was based on the principle that severe mental illness should be treated in the least restrictive setting. As further defined by President Jimmy Carter's Commission on Mental Health, this ideology rested on "the objective of maintaining the greatest degree of freedom, self-determination, autonomy, dignity, and integrity of body, mind, and spirit for the individual while he or she participates in treatment or receives services."

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/asylums/special/excerpt.html

[Spinner]

If you can afford a cell phone plan, you can't be hurting that bad... :biggrin:

It seems like only yesterday that cell phones were considered status symbols. Now, even my 10 year old nephew carries one.

I don't have a problem with somebody asking for money, I can either ignore them or flip them a couple of bills if the spirit hits me.

I do have a problem with the ones that practice "aggressive" panhandling, which usually come off sounding like a demand with an implied threat. They're more prevalent down in the city, but they can pop up anywhere.

[0699]

It seems like only yesterday that cell phones were considered status symbols. Now, even my 10 year old nephew carries one.



Maybe. But we pay over $100 for three phones. I may be lower-middle class, but that seems like a lot of money to me... :biggrin:

[Johan]

Best experience I have is in America.

Usually, if I see them and I am walking and they look hungry- I will offer to get them some fruit if I can buy near to where we meet. 2 or 3 dollar of apple or orange or banana, especially if they have children. It is 1 bier for me. Maybe best food they have in the week.

5 year ago, I am leaving pharmacy store and walking to car. It is very cold and raining, and I am approach by a Father. He has 3 child with him. He acts very anguished, and asks me for money for food and aspirin because one of his child has the fever. I go with him to the children, they are at side of pharmacy store. No light, cold, no shelter. 1 of the child is very hot to the touch. I do not think there is Man of SOCNET who would not go to buy orangen juice and some aspirin at this point.

We all go into store (they have food and other item in this pharmacy store) and I buy him store card, enough to buy his children food for the week. I offer to give him and children ride to shelter, he says he does not know nearest shelter- he is recently without money, and is trying to head to the South to relative.

I am not a fool (except for girls and motorcycle and fast cars and anything that fly- we will just say I am not a fool for gypsy-type person), but I decide if I am being tricked then it is 200 dollars for karma. Maybe they let me have breakfast in heaven before I report for duty in the hells.

So I give him 200 dollar and tell him to use for train ticket or hotel room for some night so his little sick one is not in the weather.

I shake his hand and wish him good fortune and I leave. Maybe I am tricked from 200 dollar, but I have been fortunate with my path in life from no effort of my own. 200 dollar to score +1 for the good, money is well used is how I feel.

2.5 year later, my host receives phone call for me on his telephone at his home. This is very unusual, I have cellular phone to use.

It is the Father, he is asking me to meet him for lunch. 15 minute away by auto. I am stunned. I ask how he gets telephone number of my host. He says he will explain when we have lunch.

I go and meet him. He gets telephone number from pharmacy. They do not give out such information, but when other employee of pharmacy verify his story they give him my telephone number. He tells them he will find me and pay back the money- that he feels he must do it. They see he is genuine I think.

So at the lunch, he has good job, children are well, he is living near his relative in the South of California. And he has 250 dollar for me, and he will not let me refuse.

It is an amazing experience for me even today. This Man is 1 of every 100,000 who ask for money, I know. But sometimes the 1 is worth the risk.

Regards,

[bugeater]

...A little over 20 yeas ago, I remember Japanese citizens telling me that the police were very strict to remove these people from view so as to not have everyone else have to see them and deal with them. I don't know if that is the case any longer (in Japan), but I think panhandling should be illegal, their homeless huts and crap in public areas destroyed, and they themselves either use accepted shelters or run the fuck out of town....

Been here since April, and have only seen two or three people who are probably homeless. They are not panhandling, but instead are going through trash collection points for recyclable cans etc (I assume for cash).

Otherwise though, the place is policed VERY well. I had thought about why there were never any homeless looking people around...and what you said makes sense.

[GPC]

Biggest group I ever saw was at the Capitol in D.C.
Well dressed though.

[ricardo]

Best experience I have is in America.

Usually, if I see them and I am walking and they look hungry- I will offer to get them some fruit if I can buy near to where we meet. 2 or 3 dollar of apple or orange or banana, especially if they have children. It is 1 bier for me. Maybe best food they have in the week.

5 year ago, I am leaving pharmacy store and walking to car. It is very cold and raining, and I am approach by a Father. He has 3 child with him. He acts very anguished, and asks me for money for food and aspirin because one of his child has the fever. I go with him to the children, they are at side of pharmacy store. No light, cold, no shelter. 1 of the child is very hot to the touch. I do not think there is Man of SOCNET who would not go to buy orangen juice and some aspirin at this point.

We all go into store (they have food and other item in this pharmacy store) and I buy him store card, enough to buy his children food for the week. I offer to give him and children ride to shelter, he says he does not know nearest shelter- he is recently without money, and is trying to head to the South to relative.

I am not a fool (except for girls and motorcycle and fast cars and anything that fly- we will just say I am not a fool for gypsy-type person), but I decide if I am being tricked then it is 200 dollars for karma. Maybe they let me have breakfast in heaven before I report for duty in the hells.

So I give him 200 dollar and tell him to use for train ticket or hotel room for some night so his little sick one is not in the weather.

I shake his hand and wish him good fortune and I leave. Maybe I am tricked from 200 dollar, but I have been fortunate with my path in life from no effort of my own. 200 dollar to score +1 for the good, money is well used is how I feel.

2.5 year later, my host receives phone call for me on his telephone at his home. This is very unusual, I have cellular phone to use.

It is the Father, he is asking me to meet him for lunch. 15 minute away by auto. I am stunned. I ask how he gets telephone number of my host. He says he will explain when we have lunch.

I go and meet him. He gets telephone number from pharmacy. They do not give out such information, but when other employee of pharmacy verify his story they give him my telephone number. He tells them he will find me and pay back the money- that he feels he must do it. They see he is genuine I think.

So at the lunch, he has good job, children are well, he is living near his relative in the South of California. And he has 250 dollar for me, and he will not let me refuse.

It is an amazing experience for me even today. This Man is 1 of every 100,000 who ask for money, I know. But sometimes the 1 is worth the risk.

Regards,

Now this is a Christmas story,; good on you Johan! :biggrin: