Quote:
Originally Posted by Ghoulish Delight
I almost never carry cash or change anymore, so it's rarely a choice for me.
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From what I understand, the combination of an increasingly cashless society and, ya know, global financial collapse, has really hit panhandlers hard.
Even before that, problems arose just from the propensity of all cash to be in the form of (ATM-dispensed) twenty dollar bills. In fact, one local beach town (Redondo or Hermosa i believe) installed change machines on the streets just so people could exchange their 20's for smaller bills to give to beggars.
Personally, something has to hit me about a particular beggar. It's not whether they have a cool sign, or an entertaining bit, or even whether they look particularly pathetic. It's really indefinable. And I'd say it rarely happens.
When I'm out of town, however, I tend to give more freely. I guess since I'm pumping up the local economy in ways I never do at home, I feel it's only fair to spread it around to the lower rungs as well. (If there's bad weather where I find myself, and beggars abound *cough*sanfrancisco*cough*, I am pretty damn generous with my cash).
But at home, not only am I more stingy - I rarely carry more than a few dollars in cash at all.
Oh, and it will never leave me that - back in the day - my panhandler friends in Hollywood took home more money than I did from my full-time record store job. So my default position on beggars is NO.