Pan handling?
 

All weekend there was a husband and wife and at least 2 children standing at th entrance to Hannaford in Meredith. They take turns holding a sign with the top line that reads something about losing her job. The whole sign was about four sentences so driving by it’s hard to read the whole thing. But if they are looking for jobs to support their family I recall seeing help wanted signs on just about every business in Meredith, including Hannafords

Work for money? Is that a new concept....

I was near a particular intersection the other day and someone had a sign to raise money for a funeral expense. Really?

At what point does this stuff stop?

I saw a teen in a tux once standing at a freeway offramp here out west holding a cardboard sign: "Will work for prom."

About three weeks ago, there was an incredibly good looking, about thirty year old, Hispanic woman with two young daughters, about six and eight year old, all pretty well dressed, standing at the stop light intersection in Plymouth NH close to McDonald's, State Liquor, and Market Basket and she was holding up a cardboard sign ...... 'can you help?"

I was like, right there and stopped at the light, very close to them. Normally, I am tighter than tight about money but it took me about ten seconds to make the fast decision to lower the passenger window, and extend a twenty dollar bill out the window to her. I cannot believe I did that, at the time, and am scratching my head and am surprised that I actually give her twenty bucks but that's what I did ....... twenty bucks!

Have not seen her and her two kids at that spot, anytime since that one day?

Who knows ...... maybe they spend all their money for one night at that Marriott Hotel and just need some money for gasoline?

Welcome to California

In Fort Myers a young woman very often stands in strip mall parking lot with one or two young children panhandling. Her husband/boyfriend drops her off and picks her up in a late model Lexus. At the end of one day they were followed by a curious party to a nice suburban Ft Myers home. He questioned them and they said they average $400 per day panhandling. I will take a wild guess that they are signed up for every government handout available too.

If you have no shame................

There are a lot of people looking for a free ride! As Howie Carr says: The safety net has become a hammock!

You people are acting like this is something new, since the pandemic, it's been going on forever. :confused:
I worked at a lot of service stations growing up, always at busy 4 corners. There were always panhandlers there, in good and bad times. They work the grocery stores today because they know many people word rather hand them a bag of food than money and a lot of people don't carry cash anymore.

Definitely not new as you mention but much more prevailing. Shame to see parents use their children like that.

I haven't noticed it to be more prevailing. As a matter of fact, I've seen less of it in Mass. I live in the same town I grew up in over 60 years ago. Those same corners where I saw panhandlers every day, I see none now and they are busier. You do still see them in Boston but I haven't noticed any more than past years.
I can't speak for NH, I'm not here every day.

Last week they were at Hannaford's in Ossipee. Apparently they move around until the police tell them to move along. They were in Rochester before Ossipee. I've also seen them in Sanford.

Some people panhandle for spare change/dollars, others have a house filled with cash and gold bars, others make millions consulting while having no experience, some get a billion dollars to start a fund despite 0 experience and still others have lifetime appointments to their position and accept millions in gifts from friends.

It is a regular occurrence down in the Dover/Somersworth area- they are always over by Walmart and Home Depot. Coincidently one of our very own forum members lives here in Dover and posts all of the scanner calls that happen on a daily basis on a facebook group. The things that go on in Dover that you don't normally see or hear about would make your head spin!

One of our more famous panhandlers just showed back up in town, Evan Post. He is a legend of sorts, and not in a good way.

I saw the people in question too, I didn't bother to read the sign, there was however a cop starting a discussion with them.... so hopefully that will be the last we see of that....

Pan handling is back in some area's more then others....

Happy to see they have made their way north into Meredith from Laconia without the WOW expansion.


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Unfortunately I believe this is just the TIP of the iceberg that is coming.

I believe bums, or folks pretending to be bums, have a constitutional right to beg in public. Not sure exactly what a cop can do, if anything, to prevent beggars from begging, especially if they aren't blocking traffic.

Thanks for nothing, ACLU.

So it's ok to start a GoFundMe page for the most obscure things, but to to it face to face is bad?
And I do recall that in NH they have deemed it legal. I may be wrong and Nashua and Hudson did only? There are plenty in Hudson and Nashua in the same location each day. There was a court case and they are allowed to be there per the court decision.
If they aren't harming anyone, what's the big deal. If you don't want to support them, move on.

Do you think they report their panhandling take to the IRS?
Do you think they spend any of the money on drugs or alcohol?
How many panhandlers have EBT, Section 8 housing, Obama phones, and any other freebies available?

In my town in MA, panhandlers have to register with the police & then wear a lanyard with a picture ID. As soon as the ordnance went into effect the panhandlers disappeared. Guess they didn’t want their name & address on record.


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Nice Wiper You Got There...
 

Suppose you don't want your windshield squeegeed?

Sorry, I missed that part of the post. I'll go back and read to see if I can see that they were doing things to people cars.

None of you know that a)they are doing drugs, b) didn't run into hard time c) were bothering anyone. At least not from what I was reading in the posts.
If they aren't bothering anyone, than what's the point of complaining? If it's legal and not causing a hazard to others I don't see why people are so upset?
If you know that for a fact they are using drugs than that's a different story.
Just like this weekend going into the grocery store I got asked to sign a petition, I said "no thank you" and went onto my business. No harm done.

Sure,she might be a scammer but also might have been a desperate person in need......You were generous to help her

Back in the 80's I had a gas station, convenience store, repair shop, at a very busy intersection next to a Star Market. We always had panhandlers there and they would clean up. At the end of the day, they had bags of groceries and wads of cash, they did better than I did some days.
They used to come into the store at the end of the day and buy cartons of cigarettes. I had contractor customers that use to offer them work as a laborer and they would refuse, they did better begging.
That corner hasn't changed much and is busier than ever, but I very rarely see panhandlers there now.

Someone is proselytizing the subsidized phone program initiated by Republican President Ronald W. Reagan. Don't let facts interupt any biases.

LINK

What's the point of this statement? That Reagan was a champion of freebees for deadbeats? We all know about the plusses and minuses of the presidents during our lifetimes, whether they were conservative, liberal or somewhere in the middle. We know that Reagan was generally conservative, but not perfect in this regard. To be fair, the president who was harder on the welfare state than any other was Clinton. The 1994 midterms had something to do with that! Like it or not, free phones are associated with Obama.

With politics creeping in, I can see this thread being closed soon!
Pan handling has been around since the dark ages, politics really has nothing to do with it.

Pan Handling?
 

Let's hope!

Lots Of "Ifs" There...
 

I had occasion to pull into a parking space outside a huge Justice building. Knowing that I'd need 2 hours at the meter, I rummaged through my change. A teen approached my car carrying a fist-sized rock. He walked over to the meter, and gave it a learned whack! The meter instantly read 2 hours, so I was expected to hand over the $2 in change to the teen.

Some people can't foresee the destructive outcome of "harmless" panhandling on society.

The "One Broken Window" theory drove the greatest redirection of "harmless" enterprise in our lifetimes. I think we can foresee that it will shortly be overdue for a return.

:rolleye1:

$50 an hour to stand out in a strip mall parking lot, why is that more shameful than selling time-shares or many other un-attractive employments? People give what they want, isn't this America?

I was talking about this particular post. So "IF" I am wrong and they were bothering people than yes, that is an issue. I'm not saying all panhandlers are good and don't try "scams" to get money. Go to DC, there are scammer Panhandlers on EVERY corner looking to make a buck.
It seemed like, in this post, the people weren't bothering anyone. But instead people in this thread/forum were quick to make judgements on people that they don't know the situation. That was my main point. Don't judge unless you know the entire situation. I don't know if they were bothering anyone, I don't know if they are rich, and neither does anyone here from what it sounds like.
It's just my observation.

There was a woman panhandling in my neighborhood with two very depressed looking and dirty children. She had a sign..."Please help feed my starving children". She made good money.

She was arrested and the children were taken into custody by Child Protection Services (CPS).

The children were not hers and were "rented" from her neighbor. The neighbor was a crack addict. Needed the money and the time. They commuted to my neighborhood from Oakland.

The people in my neighborhood felt so good giving to such a worthy cause.

Story was written up in my neighborhood newspaper.

If someone buys a time share they know what they are getting and make a choice about the purchase. Phonies begging on street corners, playing on the sympathy of others, are just scamming people and that is wrong in many forms.

Several years ago I was mowing the lawn at a rental I owned. The tenant was a young woman with a child who "worked" as a "dancer" at a club a couple of towns away. She told me she averaged $500 per shift and worked 4 shifts a week. That amounts to over $100,000 per year in tax free money. Naturally, like most of the "Girls" she worked with Section 8 housing paid her rent. Yes, I reported it to the Section 8 program but they didn't take any action. (More freeloaders equals job security for the program management)

A van pulled into the driveway delivering a kitchen set and a mattress. The two women in the van explained that they were from Catholic Charities and liked to help people who don't do that well. If they only knew..............

Threads like these reveal a whole lot about our forum members.

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The Challenge is...
 

...that we don't know if the people who are asking for the money are truly in need, or if they are taking advantage of (most) people's sympathetic nature. Personally, I won't give money to people on the streets. However, we do make regular food donations to our local food pantry and you would think that we gave the staffers a million bucks in cash. They are beyond grateful.

As a side note, on the traffic islands in the middle of Granite Street in Manchester, there are signs that state not to give money to the people asking for it, as that is actually a disservice to them as it is most often not used to buy food.

Maybe, but I hope not. I like to think that most just post half of what they're thinking...

At some level we all know that it is unconscionable that our system is leaving too many people homeless and hungry, in part due to an inadequate net for those with mental illness and other severe disadvantages, and in part due to failures in the economics and regulations surrounding real estate. That's an incredible embarrassment for the richest country in the world.

But we also know that it's kind of messed up for an able bodied person to be pan handling in front of a store that has job openings, and (as a separate matter) the behavior of some homeless people is completely unacceptable and a drain on society. The formerly great city of San Francisco and the Boston Mass and Cass neighborhood are prime exhibits.

We need solutions to both of these things, not whataboutisms and blind eyes to whatever half of the that makes us uncomfortable

You should see the number of 70k 80k SUV's that pull up to the food banks in Ft Myers.......stopped giving.Prefer other charities