Panhandlers

On Monday, I drove to the corner of Old Bardstown Rd and Hikes Lane, right by the White Castle and across from the Chili's.  The same guy was there that has been there practically every time I come home from a particular store.  He has a sign that says that he is homeless and that anything helps.  He is the guy who has the eye contact, smile,  and wave technique.

About one month ago  I was driving home south on Bardstown and I as I am at the stoplight just before the I-264 underpass and I see a guy in the dark cross from the west side of Bardstown, onto the median and purposely walk up towards the end of the median with a sign in his hand.  As I passed by him he was wearing one of those black coats with florescent green stripes for visibility purposes.

We in the Bon Air Neighborhood and surrounding areas have seemed to have an epidemic of panhandling over the past three to four years. It has slowed down over the past several months except for the guy mentioned above at Old Bardstown and Hikes Lane.

I can say I have been approached by panhandlers in numerous places around the neighborhood.  They have approached me up and down Bardstown Road from the parking lot of the Highlands Kroger to the parking lot of Buechel Bypass Kroger. I have been approached in the parking lot of the Kroger on Breckinridge Lane.  I have seen them at multiple corners.  The brazen ones have approached me inside Walmart. 

Really, as long as I have had contact with the Bon Air/Bashford Manor area, I have seen panhandling. When I was a grad student in 1993, I remember seeing panhandlers at the Watterson/Bardstown Rd Exit.  I remember seeing one guy walking from the former Economy Inn down to the Eastbound Bardstown Road exit unfolding a sign.

 For all practical purposes there is no law for them to be on street corners with signs.  However, they cannot be doing it on private property like store parking lots, and in stores.

There is a part of me that still has some emotional struggle because the Bible tells me things like
Proverbs 21:13:
                  Whoever shuts their ears to the cry of the poor will also 
                  cry out and not be answered.

However, there is also the question of whether they are just trying to con us out of money, and just pretending to be poor? Or they are panhandling to support a drug habit?

I will not argue with anyone who decides that they will continue to give to the panhandlers.  It is between them and God. However, I have resolved years ago that I will not give money to panhandlers.  In my work as a social worker I have had a number of clients who admit they panhandled to feed a drug and alcohol addiction.   I have seen a few of them both on the streets and coming in for services (one carrying the sign as he was coming in the door).

I hold that the increased prevalence of panhandlers relates to both simple economics and the heroin and methamphetamine epidemics.  Drug use tends to make people homeless because the addict's life centers around acquisition and use of the drug regardless of the consequences.  Second, the panhandlers go to where the traffic is slowed down and there is an audience for the sign.

If we stop giving to panhandlers the supply of money dries up and the word gets out eventually that no one is giving money, and they try elsewhere. I think that the guy who is at the corner of Hikes and Old Bardstown continues to gets money and objects of some value so he is rewarded or reinforced to stay there.

A moment should be given to homelessness. I think that there is a difference between homeless and chronically homeless people.  I have met numerous homeless people in the past few years.  People who merely fall on bad luck and lose their residences find ways to work, get back on their feet and leave homelessness.   Taking advantage of the available services, they take responsibility and they stop being homeless.

However, the chronically homeless tend to have a high prevalence of mental illness, sociopathy, a lack of compliance with medication in addition to addiction issues.   They are not functioning, but they also have free choice not to comply with treatment recommendations.  Some of them have a legitimate fear of going to some of the shelters because of the dog-eat-dog behaviors of stealing from each other and fighting. Some of them also just do not like or follow the rules that are involved in staying in the shelters.  It can be concluded that many of the homeless are doing it to themselves, and they want the power to make their choices . . . even if they are making bad choices . . . it's their decision.

 Not that I am trying to give excuses for avoiding helping them, but I would say if you are feeling moved to help the homeless, giving your donations to the current agencies downtown like the St. John's Center, Wayside, Salvation Army, St Vincent DePaul, Recenter (formerly Louisville Rescue Mission) and the Healing Place would be more effective in helping than giving your money to a panhandler.