Agressive Panhandlers
UPDATE: Please let me reiterate. Panhandling is the act of asking for money or other things from another person. Aggressive panhandling is the act of using threats, force, or other forms of coercion, in order to obtain things from another person. There is a big difference between the two.
Just how many people can one agressive panhandler offend in a day?
A lot.
I’ve been getting reports recently, even from people sympathetic to the plight of homeless people, that they’ve been overly bothered by an aggressive panhandler. May be it’s just one guy, or maybe a couple of them, but they have been a nuisance.
Although I am in favor of a person’s right to panhandle, I am certainly against any kind of coersion on the part of the panhandler. Hopefully, the police will find who is doing this and deal with them properly.
Still, lets not treat all homeless people alike. Most homeless people are law abiding citizens who only want to be left alone. It’s a matter of separating the wheat from the chaff. For the chaff amongst the homeless make life miserable for other homeless people as they do for the rest of the citizenry.
There are a lot of new faces amongst the homeless. No doubt some of them have been dumped onto Nashville from other cities – cities that found these particular individuals to be just as much a nuisance.
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Im a singer/songwriter who has a message to tell. Right now my message is ” The Please Don’t Give Campaign” is immoral and negative. I wrote a song about my experience with Nashvilles homelss. It’s called ” Cumberland Angels” It was inspired by a homeless man named Booger Love. We went downtown to shoot the video a month ago and I was disgusted by the posters everywhere. My music video is anti ” please Don’t Give” I would love to talk to you or anyone who wil listen…… Please watch my video at my myspace page or my youtube account. youtube.com/tonyawattsmusic or myspace.com/tonyawattsmusic.. The video is real footage from my homeless friends downtown..
If I want to give to a pandhandler thats my right. Jesus was homelss and people took him in and washed his feet and fed him.. If he were living among us today he’d be homelss.
If I wanna Give I will
Jesus pass the wine
Tonya Watts
peace, luv,and hank jr
There are those who have never dealt with an abusive addict who feel sorry for them and will give them money. My son has held up signs for years in Nashville and in La. He was a good worker when he used to work years ago. He has hardly missed a day of drinking since he was 17. He is now 52. He has been in and out of Rehabs and Emergency rooms from seizures caused from drinking.
His father was a chronic alcoholic and schizophrenic paranoid who took a bunch of pills he saved up from the VA and then shot himself up through his head in 1973 when my son was 16. I believe from my own observations of him that he is schizophrenic paranoid also but when his sister and I tried to get him committed to a hospital for mental illness, we were told that because he was of age, we could not do that. As the years went by, he became more and more verbally abusive when he would call. He moved away from home here in 1981 but would call occasionally and used foul language that I do not condone so finally I told him not to call any more.
I am glad I don’t live near him because I have grieved the loss of my son since he was 18. It would have been so much easier to see him die and say goodbye than it has been to see him killing himself all of these years. Only a mother who has watched her son slowly kill himself knows the loss and the constant grief and tears shed because he does not receive any mental help. He has been arrested in Nashville TN so many times for public intoxication and pan-
handling that I have lost count. I would think that a judge would commit him to a mental hospital for a long period of time as he is endangering himself and others by standing on the roads, holding up signs for money. Rehabs, emergency rooms and the law does not seem to care. He just gets arrested and pays $100 or $200 and he’s off to panhandle again.
He does not know that I keep up with his arrests on the internet. He has had 10 arrests in the past year. My daughter drove to Nashville and brought him to her house this past Thanksgiving. He was so drunk and smelled so bad and spent the evening sleeping on her couch. She became afraid of him and insisted on driving him back to TN
in the early hours of the morning.
Please don’t enable their diseases by giving them money.
Sincerely,
GB
LOL, the asking for money wasn’t the part I found aggressive, it was the screaming that I was a racist that was the aggressive part. Just trying to clarify.
Kev – as you’re probably aware, the dt partnership began its training yesterday for the new “Please Help, Don’t Give” campaign, and I attended the first training session. I must say that they had a very good understanding of the situation, had done considerable homework on the matter and had taken a course of action that left passive panhandlers alone while educating the community (something I know you are aware that is desperately needed in so many areas when it comes to Homelessness) on aggressive panhandling and what to do to avoid or stop it. By now there should be a number of signs up around town and in businesses, and by early next week, everyone who was interested will have been able to attend. Now don’t misunderstand me here – signs and table cards won’t do a tremendous amount to stop aggressive panhandling on its own, but it will help to educate, and so long as the education is correct and factual, that is usually a very good thing indeed.
BTW-glad to see you’re now up and running online, mobile and free!
My apologies. Yes, most homeless people do not panhandle, and not all panhandlers are aggressive about it. It may be that more people are telling panhandlers “no” and adjusting to this is not easy. Suddenly, the addict is stuck without a way to get a fix, and will have to find another means to get high. Just as cigarette smokers have a hard time adjusting to a life without cigarettes, so to the alcoholic/crack addict have a difficult time quiting the routine.
I’m not sure what part of my comments were snide, but anyway….
I would consider it aggressive when someone will not let it go. When people get in your face in order to intimidate. Like I said, I give plenty of money and things away to people that ask nicely, but if I don’t have cash, or if someone refuses to take what I offer, and continues to harass me, I would consider that aggressive. And I think that makes it harder for people with legitimate needs to get what they need.
Leaving your snide comment aside, I would hope people would be able to distinguish between regular ol’ panhandling, and aggressive panhandling. There’s nothing wrong with one person asking another person for money. What is wrong, what is aggressive, is when the person asking for money uses threats or other forms of coercion to obtain the money.
I get panhandled nearly every time I go to the gas station across the street, and many times when I’m just sitting on my porch at my apartment in east nashville. I have no problem helping someone out if they legitimately need it, but it gets pretty ridiculous when people just won’t let it go when I don’t have cash or if they ask for something I absolutely will not pay for (for instance, a guy asked for money to get a prostitute the other day, to which I declined).
So I guess what you’ve been saying Kevin is that most homeless don’t do this… so is it just people that have so little shame that they’ll beg for money as income?
[...] Kevin Barbieux writes about one of my pet peeves, aggressive panhandling: Just how many people can one agressive panhandler offend in a day? [...]
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