Another example of machines taking people's jobs... now even panhandlers aren't safe...

I'd give more to the homeless...if they would sit in dunking machines and let me throw baseballs at it.

It would be even better if the water were soapy...like a free bath!

I like to invite the guy with a sign saying "need $1.35 for a cheeseburger" to meet me at McDonald's where I'll buy him the whole damn meal. Needless to say, he never takes me up on the offer.

Wouldn't it be better to just raise taxes on the rich?

Ooh, Athens. Any bets until how long it will be before someone smashes these open and takes all the money?

So the money will be going to a group that coordinates other groups that help the homeless occasionally? How useful. I'm sure Athens'll be seeing a sharp decline in panhandling.

We've had those in Vancouver, BC for a couple of years now. Absolute failure, doubt that they've generated more than a couple hundred bucks, total.

to hell with georgia

If they're a creative or funny panhandler, I'll toss em a few bucks. Don't come up mumbling something incoherent with your hand in my face. Make me laugh.

Anyone ever encountered the Bush Man in San Francisco? Now that's a farking panhandler. He squats down on a busy tourist part of town with some branches hiding him. When someone walks by who isn't paying attention, he jumps out and growls at them.

Dude probably makes more money in one day than I do.

and with this, the general population will keep on ignoring the homeless and assuming the homeless themeselves are making the contributions...
this is a "free rider" kind of problem. when no one *has* to help, everyone assumes someone else will.

I have no sympathy for panhandlers. I saw a woman with a sign saying "will work for food", standing 50 feet from a McDonald's with a big "Now Hiring" sign in the window.

McDonald's pays a starting wage of seven bucks an hour around here. Work for an hour, get a thousand calories' worth of Extra Value Meal.

I screamed "Look behind you!" as the car I was in went by this waste of a life.

You know what curdles my gravy?

When I saw a panhandler holding up a sign saying "NEED MONEY FOR RENT."

Yeah, so do I buddy.

breaking news?

Oh, come on now. We all know they're just going to blow it all on food and shelter.

There is absolutely no social or psychological data that I know of that would suggest that these things would work.

Unless this is just a test to prove they don't work once and for all, what a waste of resources.

Idea: Make the bums fight over the proceeds...winner takes all.

I was in athens this summer, nice town... didn't see a single panhandler (they were all married (ba dum tissss)).

Anyway, nice city, GREAT comic book shop, but WAY too obsessed with REM... yeah yeah, we know they are from there guys, now get over it.

Drunken, aggressive bums are funny.

One of them literally ran up to my friends and I at about midnight, and kept on talking to us as we entered the friend's house. My one friend then replied "We're students, we don't have any money. Come back after we graduate and find jobs."

The bum drunkenly agreed and walked away. I hope he doesn't remember our faces.

This was tried in edmonton alberta during the world track and field games last year. The result:

1>city spends 100 000 dollars
2>panhandlers that make more money than I do a day. Trash meters.
3>city removes meters.

this really happend on whyte ave. Plus I have been working on the same street as some pan handlers for 4 years . I have offered them all jobs (for more than min wage) just to be turned down because they make more begging. These people make sometime upwards of 200 bucks a night/day. tax free.

yeah meters wont solve the problem. telling them to fark off and letting a couple go hungry(or die) will.

p.s : to proud to work at mcdonalds? give me a call I will set you up with a real job.

Cutchaholic

I heard of a funny story at Clemson one time...

Student came home from Spring Break a day early to find a bare-assed bum cooking eggs and bacon in his house. Bum's clothes were in the wash.

What did the student do?

Sat down and had breakfast with him, gave him back his clothes, and kicked him out of the apartment.

"The hope is that it will curb some of the aggressive panhandling."

*shakes head* here i was thinking they were trying to help people.

shiat. What is the world coming to when we don't even expect our beggars to beg?

Actually in KC on the local news channel they followed some of the panhandlers. The non drug/alcohol soused ones actually did okay. Some earned on average $300-$400 a day.

Not bad for tax free wages.

There was once a guy in San Francisco who would wear a suit, carry a briefcase, and bum money from BART commuters "to get home". He was making about $500 a week.

I always wondered how so much money fits in the meter.

Cutchaholic's story had me busting a gut, especially that last remark.

Seriously. How stupid. I have high hopes that Northeast Georgia Homeless Coalition is on the up-and-up, and even maybe that's overly optimistic. But the idea that these meters are even going to be linked with the panhandling activity, in any way at all whatsoever, is laughable. How do things like this get started?

I can see it now. "I'm on the city council...my dad just lost his job to a machine...my uncle lost his job to a machine...my other uncle lost his job to a machine...why can't panhandlers lose their jobs to some machines like everyone else? Hey, wait a minute..."

Aside from the panhandlers, there is the suggestion of an insult being tossed in the direction of the money-tossers. You guys have OCD and have an obsessive compulsion to toss money at something. Doesn't matter of it's a man, woman, dog, monkey, or re-vamped parking meter. You just need to toss bills and quarters. So here ya go.

Stupid.

And since Northeast Georgia Homeless Coalition is put in the position of catching bills & quarters, tossed ostensibly by people who just want & need to toss 'em and don't care where they go...

...guess what my confidence level is on the integrity of Northeast Georgia Homeless Coalition.

No, the people with OCD in this situation, are the panhandlers. Smokers have an obsessive compulsion to go down to the gas station & spend $4.95 on a pack of Marlboro Lights everyday. People who are really bad at math have an obsessive compulsion to buy lottery tickets everyday. Guys who are compulsively obsessing over their estranged girlfriends have an obsessive compulsion to buzz by the slut's apartment after she's done banging every guy in town every weekend night. And panhandlers have an obsessive compulsion to panhandle.

So if you have a panhandling problem, start with the obsessive compulsion. Make it uncomfortable to panhandle. Bust some kneecaps if you're really committed to getting rid of the problem. Panhandlers are like estranged boyfriends, lottery players and smokers. They just do what's fcuking easy. They don't do what's hard. Simple as that.

No sympathy for homeless people. I bought a one-way ticket to NYC from Ohio and stayed at a youth hostel and women's shelter til I found a place to live. When I moved out to California, I slept in a rental car with my cat for a week til I found a place to live. It's called INITIATIVE. Stop holding yer farking hand out and do for yourself you junkie.

Walking to work on Market St in SF I pass the same jerks every single day, in the morning and in the evening. They haven't moved from their spots. They probably make more money than I do.

Honestly, how are these guys going to stay drunk if they get all of their money from charitable organizations?

Didn't think about that, NOW DID YA?

Sophistimucated

We've had those in Vancouver, BC for a couple of years now. Absolute failure, doubt that they've generated more than a couple hundred bucks, total.

You're COMPLETELY WRONG about that.

The idea is to give an alternative to giving to panhandlers. The places they have put them, panhandlers don't congregate anymore, LIKE THE INTERSECTION OF BURRARD AND ROBSON FOR CHRIST'S SAKE!

People were sick of stepping over them during busy times. Now, no one panhandles there anymore. Plus, it makes a few bucks.

They got the message, they left, problem solved. Now if only they'd put 1000 of them on East Hastings and Main.

Oh, come on now. We all know they're just going to blow it all on food and shelter.


Yeah. Seriously. They'll NEVER finish that house of beer cans, if you don't give 'em the money.

Homeless guy: Got any change?
Jeff: Sorry, I dont...
Larry: You want this? (hands out paper bag)
Homeless guy: What is it?
Larry: Tuna sandwich.
Homeless guy: Oh, I don't like tuna.

Classic!

In Vancouver, I only give to the guy who offers to do 50 push-ups, with one arm, for a twonie.

I would gladly drop off a copy of the Want Ads once a week.

some smelly hippy musta thought up this shiate

Smokers have an obsessive compulsion to go down to the gas station & spend $4.95 on a pack of Marlboro Lights everyday.

Oh come on, real smokers are smarter then that. They won't buy their packs daily, they buy cartons or roll their own. =P

/absolutely nothing to do with this article

Mk freeberg whom is obviously an icon of the American work ethic...or just a crappy franco-Canadian, rips the less fortunate but offers no solution..."bust"(sic)"kneecaps'. Fortunately the Allied Alliance caught on to your pathetic truths BEFORE it cost the world 20 million lives.

Always your better,
Dr.

How they plan to stick the meters on the homeless is anyones guess.

Homeless solution:

Turn Elliot Lake, Ontario into BUMtown. Give them a roof, free booze and visiting healthcare and a place where their families can find them. If they wander into the bush to escape, nature will take care of it. Fighting between bums goes fatal, oh well one less bum. Being Homeless is the fourth best job in Toronto. I just can't stew in my own filth and sleep with noxious odors and worrying if I got rolled in a shelter or wheereever I slept. Plus I like cold beer not chinese Cooking vine or Listerine.

/freshly waked and baked

Lovely Rita Meter Maid...

Carry granola bars or some sort of store sealed packaged food to give out when asked for a donation. Sometimes you will be refused. I have had ice water refused on a 97 degree day. Others, we have walked them to a local sub shop to have them eat only a few bites. (prob too drunk, strung out to eat) but even so,
granola bars are lightweight, nutricious, travel well, good for any meal or snack of the day. If "allergic" could be used to trade for other goods with homeless.
DO NOT GIVE MONEY.
/and yes, i do support local food pantry and do volunteer woek

Damn. From the headline I thought the meters would track the homelessness' contribution to society

Dr.Homo, here's my solution.

Get a JOB.

Happy?

Gotta love it when my hometown is on Fark.

Kill the poor and use their corpses as fuel.

Do we want to encourage panhandling and homelessness?
Do Not Give Money.