Willamette Week chose the title "Panhandlers, Inc." for its cover story this week, a piece by Dave Fitzpatrick that described the author’s experience when he grew stubble, made a cardboard sign, and stood on a streetcorner. Some people gave him money. Others — other people with their own cardboard signs — told him that others had already claimed his corner, and he had better leave promptly.
Mr. Fitzpatrick talked to other streetcorner people — he uses the terms "signers" and "flaggers" interchangeably to describe them — and at one corner found a man named Ted Sheppard, who said that his particular corner was controlled by a cartel of signers. "We organized this like a business," Mr. Sheppard said, with three people taking turns occupying the corner on Northeast 43rd Avenue.
This sent me to the Laquedem Library in search of Henry Mayhew’s work from 1849-1951, London Labour and the London Poor. Alas, I have only an abridged edition (the complete work is four volumes of about 500 pages each), but I found the passage I had in mind, a portion of volume two that describes the crossing-sweepers of London: people who stood with brooms at street-crossings to sweep the crossing in front of pedestrians in the hopes of receiving a coin or two. Mr. Mayhew wrote, "The irregular sweepers mostly consist of boys and girls who have formed themselves into a kind of company, and come to an agreement to work together on the same crossings." He describes how the sweepers who have claimed a particular crossing fend off newcomers, in basically the same manner as the signers who have claimed Northeast 43rd Avenue.
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Unfortunately, the streets of Portland (and presumably London) are getting more Dickensian every day. I myself find the idea of beggars organizing rather more heartwarming than the anarchy one might reasonably expect, given the economic situation. I find it quite amazing that the desperate poor are not looting and pillaging from their “betters.” We may yet see the return of the highwayman.
It was a bit unnerving to see some of the folks I see on a daily basis gracing the pages of WWeek, and I wonder if their take has gone up or down since the story was published. It confirmed my suspicions that many of them use the money for drugs and strengthened my resolve not to give them any money. Hey, I’ve got my own (legal) drug habits to support! At least caffeine is available on every corner.
I know that many of them have built a lifestyle out of “flagging,” but I really don’t like them on the streets in my neighborhood. I feel less safe, and I donate to organizations that could help them. Giving them money out of your car window just encourages them to stick around.