Down Payment on a Cheeseburger
I’ve had it up to here with bums on the Plaza. Well, bums in general, to be sure, but their presence on the Plaza is especially irritating to me, since that is an area I otherwise enjoy (evil bunnies notwithstanding). Plaza bums seem to be as permanent a fixture – and as common a topic of conversation among midtowners, I’ve found – as the fountains and statues. A few have even achieved a certain celebrity status.
Plaza bums make me think twice about visiting (and spending money there…hello…). I love going to Barnes & Noble, and I enjoy the opportunity to support the local economy. (Yeah, B&N is a chain, but at least its employees are local, as opposed to the people who otherwise would fill my Amazon.com order those days I just don’t have the patience to be harassed by bums.) I sure don’t mind having to wait outside the Classic Cup’s front door for a table to open up, but not if it means being hassled by an aggressive bum who made a special trip across the street just to hit me up for change. (Yes, exactly that has happened to me – more than once.) The Plaza is one of the best places to take a stroll in Kansas City – rather, it would be without bums staked out on every other corner. A friend of mine who lives next to the Plaza won’t cross it on foot to go to work, because she meets too many bums along the way who make her feel unsafe. So instead, she drives the five blocks everyday.
The encounter I hate the most is the hit-up when going to B&N, and I bet you know exactly what I’m talking about: You park in the garage next door, and as you walk the breezeway between the buildings toward 47th Street, you are sure to spot a bum on the sidewalk, right at the breezeway entrance. That’s a choice spot, because there is a lot of steady foot traffic from all four directions. And of course, the bum gets you twice, being positioned between the store and the garage.
But on the way from your car, you and the bum can see each other the whole time during that walk down the breezeway, so it only makes that leg of your trip seem longer and more uncomfortable. It’s like being stuck in time, because you know what’s going to happen when you get, oh, six feet away from the bum (when the proximity-activated rattle cup is triggered). You’re tied fast to a railroad track, and there is nothing you can do but wait for the inevitable, while the whistle blowing a mile away just gets louder.
I may have a billion other things on my mind, but during that walk they are all preempted by my fantasy of replying to “Help out the homeless?” with, “You know, from where I’m standing, it looks like you have two working arms, two working legs (except on those days I notice you’ve dragged the crutches or the wheelchair out of the prop closet – how do you decide on that in the morning, by the way?), and an obvious capacity for strategy, given that you’ve not only located a prime spot for begging but show an aptitude for social engineering, i.e., acting and speaking so as to best play on people’s emotions. So there you sit/stand/lean, a human being capable of locomotion and at least some higher reasoning, asking me to just hand you money. For nothing. Well, I have all kinds of sympathy for people who get smacked hard in the face by bad luck. (Been there – got the t-shirt.) But that pretty much disappears when I see your one – and only – response, day in and day out, is limited to asking someone to just give you money. Are you sh*ttin’ me? And do you think the economy being in the tank somehow makes it particularly acceptable to give you handouts? That’s not exactly the kind of “self help” I was taught made America great. Not for people who look to me to be able to help themselves just fine…”
It’s the kind of diatribe that would just degrade further into unfocused, mean-spirited garble if that walk were any longer. Thankfully, it is not.
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February 10th, 2009 at 9:34 pm
I hear ya! If this was not their job, and they actually needed the money because they were honestly down and out for a period, not because this is what they chose to do for a profession. If there were fewer bums… etc. yeah anyway the pitch has some thoughts on homeless folks on the plaza as well. http://www.pitch.com/2006-12-14/news/a-holiday-catalog-of-bumming/1
February 11th, 2009 at 8:36 am
I hear you man. Even us suburbanites have to deal with this shit. There are alway people begging for cash at the freeway exit ramps now. I absolutely hate it when I’m the first guy in line and I have those d-bags staring at me.
February 16th, 2009 at 11:56 am
Also in agreement here. It is clear that the plaza bums are, in fact, not bums. How do I reach this conclusion? Because they are there everyday in the exact same spot spouting the exact same line. It’s an industry if I’ve every seen one. It reminds me of the slumdogs in Mumbai (thank you ‘Slumdog Millionaire’), only lazy, weathered, Americans–not adorable Indian children.
February 17th, 2009 at 11:29 am
And you’d think this would be a cut-and-dried issue, wherein those creating a public nuisance are subject to easy prosecution, but no. Panhandlers are regularly defended in court by the ACLU and others who conflate the act of begging with protected speech under the First Amendment. And the so-called ‘homeless advocate’ groups play the guilt card, arguing that ridding the streets of beggars erases what they hold should be an important reminder to all that poverty and homelessness still exist in our community.
But as Scott points out above, most if not all the regular Plaza bums are essentially poseurs. They are not homeless, and they are not incapable of some form of work. They choose to be beggars. But in so doing, they are a public nuisance. Allowing them to remain in the streets does not serve to remind the public of the real issues of poverty and homelessness, but cheapens the issue by sanctioning the activities of people who are, in fact, neither poor nor homeless.
If you really want to see people in need of help, you will much more likely find them huddled under bridges downtown than skillfully working the Plaza. These are the folks who genuinely cannot help themselves, maybe due to mental illness, substance abuse, or just really bad luck. But they certainly don’t have the wherewithal to schlep to the Plaza and start hustling.
So by defending people only pretending to be down and out, the homeless advocates do both the poor and the rest of the public a disservice by diverting everyone’s attention from the places help is really needed.
March 3rd, 2009 at 9:18 am
Went to B&N yesterday at the plaza. Saw Mr. Cheeseburger. Soon I am going to make it my personal mission to remove “bums” from the plaza. Don’t get me wrong, I understand there will always be transient homeless folks looking for some handout. I’m more accepting of that. But this “career homelessness” is insulting to those of us who have to hold down a steady job. Mark my words: His days of feigning destitution are numbered.
March 3rd, 2009 at 10:13 am
There’s the pepper. (But don’t do anything that could get you in trouble, too!)