There's no doubt some of them are grade A (for @sshole) scammers, looks like this one got busted but it's really hard to tell one from the other.  Up by where I live there are some that I know are homeless because I know where their "camp" is and my sis deals with many of them when they come into the hospital.  Some are scammers who are just lazy POS's that make more money panhandling than they would working because they can drive around to the most lucrative areas and take advantage of the system, some are drug addicts who've given up or have been pushed aside by the system, some are folks who were the kids of poor parents and never had any opportunity for anything else and, sadly, many are war veterans that never got the care they needed to integrate back into society when they came home and they were forced to survive on their own.  That's a disturbing little factoid our government has been sweeping under the carpet since Vietnam, regardless of what party holds the POTUS.  It's taken another war with high numbers of seriously injured soldiers and soldiers suffering with psychological issues for the disgusting treatment of our veterans to finally be news worthy.  Of course, bringing negative national and international attention upon these government services is the only way you can force them to do the right thing because they've proved over and over, they have no intention of doing it on their own.

I wish there was an easy way to tell the difference between those who need help and those that are scamming people but I don't know of one.  I only know of the local ones that have their camp and when I had extra money I would give it to the ones I knew to have real issues.  I'm definitely not giving money to some guy who's in good enough shape to walk and run back and forth up and down the median to get the money people are holding before the light changes...those folks are in much better condition than I am.

i saw that news report last night.

hateful old hag. just let her try to lay a hand on me.  

makes me want to go out there and hold up a big sign before they get to her saying she is a fraud.

In like 1992 when i first got back to Arizona, we were in Tucson, and there was one on every corner of every major road. A construction dude pulled up at the light and one was standing there with his sign "Will Work For Food". Dude tells him to get in he has some work for him and he will pay him good cash. Beggar says no way, i am making good money just standing here. So the construction guy contacted a local news station and they set up across the street from where this particular beggar did his thing. The construction guy was wired with a microphone and pulled up to the light told the guy the same thing as before. They recorded him saying he made good money just standing there with the sign and didnt need to work. The aired it that evening on the news...beggars were hurting after that.

During about that same time frame i was in a grocery store there...when i was walking up to the entrance a big indian dude asked me for a dollar so he could put some gas in his car, so being the naive person i was until that incident, i have him a buck and continued into the store. While i was standing in check out line, two lines down there was the big indian dude standing there with 2, 2 liters of Pepsi and a bag of chips...ended all compassion for them from that point forward.

It is sad that some of them do ruin it for the true needy people. And with the absence of any way to determine whom is whom...i avoid the entire thing. And after reading the recent issue with the ALS ice bucket BS, and how they had made 100 million, then the ALS foundation broke down how like 27% of that 100 million goes to actual research and the rest to overhead or whatever...probably wont donate anything more to anyone now. That was made an issue several years ago with another major charity, United Way i think it was, where about 10-20 cents of each dollar actually goes to the charity you selected...the rest stays with them and pays their overhead which included some pretty hefty salaries for their upper management.

Hooray for that guy in the video!!! That was awesome...said it just like it was to her....good for him.

The addicts will say anything to get .50 or $1 because people are more inclined to give a dollar than three, four or five and they can go from one person to another quickly and within twenty to thirty minutes have enough money to buy their next fix.  They go take their fix and as soon as it wears off they start all over so they are never going to take a job offer because without that next hit they are too sick to function anyway and when they are "fixed" they are too high to do anything.   These are usually the ones that say they need a couple bucks for gas or whatever reason that I'm sure all of us have dealt with.  On one hand it pisses me off but on the other hand I know that, despite what many people think, there are very, very few to no opportunities for these people to get clean that is free because they don't have any money.  Everyone seems to think there's this wealth of public services out there ready for anyone willing to enter the program but it's not true.  There are some but they are poorly funded and can only take very few people at any given time.

These video's are great, I love seeing these scammers get called out.  It definitely helps lower the number of these crapwankers out there when the media gets involved.

But she loves her Lord and her pastor told her it was ok!

as long as she tithes (kicks back) 50%