Yesterday I walked to China Restaurant for lunch, and on the way there I ran into one of Downtown’s well-known panhandlers.\u00a0 This is the guy who used to go around asking for money, claiming it was for St. Jude.\u00a0 “Hey, man, I just want to talk to you for a minute,” he said.\u00a0 “Can you help me find a job?\u00a0 PLEASE, man.\u00a0 I don’t want to be the way I am anymore.\u00a0 Please.\u00a0 Help me.\u00a0 I’ll do anything.\u00a0 The only thing I can’t do is heavy lifting because of my back.\u00a0 I just want to work so I can stop living like this.”<\/p>\n
I’m not anywhere close to 100% sure he was being sincere, but I’m not 100% sure he was lying, either.\u00a0 The way I figure, as long as I’m part of an effort to get panhandlers off the street, it’s my duty to try and help them when they express a desire to turn their lives around.<\/p>\n
It has happened before.\u00a0 Last year there was a very annoying panhandler nicknamed “The Singer” who would sing for passersby or people sitting on restaurant patios, and then demand a tip.\u00a0 One day around the first of the year, he decided he wanted a better life for himself, and asked for help.\u00a0 He got two jobs, one of them washing dishes at a well-known restaurant on Second Street.\u00a0 He still sings, but now he sings on his way to work, and he doesn’t ask anyone for money anymore.<\/p>\n
If anyone wants to take a chance on this guy, e-mail me (paul@paulryburn.com) and let me know how he can get in touch with you.\u00a0 He says he’ll take anything, but I think it would be best if he had a regular job, with regular hours and a regular paycheck.\u00a0 As opposed to “come by the shop every week or two and I’ll pay you $7 to mop up,” which I think would only enable whatever bad habits he has.\u00a0 It doesn’t necessarily have to be full-time, but at least regular part-time.\u00a0 Also, if you work for an agency that could help him, let me know and I’ll pass on that info too.<\/p>\n
Don’t take this as a recommendation for him – he’s been scamming people for far too long for me to be 100% sure he’s legit.\u00a0 I definitely would not hire him for a position that involves handling money, or for a position like security guard that involves protecting other people’s property.\u00a0 But something about my past couple of interactions with him makes me think there’s a chance to turn him around.\u00a0 He believes society has failed him and that’s why panhandles so aggressively.\u00a0 Maybe this is a chance to show him that society will help him, if he’s willing to work provide for himself.<\/p>\n
E-mail me at paul@paulryburn.com if you’ve got a job or a lead on a job for this guy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Yesterday I walked to China Restaurant for lunch, and on the way there I ran into one of Downtown’s well-known panhandlers.\u00a0 This is the guy who used to go around asking for money, claiming it was for St. Jude.\u00a0 “Hey, man, I just want to talk to you for a minute,” he said.\u00a0 “Can you … Continue reading “Anyone willing to take a chance on this guy?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2753"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2753"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2753\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}