Originally Posted by
NeilGunton
. . . there are so many "homeless" people around town bugging you for spare change. It's frankly annoying, and reminds me of NYC, where I was effectively trained by the homeless there to avoid eye contact, since if they ever caught your eye then they would immediately try to exploit that by striking up a conversation . . . but when I was on the subway in New York going to work, every morning the same guy would come down the cars telling people that he had just been kicked out of his apartment and hadn't eaten for 3 days etc etc. For six months he had just been kicked out of his apartment. . . .
I learned about the "homeless" and the panhandlers when I worked in DC. Same people. Same place. Same "line". Day after day after work day.
Their "job" was panhandling. Most took the colder months off.
I recall one guy who took up position around 10 am and stayed until I know not when, every work day, holding open one of the two doors that made up half of a set of double doors between Union Station and the Metro station. He would stand there all day, with his back to the door he was keeping open, holding out his hand. Here's the punch line: he carefully picked which of the four doors he held open -- the one with the weakest springs. That way it wasn't too much trouble to hold the door open using very little energy.
But there are good stories from the streets of DC. Such as the street vendor that will let you have the usual product today because they know you've been buying from them regularly and that you'll pay them iin the next couple days. Much different from NYC.
Of course, in NYC, a street vendor set up the way the vendors are set in DC would be robbed of all merchandise in just a few minutes. Mostly by people in suits on their way to well-kept offices.