Bill Bratton when he recently suggested that New Yorkers refrain from giving money to street beggars if they'd like to alleviate the panhandling epidemic brought on by the serially-misguided DeBlasio era.
Of course he was immediately attacked as some sort of heartless monster by the left with hashtags and worse...
And while I can't prove how much heart the NYPD's head cop may-or-may-not have, he's got to have one hell of a lot more brains in his head than the 'progressive' NYers now inflicting their knee-jerk' 'caring' on the man: handing drunks and other street-dwellers no-strings-attached cash merely encourages more of the same -same as any subsidized behavior- and the fact is, some of them make incredible money at it.
And I'm talking ON TOP of today's generous bloated welfare payments...
A panhandler outside Grand Central Terminal says he rakes in up toBut I learned two things myself when I used to live in Los Angeles:
$200 an hour from kind-hearted New Yorkers.
And the 43-year-old former theater stagehand is only one of a legion of beggars in the city hauling in big bucks and a smorgasbord of food doing nothing but sitting on the sidewalk with hands out.
'On a Friday morning, I make $400 in two hours,’’ said Will Andersen, who was with his 9-year-old dog, Rizzo, on East 42nd Street between Vanderbilt and Madison avenues on Tuesday.
As Andersen was talking to The Post, another beggar told him gleefully,
'I got three breakfast sandwiches today! And they were all meat!
I’m putting on pounds out here!'...
'There are other spots where people get hundred-dollar bills. I could go over to Fifth Avenue and make $150 before lunch'
Bill Bratton is a superb cop and leader who knows what he's talking about...
the man did a great job out there- at least that's my recollection.
The other lesson deduced was that the homeless I handed a buck or two upon arrival to Santa Monica/Venice in 1990 were often seen almost every day around the neighborhood, even hitting-me-up again without having any idea they just got money from me the very day before.
I also noticed they where living the life: free (great!) lunches at the Santa Monica town hall, perfect weather to live rough in, etc. They also had cars in many cases, taking every single parking space on the street for days and weeks as they slept and lived in them. When a cop came, they just moved to another spot... even if they had to push it.
The 'homeless' often hung out at a the beach all day, dealt in drugs, were always stoned, parked for free, used a free clinic, ate mostly for free, then surfed and drank the day away while panhandling and also taking a government check.
And their personal monthly overhead costs closely approximated zero.
Nice racket if you're shameless -and dishonest- enough to live such a way... and many are, until you gather the courage and pragmatic common-sense tell them 'no' on both the panhandling and the government level: there are very few people in this country lacking access to generous welfare support.
Or they could try something new + different, like a job- an option that probably doesn't look all that inviting to them when they can make two-hundred-bucks and hour mooching money from the unthinking (while collecting government largesse)- so unless it's an old lady digging through a garbage can, I don't give them a dime.