Deep poverty and homelessness are not nice things. You usually have no way of bathing regularly. Your footwear goes unreplaced. Relatives don’t invite you to holiday gatherings anymore. Every time you go to a diner the waitress makes you leave if you don’t order something that costs more than two bucks. And you won’t order anything that costs more than two bucks because you don’t HAVE two bucks. That’s what deep poverty means.

Getting those two bucks is the top priority in the mind of every homeless and/or impoverished man and woman out there. Actually, it’s the men who really have a problem. All the women have to do is get knocked up, cos they get a fat check from the feds for each kid they crank out. But the men, the men need to dredge up their own cash. Crime is an obvious option, but it is the path taken by only two kinds of bums : 1) violent, vicious folk who get off on preying upon unsuspecting fellow mammals or 2) folk who just don’t have the skill, the desire, and the sheer chutzpah to succeed at the world’s third-oldest profession—panhandling.

For our purposes, panhandling shall be loosely defined as the acquisition of cash via non-coercive means from a person or persons unrelated or in any way familiar to the bum and with no intention by either party to meet again. If the “mark” (person targeted by the bum) is related or familiar, it becomes a simple matter of sponging. If there is a mutual intention to meet again, it becomes an ongoing business relationship. This is not to imply that no business transaction occurs; a successful panhandling requires convincing the mark that he/she is getting something for their money. What exactly the mark is paying for varies with each situation, as we shall see.

Each panhandling method falls into one of two basic categories, passive and active.

Passive:

The more commonly found category, passive methods are designed to draw the mark into initiating contact with the bum. This requires setting up a “hook”, a physical manifestation that plays upon the mark’s sense of guilt, concern, or curiosity.

Active:

Bums of an intrepid and ambitious nature who possess (or believe they possess) sufficient quantities of wit and charm opt for methods that involve initiating contact with the mark and making a “pitch”, a speech or dialogue of some kind to convince the mark to part with some cash. These methods are somewhat less common due to the fact that most people with the necessary characteristics are gainfully employed as company sales representatives, public relations agents for elected officials, or lieutenants in prostitution rings or predatory street gangs . Active methods take many forms and play off of many strengths, but more often than not, what makes or breaks an active approach is the ability to lie well.

Apearance is important in both passive and active methods. The bum’s dress, hair, body language, and speech (where applicable) should offer credibility to the hook or pitch. For example, it helps to get one’s hands on an army-issue olive drab jacket if one wishes to pose as a betrayed and broken Vietnam vet. A pathetic appearance is necessary but too much effort in this department can be counterproductive. If passing marks believe the bum is asleep, comatose, deceased, or otherwise unaware of his surroundings, the effect on the mark’s guilt is greatly diminished because he/she will not imagine the bum’s contempt-filled stare following them as they walk away.

Not only to the small-business owners and rickshaw drivers does the maxim “location, location, location” apply. The single most important thing a bum must consider when embarking on a panhandling career is where to carve out his territory. In deciding location, consideration must be given to certain factors, especially but not exclusively:

Transit Density:

Simply put, how many people will be passing through that location during the bum’s working hours. This can be tricky. While a bum needs an abundance of marks in order to operate, if the area is too dense, there will be a greater likelihood for a mark to think, “there’s so many other people here…surely one of them will help.” This is more detrimental to passive than active efforts, but remember that without a large crowd to escape into, a mark will have a much harder time standing firm against a solid active approach.

Property Value/Geographic Prosperity:

An area frequented by richer marks can yield exceptionally high returns, but marks tend to grow more aloof as their wealth increases and thus become much harder targets to hit, so to speak. There are always some amateur philanthropists in the upper crusts of society, and sometimes they may appear and make a worthwhile contribution if the hook or pitch is effective enough. It is a good deal more likely, however, that the police will be called or show up of their own volition. Beggars can be choosers, but a successful bum will not let greed get the better of him when deciding where to set up shop.

Proximity to Amenities:

When I was little and went on errands with my mother and I felt nature’s call, my mother would always ask me in an exasperated tone why I didn’t go before I left the house. Bums have no house. A bum excreting any form of bodily waste into his pants will have a very adverse effect on success of the operation unless the mark is actually paying to see the bum do this (see below). Bottom line, the bum should make sure a public commode (or reasonable facsimile) is nearby where he can do his business without giving his marks another reason to steer clear.

Location Relative to Other Bums:

Any optimum panhandling area is bound to attract more than a few bums. Because even the softest mark is unlikely to donate twice in a short time span, the situation becomes a reversed and somewhat less dignified version of a Sotheby’s auction, as bums compete with each other to “sell” their hooks and pitches to the marks. A bum can gain an edge in this competition by locking down an advantageous tactical location: He should ascertain the best choke-point of pedestrian traffic and position himself upstream of his competitors to the greatest extent possible, effectively pre-empting them.

As we can see, location plays an important role in the success of a bum. Remember, however, that human existence is not measured solely in space but also in time. For example, making camp near a subway station at 3 a.m. on a Tuesday shows a good choice in location, but a judgment of timing worthy of a short school bus occupant. Generally, operating at night is not a good idea. Lots of people can’t easily distinguish between a street criminal and a harmless bum once the sun has set, and most of them don’t risk getting close enough to make sure. Business districts are well-traveled during commuter rush hours and lunchtimes and will probably yield the most success during the workweek.

I cannot stress the importance of weekends enough, so I am going to devote a whole paragraph to this subject. Business districts and commercial centers always experience heavy foot traffic, but on weekends it is at its heaviest. More importantly, the weekends bring out marks from the suburbs and other outlying areas that do not regularly encounter bums and thus have not built up the callus of indifference necessary to deflect a panhandling attempt. Among the greatest windfalls for a bum is a flock of suburban high school or college girls who spend a lot of time reading up on rainforests, saving the lynx habitat, freeing Tibet, and basically virulently hating everything that is virulently hateful in the world. Laying a solid hook or pitch on a group of four such ladies returning from an Amnesty International rally may yield enough cash to splurge at White Castle and have enough left over to purchase a used cassette of the Deliverance soundtrack.

Part 2: Case Studies

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