Kenya in Crisis

[aimeecc]

How many cars go threw a busy intersection in a matter of hours? THOUSANDS. Let's say the light is red every 5 minutes. At each red light he gets $2 from panhandling. That's $24 an hour. Every time I get stuck at a red light with a homeless man panhandling, someone gives a buck or two or ten. I've seen a man get money from 5 cars IN A ROW. Whether it was $1 per car or $10, I don't know. But in less than 5 minutes he had at least 5 dollars. That exponentially increases around the holidays as people feel more inclined to donate.
An article was written in Austin when I was there as a student in the 90s. The University of Texas newspaper (which is quite liberal... UT and Austin are far left) followed a former student who dropped out and made a living off panhandling. By day he was a homeless bum in front of a bookstore. At night he lived in a nice apartment. Since that expose, the number of panhandlers in Austin has skyrocketed.

[glatt]

OK. So at one good intersection you have seen, one homeless dude can do well. How many homeless do you think there are in Austin? How many intersections? Do people pay the homeless at every intersection? Is the traffic at all those intersections constant, or is there a morning rush and an evening rush with little in between?

I don't doubt that a handful of homeless people in one city can do fairly well, but I seriously doubt that "most" homeless people in the US make $100/day.

[glatt]

I got distracted as I wrote that post and missed your additional two anecdotal cites.

What I'm saying is that each city will have its handful of hustling homeless dudes who do fairly well, and at the same time, each city will have hundred or thousands of others who sleep in the parks during the day and eat in soup kitchens and spend the night in shelters. They aren't making the $100/day you claim, and they are the overwhelming majority. I walk past scores of them every day.