This was a big right wing “conspiracy”, for lack of a better term, theory around 10 years or so ago
I remember my dad going on about it, they all live in a super nice house somewhere together and they drop them off on the roads where they panhandle and make an inordinate amount of money. Then they scoop them up and go back to their big house.
I think they even ran some Bs stories on like fox back in the day
yeah my dad (the literal irl true brexit geezer - but even more racist) is still repeating stuff like that constantly, like i was talking to my younger sister once when i went out with her to get some snacks from the shops after i finished work and it turned out that he'd actually convinced her that there was a giant cabal of homeless people who organise together to leech money from middle class neighbourhoods and secretely all live together in a communally owned mansion or something
she's well meaning but just way too trusting of anything that my dad says
I remember a while ago hearing the statistic being repeated that the average person begging makes about 40K/yr in a major city. Seemed sus to me at the time, now it just sounds laughable.
Lol I think I heard that somewhere as well. Like that’s twice what the lowest earners around my are make, if that was true we’d have a lot more panhandlers than we do even now
The newspaper in the city where I grew up did a whole series on that ~15 years ago. It definitely got people talking about what a scam panhandling is and how none of "those people" are really poor. They actually investigated some panhandlers and found their homes, and since they weren't literally living in cardboard boxes that naturally meant that they were fine actually and didn't need help from anybody. Of course, if you knew that part of town (I do, I'm from the wrong side of the tracks), you know that houses in that area are shit and there were likely multiple families crammed into one small house. I specifically remember 2 of the neighborhoods they were talking about, and I knew people who lived there when I was a kid. Believe me, those folks weren't living high on the hog from the largess of strangers.
I mean my dad can sometimes be casually chud-adjacent. He's very much conservative-minded in a lot of ways but not politically engaged. He does the "if you want to give to a homeless guy buy him a sandwich" type (and constantly brags about the ONE time he did so lol). So right now I have no idea.
They say the homeless are super rich but live in squalor to avoid paying taxes or some shit. Idk how common this nonsense is in the west but it used to be a thing where I live a few years ago. Now its "poor should pull themselves up by bootstraps" instead.
My brother's neighbor's colleague has heard of a guy who lives as a hobo all summer and he makes enough money panhandling/collecting bottles for recycling that he owns a big house that he can live in without having to work the rest of the year!
The version of something somewhat similar I heard was "yeah my brother's college best friend's uncle studied [fancy title, eg medicine] with one of the homeless you see around campus, they were bright and graduated with honors but then something really bad happened to them and choose to be homeless forever"
Plus real stories like this: https://www.minutouno.com/sociedad/la-tragica-historia-del-medico-argentino-que-vive-como-indigente-y-conmueve-las-redes-sociales-n273444
I heard this story on a morning zoo show second date update segment. The girl rejected a second date because the guy was a software engineer who already made enough money to support himself but he moonlighted as a panhandler on nights and weekends as a hobby.
How, like, how?
This was a big right wing “conspiracy”, for lack of a better term, theory around 10 years or so ago
I remember my dad going on about it, they all live in a super nice house somewhere together and they drop them off on the roads where they panhandle and make an inordinate amount of money. Then they scoop them up and go back to their big house.
I think they even ran some Bs stories on like fox back in the day
yeah my dad (the literal irl true brexit geezer - but even more racist) is still repeating stuff like that constantly, like i was talking to my younger sister once when i went out with her to get some snacks from the shops after i finished work and it turned out that he'd actually convinced her that there was a giant cabal of homeless people who organise together to leech money from middle class neighbourhoods and secretely all live together in a communally owned mansion or something
she's well meaning but just way too trusting of anything that my dad says
I remember a while ago hearing the statistic being repeated that the average person begging makes about 40K/yr in a major city. Seemed sus to me at the time, now it just sounds laughable.
Lol I think I heard that somewhere as well. Like that’s twice what the lowest earners around my are make, if that was true we’d have a lot more panhandlers than we do even now
The newspaper in the city where I grew up did a whole series on that ~15 years ago. It definitely got people talking about what a scam panhandling is and how none of "those people" are really poor. They actually investigated some panhandlers and found their homes, and since they weren't literally living in cardboard boxes that naturally meant that they were fine actually and didn't need help from anybody. Of course, if you knew that part of town (I do, I'm from the wrong side of the tracks), you know that houses in that area are shit and there were likely multiple families crammed into one small house. I specifically remember 2 of the neighborhoods they were talking about, and I knew people who lived there when I was a kid. Believe me, those folks weren't living high on the hog from the largess of strangers.
My dad used to say this but I thought it was a joke? He was saying it with the tone of a joke?
I mean maybe your dad thought it was so preposterous that it was funny as a concept? Mine was very serious but my dad is a dumbass so lol
I mean my dad can sometimes be casually chud-adjacent. He's very much conservative-minded in a lot of ways but not politically engaged. He does the "if you want to give to a homeless guy buy him a sandwich" type (and constantly brags about the ONE time he did so lol). So right now I have no idea.
The homeless could easily afford a home if they stopped spending all of their money on sharpies and cardboard
They say the homeless are super rich but live in squalor to avoid paying taxes or some shit. Idk how common this nonsense is in the west but it used to be a thing where I live a few years ago. Now its "poor should pull themselves up by bootstraps" instead.
The version I've heard goes like this:
My brother's neighbor's colleague has heard of a guy who lives as a hobo all summer and he makes enough money panhandling/collecting bottles for recycling that he owns a big house that he can live in without having to work the rest of the year!
They did a test! $60,000 a year!
The version of something somewhat similar I heard was "yeah my brother's college best friend's uncle studied [fancy title, eg medicine] with one of the homeless you see around campus, they were bright and graduated with honors but then something really bad happened to them and choose to be homeless forever"
Plus real stories like this: https://www.minutouno.com/sociedad/la-tragica-historia-del-medico-argentino-que-vive-como-indigente-y-conmueve-las-redes-sociales-n273444
How can you say these words so close to eachother and not understand how much of a "choice" that was?
The myth of the "choice" of homelessness is as socially harmful a take as it is idiotic.
The mind of the lib is a land of ignored blatant contradictions
I heard this story on a morning zoo show second date update segment. The girl rejected a second date because the guy was a software engineer who already made enough money to support himself but he moonlighted as a panhandler on nights and weekends as a hobby.
To be fair, panhandling is probably more lucrative than getting people to fund your open source npm packages.
they have no data, they just repeat anecdote ghost stories to scare each other and/or confirm biases