At the grocery store, a man in the parking lot asked me for gas money. Anyone run into this?

[haele]

53. Plenty of times at various places.

Different stories, but few different faces (sorry, a bit poetic there)
Seriously, though - they certainly aren't getting rich off that sort of begging, and most of them are incapacitated somehow and even if it was a substance abuse problem, co-dependancy, mental ilness, or the just plain ol' "don't give a shit 'tude" that got them to the Street, they're lucky if they make enough to pay for monthly rent at a cheap hotel, not to mention whatever they're probably self-medicating with.

I'll buy groceries or food or gas for them, or give them spare change if money was all they wanted, but I still try not to judge. because -
Very few people can do more than survive on the underground economy. Especially those who beg to supplement a day-labor job-to-job living. In the long run, if it is a scam they are pulling, they are actually playing on themselves. There has never been any future in begging, just as there really is no future in gambling.

Those "averaging $500 tax-free a week at the freeway offramp" guys are usually divvying up their collections at a flop hotel where a couple of them are most likely sharing a room - until they get mad at each other - and maybe one has a car for transportation to get to the real job option when it comes up so they're not always working the freeways. I've had a few freeway beggers working surge labor for me when I was running jobs at the shipyard. They're certainly not living in a nice neighborhood in a stable home. Their options for survival are typically very limited.

Haele