how do people feel about donation drop boxes?

[idgiehkt]

Does your town have them? That is where instead of giving spare change or whatever to panhandlers they ask you to drop in it a donation box instead (I've seen some that also look like parking meters).

Here is an article in my hometown alternative paper about it, some of the comments below are pretty sickening

"Tell Panhandlers Where You'll Stick It"
http://www.mountainx.com/news/2007/tell_panhandlers_where_youll_stick_it

I worked downtown for several years and was acquainted with many homeless; most of whom had substance abuse problems or mental illness or both. I don't feel like this is quite the way to handle it, but I'd like to hear other opinions...

[wildhorses]

1. are you in asheville?

my mother lives in arden!!

[idgiehkt]

2. no I was born in Asheville

but I haven't lived there in a few years. :hi:

Frankly I'm really surprised they are doing this (drop box thing) in Asheville.

My parents lived in a subdivision in Arden when I was born.

[bridgit]

3. not so much a drop box for us here, as a drop area...

http://www.sacramentoloavesandfishes.org thanksgiving & christmas bring the boxes, but some goof palmed a bottle of gin from behind a bar the other day here in town, he then tried to make off with a tip drop box at Starbucks but the people there bif't him around a bit so he left (they weren't about to surrender their tips), then he went into a real estate office and told them all that he was there to rob the bank demanding all the money; i had an image of a nice, Century 21 Real Estate Associate in her smart-blazer (aren't they orange or something, maybe red i forget) info'ing as to the store front *not* being a bank cause he left and was finally caught up with blocks away abusing himself somehow...

i'm less than convinced that a drop box may always be the way to go, if certain folks know there is something within to glean they inclined to do so :shrug:

[idgiehkt]

4. lol

yes...you've been on the street a loooooong time if you don't recognize those putrid gold Century 21 blazers if they still wear them... :hi:

I also meet/met a lot of former homeless in recovery programs; knew a guy who was homeless for a couple decades, he always said the homeless guys and he felt that they were the "real" people of the world, as opposed to those who slept in warm beds every night. I met mostly real, true homeless working dowtown. In more rural areas I've met scammers, or say, in the parking lots of dept stores, groceries, where they may not be quite so desperate. I just don't know. Asheville does have it's share of trustafarians but when working downtown for three years what I saw were truly homeles mentally ill and soon to be wet brain type folks. Of course during that time I worked at a worker owned collective that was run by a methodist minister and one of the few places around anywhere that employed convicted felons, or people like me freshly off the bottle and mentally scattered, so that colored my thinking. I'll never forget a red-faced and mildly disoriented couple stumbling in there a February evening out of the snow, both clearly inebriated, and the female of the couple saying she was due to go into labor in the next couple of weeks. I guess when you see them day after day after day (the indigent hotel was across the street), they become people and not beggars, so I'm confused about this whole issue, was hoping someone would maybe have some pro's to offer.