Like Stephen, I do worry that with the constant scamming (I look like An easy target and am often singled out by local scammers), I could Get so callous and suspicious that I might inadvertently dismiss a true Story by someone who had just been the victim of some real misfortune, A person whom I would want to help.
This is exactly the reason why the scammers target the neighborhood.
As that famous Philadelphia resident, Willie Sutton, replied when asked "Why do you rob banks?" -- "That's where the money is!"
The scammers KNOW that not only do the residents and students in UC have money, but that, besides the students who don't know any better, the neighborhood is filled with "Liberal Democrats" who "will feel guilty" if they don't help them ... both are easy pickens!
Now you know what it's like to be a cop -- instantaneous life and death decisions confront you all the time. If you don't give the woman money, the baby starves to death; if you do give her money, she goes and buys crack.
I'm sorry, but N O B O D Y who confronts you on the street has a valid story. Ever. Period!
There are more social service agencies per block in UC, with new ones cropping up every day, than anywhere else in the city. (NGOs like safe neighborhoods too!) Anybody who can't find help from one has either already been thrown out by them, or is a fraud. [One assumes that they have already been thrown out by the City's own service organizations or they wouldn't be on the street in the first place.]
"Compassionate conservatives" will direct them to the nearest NGO for assistance, secure in the knowledge that if the individual doesn't get help there, then they were clearly a fraud.
"Libertarians," believing that NGOs are part of the problem and not the solution, will direct them to the nearest Church or 12 step program for assistance.
"Anarchists," will "take them to lunch" and then beat it out the door, leaving them with the check.
And in the end, everybody calls the cops -- who have to make that life or death decision that nobody else wants to make.
Life in the city hasn't changed in hundreds of years.
T.T.F.N. William H. Magill [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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