Lake Street Status Report

[frannyglass126]

Went grocery shopping. On my way, saw that behind one of the apartment blocks on Lagoon, a guy was rummaging through the dumpsters. He was in halo traction. It made rummaging tougher. Many sign-holders of Minneapolis have mostly been kicked off the freeway exits by cops and signs saying, No Trespassing, but they've resettled on Lake, by the

Comments

[badly_drawn]

My policy is to always give money if I can, and if I can't, give cigarettes, and if I can't do that, stop and talk and treat the person like a human being for a few minutes. Most of the guys in Hyde Park (who remember me by now; as you might imagine, I'm "Red") seem to appreciate the human companionship and being treated like a person just as much or more as the handful of change or cigarette.

[frannyglass126]

yeah, now i realize that my semantics above, written in haste as usual, made it sound like i ignore people who are asking for money. i don't - i smile and say hello, and often they wish me a good day, and i wish them one too. you always have had a knack for befriending strangers :)

[magpie16]

I used to live in the bay area where the homeless are a dime a dozen. I passed at least five on my walk to work every day - just for reference, I lived two blocks from where I worked. For a long time I really struggled with whether or not I should give them money, because not doing so made me feel like a horrible person

[kraackpot]

The more I live in DC, the more I realize that the people who would actually use a dollar for something useful, like food or a bus ticket, are consistently under-represented among the people who actually ask for a dollar. And the people who do ask for a dollar out here are often (always?) seriously mentally ill or crack addicts. Best thing you could probably do while in the moment? Smile and say hi.

[magpie16]

Yeah agreed....