[A.P. Keaton]

I live and work in downtown Chicago and encounter panhandlers at least 10 times a day. At least for Chicago, I say the best location is a shopping district on the weekends. First, you have a lot of people passing you -- which is going to increase your chances of getting handouts. Next, because it is a weekend, you are going to have more suburbanites who are not accustomed to seeing homeless people and will be more sympathetic to their plight. Third, you have a relationship dynamic (i.e. guy with his girlfriend not wanting to look cheap) as opposed to a business district where people are in a hurry to get to or leave work and will generally ignore the panhandlers. I have observed that the same panhandlers who work the business district during the week with will move to Michigan Ave. to hit up the tourists on the weekends.

A unique angle also helps. The greatest beggar I ever saw was a woman with two small children. She would set up a little plastic table with chairs on the street corner for the kids. They would color or reads books and she would just stand there saying nothing. People were actually lined up 10 deep to give her money. I bet she made over 100k a year. There is also a group young heroin addicts who works Michigan Ave. They usually take turns and have a sign saying that they lost their wallet, that they are stranded and they are trying to get home to Seattle. Their star is a little white girl who curls up into a ball, holds a little kitten and crys her eyes out. I hate these kids and I would like to throw them into traffic.

Another observation, I observe that black people give money to panhandlers in a much higher proportion than white people. I have a soft spot for blind people. They are generally the only panhandlers I give change to/