@3x10to8mps @mike
Recently, I saw in the news that a Walgreens (I think it was in San Francisco?) was locking up all kinds of items-- including many food items, like ice cream and soda-- because shoplifters were taking things several times a day. In the short time that the reporters were interviewing workers & shoppers for the story, three more #shoplifters took items and left, while the cameras watched.

That Walgreens is talking abt closing down, even though they are the only such store in walking distance for many residents, because they can't afford to stay open with all the theft.

I do see why stores have to stop theft. I just wish there weren't so many people needing food.

I'm seeing so many more (seemingly homeless) people standing in traffic intersections now than ever before, begging for money. I've even seen a small family with a baby in a stroller.

The fact that there are also so many billionaires who could support these people without even noticing the cost sickens me.

@mike @AnneTheWriter1 Oh I hate this. I've no answer to this dilemma

I always carry stuff to give away because I can't walk by

But I lived in Berkeley, where panhandling became a sport. Some people rent their babies and puppies to other panhandlers because people give more out of sympathy. A guy always parked his car around the block then aggressively tried to shame me for not giving him $ when I couldn't even afford a car. So have a grain of skepticism

@3x10to8mps @mike @AnneTheWriter1

Unless you've actually seen that happen those kinds of stories rank right up there with Reagan's wide-brush "welfare queen" BS (story here https://jezebel.com/the-long-shadow-of-the-welfare-queen-1838856900).

Studies have shown there will always be a few who try to con a system (usually between 2-5%) but that number in way, shape or form should be used to demonize the whole ... and yet it is, mostly against the poor.

@girlfreddy @AnneTheWriter1 @mike Are you able to read or just spoiling for a fight? I told exactly what I saw. Are you calling me a liar?

I lived with it every single day for the years I was at Cal. You go spend a day on Telegraph Avenue with your eyes open.

And you owe me an apology

@3x10to8mps @AnneTheWriter1 @mike

So you've seen people renting their babies and puppies to street people ... like street people who can't afford a place to live or food to eat so are forced to panhandle, but according to you have money to rent babies and puppies to look poorer than they actually are.

Riiight. Excuse me for calling bullshit on that.

@girlfreddy @3x10to8mps @mike
One of the families I saw lived out of an old crappy RV. I doubt seriously that they "paid to rent" the children who happened to look so much like the adults.

Another was a couple with a stroller. The lady picked a baby up out of the stroller to calm the crying child, so it wasn't an empty stroller.

One of the begging individual males wore a medical boot for a diabetes-related foot problem, and spoke to me of his diabetes meds. He had spent his entire month's govt money for the boot. I know a few people who are diabetic, and he was not faking it, that's for sure. He stood at the intersection for over an hour on that painful foot.

I'm not sure why you feel you have to dismiss reality. It's not a gentle or a kind reality, but it is reality.