Please do not give cash to panhandlers. Many came by freight train, he said, drawn by the city's rescue mission and other services for the homeless. If there's no good fishing in the lake, you find another lake. In San Francisco, police sweeps and crackdowns on homeless people have become so well known that in October the National Coalition for the Homeless chose the city as the site to open a national campaign for civil rights for the homeless. This year the police here issued more than 20,000 citations for violations of ordinances like trespassing, camping, carrying an open container and violating park curfews, compared with 17,500 in 1998 and 15,700 in 1997.
Many people seem to approve.
I feel they are already taken such good care of with financial aid and food stamps. They get free food. And I think it's making a lot of them not get off their butts and survive for themselves. Aaron James, a parking control officer in San Francisco, blamed housing costs. Every morning I come in to open up the store.