How should we respond to sign people — the ones standing at busy intersections begging for help?
Suzanne Elms-Barclay recently spotted a sign-holder standing, with his 10-12 year-old daughter, at I-496 and Pennsylvania Avenue. She went home and came back with a bag of food for the two … and hoped that she wasn’t being exploited.
“It’s a very uncomfortable situation for many,” she wrote, “because we don’t want to harden our hearts, but we don’t want to enable someone who is messing with our emotions.”
“How are these people falling through the cracks? Why are they “hungry? Or are they scam artists ? I would like to know and I think other people would, too.”
Of course we would, but we never will. It’s not like we can do background checks on the sign holders — or ask them to show their “certified desperate” cards.
All we can really do is trust our instincts.
