The Art of Denver Begging

It’s hard work being a street person in Denver.

I know that may sound like a contradiction of sorts. The image of a street person, to a lot of people, is probably of some guy laying prone on a park bench whose to-do list includes scratching, shifting positions, sitting up, investigating the nearest trash can and loading more inane items on his shopping cart.

And while that may, indeed, be the MO of a lot of “bums” around the world, here in Denver, most of the street people work hard, harder than some of the hipsters and yuppies I see filling up the coffee shops from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., staring at their computers for hours on end and typing nothing while waiting for the hour when the coffee shops switch from selling java to microbrews (Chicago’s coffee shops could learn a thing or two from Denver on this).

No, most of the street people here work hard, putting in long hours under the blazing sun or pelting hail, trying to come up with creative and innovative ways to put some change in their pockets. In Denver, being a street person means having perseverance, being creative and being organized. If street people were a corporation, these guys (and women) would be the CEOs of BumCorp.

Being a street person in Denver is a lot different than being a street person in Chicago. In Chicago, we had bums. Oh, the newspapers and social organizations might call them street people because of editorial kindness and political correctness, but most of them were bums. Unorganized, marginally motivated, meandering bums. Sometimes relentlessly annoying, sometimes frightfully aggressive, but still bums.

(For the record, if I am ever living out on the streets, I would like to be referred to as a hobo. “Bum” suggests someone unmotivated and lazy. “Street person” is a little too clean-cut and vague – could be a homeless guy, could be some sort of performer. Hobo, to me, has an air of disheveled, poverty-stricken sophistication, a down-on-his luck guy with a streak of creativity despite his conditions. A hobo can probably tell a good story, recite poetry, perform a magic trick or win a trivia contest, all things I think I could do. Therefore, I would like to be a hobo, please. Or maybe a panhandler.)

In Chicago, the bums sort of wander the streets, stopping wherever they think they can get a quick handout, weaving their way down the sidewalk and approaching whomever they think is a soft touch for spare change (tourists, old ladies, me). Bums in Chicago don’t really have a game plan for success, which might be why there are so many of them (OK, the current economic and housing situation, drug and alcohol abuse might have something to do with it too). There are probably a handful of “bums” in Chicago who have some sort of blueprint for success: the kid who sits in front of Old Navy on State Street every afternoon and wails for people to help him out, the old guy in the suit I used to run across who always seemed to have lost his wallet and needed fare to get back to O’Hare to get his luggage, the guy on the subway who solicited fund for his imaginary charity, though I suppose he was more of a con artist than a bum. But for the most part, the street folk in Chicago were just winging it and are probably as successful as a baseball team that plays as if they made up their lineup five minutes before the game stars (I’m looking at you, Cubs).

But in Denver, unlike so many other aspects of life I’ve seen here, these guys have their act together, however disheveled and odiferous that act may be. There’s a formula to panhandling in Denver, a system that never seems to change no matter what weather. You can just step out onto the sidewalk, start shaking a dirty Starbucks venti cup and expect to succeed here. There are, apparently, rules to be followed. It’s as if an army of down-on-their-luck men and women had a meeting at the headquarters of the American Federation of Street Folks, Local 238, and set up a series of bylaws on how to be a street person in Denver, from appearance to approach. As far as I can tell, the regulations borne out of that first meeting went something like this:

1. All street people soliciting funds from the general public must pick a corner. There will be no aimless wandering of the streets permitted. Street people must select a corner somewhere in the city and remain there for the duration of their shift, regardless of how lucrative or non-lucrative the location may be. Locations may be at the off-ramp of an expressway, on a desolate stretch of road in the middle of a quiet neighborhood, or on a road that where there are few stoplights and the traffic generally travels at about 40 miles per hour. This location may either be manned every day by the same person, or shared by several people on a rotating basis. In the event of a major thoroughfare, both sides of the street may be manned by two different street people, provided there are at least four lanes of traffic between them.
2. All street people MUST have a sign. There are NO exceptions. The signs must be constructed from old cardboard and written in black marker ONLY. Signs must be held chest high, regardless of whether the street person is sitting or standing. While we restrict the subject matter of the signs to four categories, actual content of the signs is up to the discretion of the holder. Signs maybe religious in nature (“God Bless You”, “I will pray for you”, “Be an angel today”), patriotic (“Help out a vet”, “America the Beautiful”, or a simple, but unfocused “USA”), humorous (“Obama promised change, I NEED change”, “F.B.I – Flat Broke Indian”, or “I’m not gonna lie – I need the money for beer”) or, for those strapped for cash AND ideas, the straight approach, with a twist of humility (“Anything helps”, a premature “Thank you” or the basic “Spare change”). If you must use family references, keep it humble (“Wife and three kids need food”) and not too brutally honest (“Wife and three kids kicked me the fuck out because I drank up the rent money last week. Anything helps. God Bless You”)
3. Have a beard. The longer the better. Think House of David baseball team, not George Clooney after wrapping up shooting on “Ocean’s Fourteen”. When combined with slightly disheveled clothing and a sign, a long, unkempt beard says “hard times” and is more likely to evoke sympathy, as in, “Gosh, that guy needs a shave badly if he’s ever going to find gainful employment. I think I will give him some spare change.” Avoid a close-cropped beard or retro facial hair, which will only make people think you are a hipster and are panhandling “ironically”. While the research has not yet been completed, women are free to try this tactic as well.
4. Refrain from aggressiveness. Don’t badger people in cars on walking on the sidewalk. Let your sign do the talking. When the traffic comes to a stop at your corner, remain on the corner unless summoned by a hand extended from a car window bearing change. Offer a pleasant “good morning” if you like. Refrain from smiling unless your dental situation is in order. Leave that pushy, relentless, annoying panhandling to cities like New York City, L.A. and Chicago. We’re better than that. We’re Denver.
5. Army fatigues are optional.

I’ve only come across one person here who went against these rules, a tall, thin, relatively well-dressed man who used to stand in front of the 7-11 down the street from us and quietly ask for spare change. I mean really quietly, as in whispering. So quietly that if he had slowly faded away into a wisp of smoke right in front of our eyes I wouldn’t have been the least bit surprised.

The first time we came across him, we weren’t even sure what he was asking for and we leaned in closer to figure out what he was saying (He could have been saying “I’m old, rich and eccentric. Would you like a million dollars?” so it was worth pausing for a second). But when we figured out he was asking for change we politely say we didn’t have any (A lie, of course. Everyone has change in their pockets). But I like to think that he spoke so softly because he didn’t want anyone to know he was violating the Code of the West, Panhandling Division.