Begging your attention

The elephant in the room that Seattleites never seem to want to bring up is the number of beggars you see around town.

I was struck by the population in downtown Seattle the first time I went to the Nordstrom Mother Church—you can’t walk through the Pioneer Square area without wading through panhandlers cadging money.

I haven’t seen that sort of thing outside of Skid Row or a third world country.

Yeah, there are homeless on exhaust grates in DC, but not whole colonies of them; & go out into the ‘burbs & you don’t come across moochers trying to make eye contact.

Here—they’re all over. On the Redmond Road & 148th Avenue exits off the 520 in Redmond; the 8th & 4th Street ramps in Bellevue off the 405; the 45th & 50th Street exits (both north & southbound) off the 5 in Seattle. (On one, where there are a couple of islands, I’ve seen three beggars staked out at once.) On 45th & Montlake, by University Village a 20-something tattooed chick alternates with the more typically grizzled male.

Which brings me to another point—these people are regulars. The one at the Redmond Road/520 ramp brings a cooler & a lawn chair. Ditto the one on the Ravenna Avenue exit off the 5; he always waggles his fingers at you. I don’t know whether he’s putting a curse on you or just thinks he needs to do that to grab your attention.

They also cluster around Trader Joe’s & Whole Foods in Seattle. I presume the marketing strategy is that those establishments’ customer base are more likely to respond to victims of social injustice. The TJ on Roosevelt Avenue has even put up a sign telling customers that no one soliciting for anything outside the store is associated with it & that shoppers should in no way feel obligated to fork over.

Last Friday I even found one at a branch post office. He was careful to park himself on the sidewalk, not on post office property. But you couldn’t go in or out without passing him.

I don’t know what this signifies. I can’t believe that the King County has a larger population of the underclass than other cities, or a greater percentage, or even fewer social programs to help them. Apparently what it does have is an entrepreneurial approach to begging amongst them.