I really appreciate your contributions to this discussion. I've been really happy with the results of just posting this and asking everyone's opinions, but you put a lot of time in here to give us pictures of real people, and I value the time you put into it, as well as your general willingness to share and take up this topic. So thanks.

Also, as responses to this have coming in, I have mostly realized more and more that the person who wrote this article has never been homeless and seems to have absolutely no idea of what it is like, so hasn't had any personal experience with homeless people and/or panhandlers.

This was posted by a friend of mine on Facebook who lives in a city, it's either Vegas or New York, with a shit-ton of panhandlers. She thought this article was "exactly right." I had a different opinion...but I really like to hear from Hubski on stuff like this. It's not an easy topic, it's an interesting one, it is a topic that truly allows for a spectrum of experience and opinions (as opposed to the abortion debate which basically always comes down to "I'm for it" or "I"m against it" and sure we pretend to discuss the particulars but it's not the same), and it's something I'm not experienced in but had come up in a pubski before - I think you talked about it then, I know klein and thenewgreen had both been asked for money from panhandlers the week that it came up.

So I'm glad to hear from everyone on it.