By: Sandy

Sandy — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 07:04:27 +0000

My husband, me, and my two children moved to Reno on July 1, 2008 from California thinking that this move would change our lives for the better. It is now August 19, 2008, and I have spent time and money on gas looking, applying, and interviewing for jobs that left me nowhere. I have literally applied for more than 500 jobs, interviewed for about 20 of them, followed-up, and still nowhere. Our house payment is $1100 per month not including any of the other bills. Our expenses are increasing as our income has almost completely vanished. Therefore, I panhandled one day because I had to get to California for court. I had not a penny to my name. All that I needed was $50-60 to get there and back. I stood holding a sign for two hours thinking that maybe I was walking away with less than I hoped and it turned out that people helped me with exactly what I needed to get to California and back again. I was greatful! WIth the rising gas prices, no job, and down on luck, we’ve had to do this a few times. I have taken out loans from paycheck advance places, and this, too, is only adding to our debt rather than helping it. At present, our power and water bills are about to be shutoff and our cupboards are bare with food. How is one to live like this? What other solutions are there when the need for money is now not later? Even if getting a job, which I have looked for every single day more than eight hours a day on the internet, on the street, and networking with as many people I run into daily, one still doesn’t get paid from that job for two weeks. The BILLS have to be PAID NOW! My children need to be FED FOOD NOW! Well, the long end of the story is that my husband stood out there for fifteen minutes today to earn enough to pay the bills that will be shut off this weekend if we didn’t come up with any money, and a cop pulled up to him in his car, grabbed the sign, threw it away, and told my husband that if he could take him to jail for panhandling. Luckily, the officer didn’t take him to jail, but he did state that if he catches my husband out there again, he will take him to jail. SO- now what do we do? We are stuck and out of luck. We are not out there because panhandling is a FUN thing to do. We are out there for a legitimate purpose. If one looks at the churches- they survive on donations and help from the people. Grant it- we may not be in a building, instead we are on the streets simply trying to survive asking for the same donations that a church asks for. True- the minister provides a teaching or a service to the people, and if hired, I would provide a service to the people as well! Please…. any suggestions or advice as to what we should do as we try to pursue our career at looking for a job? By the way, I am also a student of a University- in my senior year, and also have an Associates degree. It is not that I am stupid or too uneducated to get a job.

Comments on: Begging and panhandling: an age-old tradition

By: Sandy