Chicago Sun-Times
Sunday Febuary 8, 2009
Phil Kadner

After reading about insurance executives spending $400,000 at a California day spa and hearing that Wells Fargo honchos had to cancel their 12-day trip to Las Vegas because of negative publicity, it was time to see how come other folks are faring in these difficult economic times.
 “It’s tough,” said Derrick Miller, 51, who was holding a plastic cup outside McDonald’s at the intersection of Clarke and Lake Streets.”
 It wouldn’t be accurate to call Miller a beggar, since he wasn’t asking for anything. He was just holding the cup in an outstretched hand and jingling the change inside.
 Since the temperature was about 12 degrees the day we talked, I asked Miller why he was panhandling.
“Got to eat,” he said, making it clear the answer should have been obvious. Maybe it’s just perception, but there seems to be more beggars on downtown then ever before.
 Out of curiosity and a sense that newspaper people ought to be keeping an eye on future job opportunities, I asked Miller how much money he makes on an average day.
“It depends,” he said. “I’ve been out here for more then an hour and I have about 50 cents. If I can get a couple of dollars, I can get a meal. After that, Ill try to get enough money for the train.”
 You’re a commuter?
 “No,” Miller laughs.” You sleep on the train, man. If I can raise enough money, I’ll get a cheap room.”
 How cheap?
 “About $30.”
 Miller said he’s been on the streets for years, although at one time he worked “factory jobs.”
 I was going to ask him when he last visited a day spa, but instead decided to seek his opinion about the political climate.
 “Politics?” he said, as if he hadn’t thought about the subject in some time.
 Obama and Blagojevich. That kind of thing. 
 “Obama’s promising change,” Miller said. “I think change is a good thing. I could use some change myself,” he chuckled.
 Then as if suddenly realizing the doubling meaning, he jiggled his cup and laughed some more. “We can all use change in different ways.”
  I asked Miller if there were certain locations for panhandling that were better then others and certain times of the day when people were more generous.
 “You want a buys corner,” Miller said. “And you go out at rush hour. There’s more people.”
 Are cold days more lucrative then warm ones; snowy ones more productive then dry ones?
 Do people seem more sympathetic to beggars during inclement weather.
 “No,” Miller said. “Weather doesn’t matter, except that you’re cold or wet.
 He shoots me a glance that says, “How is it an idiot like you has a job and I’m the one living on the streets?”
 According to the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, less then 1 percent of homeless end up begging on street corners. Most of them remain out of sight, and the public likes it that way.
 You don’t see many women or children begging on the street corners, although they’re the fastest growing demographic of the homeless population.
 There were 73,656 homeless men, women, and children living in Chicago in 2006, according to the Coalition, on any given night there are 21,000 people in the city with no place to call home.
 The coalition is working on an estimate of the homeless in 2008, but there’s little doubt the numbers have increased.
 Bob, who was panhandling on Adams just west of Wabash, is a relative newcomer to the streets.
 “I got out of jail 3 months ago,” he said. “They give you about $14 to start your life over again. I have no family, no job, no place to live. How you going to start over again on $14?”
 Bob had less then a dollar in change in his paper cup. And like Miller, he didn’t think much of my questions.
 “What am I doing out here?” Bob said. “It’s like 10 degrees outside. I’m freezing my [behind] off. What’s it look like I’m doing out here?”
 Bob said his goal is to raise enough money to buy a day pass on the blue line, get himself something to eat, and buy himself a “pack of rolls.”
 You mean bread rolls?
 “No,” Bob replied. “Cigarette rolling papers. I roll my own. Can’t afford the packaged kind.
 Bob, 43 said he was arrested for illegal substance. He used to be a glazier, a guy who cuts, installs, and replaces glass windows in residential and commercial buildings.
 “I lost my job when I went to jail,” Bob said. “No one wants to hire a convict. But even if they did, I don’t have a phone, don’t have a home address, and don’t have a car.”
 He spends most nights sleeping on subway trains.
 “They kick you off sometimes, but you can get back on if you have a pass,” Bob said.
 “One thing you should write is that its working stiffs who are the most generous. The lawyers, the people in fur coats, they walk right by.”
 Bob said he avoids the homeless shelters because “they’re overcrowded, they turn people away, and they’re worse then jail in some ways.”
 “The people who run them talk down to you. Treat you like dirt. Order you around.”
 Bob doesn’t want to talk anymore. He says I’m costing him money.
 “If you can’t help me out why should I talk to you?” Bob said. “What’s it worth to me?”
 Time is money weather you work for the Board of Trade, or beg for pocket change.