Transients in Montana... (Billings, Bozeman, Helena: motorhome, to buy, camps)

[AQHA]

Why do we have transients in Montana??? I was driving to Home Depot in Helena the other day, when I passed Wal-Mart I saw two guys out there working the corners. If I were a transient I'd pick a warmer state! This would be a terrible place to be a street walker.

Some of these guys are former vets, I would actually like to buy them a meal or something, but I never know which ones are real vets and which ones are just making it up to increase the profit margin.

[georgiainwyo]

Originally Posted by AQHA

Why do we have transients in Montana??? I was driving to Home Depot in Helena the other day, when I passed Wal-Mart I saw two guys out there working the corners. If I were a transient I'd pick a warmer state! This would be a terrible place to be a street walker.

Some of these guys are former vets, I would actually like to buy them a meal or something, but I never know which ones are real vets and which ones are just making it up to increase the profit margin.

When I lived in Billings there seemed to always be guys out by Walmart there, too. There were also often ones at the exits of the interstate. If I had a bottle of water or a unopened pop with me I would hand it to them and at least feel like I was giving them something, but I also wondered why they were there and whether they were truly in dire straits.

Now that I live in Gillette, it's totally different. I haven't seen ONE person panhandling and I've been here for almost 9 months. I've been told that the people of Gillette won't stand for people panhandling here because there are so many jobs available that there is work for anyone who is willing to work. The lower paid jobs (fast food, car wash, etc.) all were paying $9.00 and up last I knew. Things have slowed down some here, but there are still jobs. Some businesses had to close during part of the day for awhile because they couldn't find enough employees. So I guess my conclusion is that these people are where the economy isn't as good, but I don't know. I do know that it's just weird that in moving here we didn't see anyone with cardboard signs or with makeshift homes under the bridges.

[AQHA]

I saw a guy at Walmart one day walk from the corner he was working to his car. The car was a late model car in nice shape. Not a bad deal he has going, every bit of money he makes is tax free. Even if he's only pulling in 15 or 20 dollars an our its a pretty good take. The overhead would be next to nothing, all you would need is some dirty cloths and a cardboard sign saying, "Military vet, need money for food. God Bless."

[Redraven]

What makes you so sure they are "transients"? Most of the ones I see here in Billings are pretty much permanent residents, seems to me. At least it appears to be the same person (yes, women as well as men) on the same corner day in and day out. So far, to the best of my knowledge, there haven't been any "turf wars", but I expect to see a news article any day about a fight over whose corner it is!
I read somewhere that these folks can make up to $500 or more in just a few hours of standing there with a cardboard sign!
I must admit, I have thought about making a sign that says "Viet Nam Vet, needs gas to get out of your town", then park my 15 year old motorhome in the Walmart parking lot and sit beside it with a plastic bucket and my little dog, wearing my cammy field jacket with the Electric Strawberry on it.
Maybe the Costco lot would be better...

[AQHA]

Yes, you've got to have a dog, that pulls on people heart strings. The dog could increase the profit margins by 30 percent easy.

[Redraven]

Yeah, but which would be best, the Beagle, the Corgi, or the Pomeranian?

[Rickers]

As a person who has spent a few years homeless as a young person learning the hard way, I really don't have much sympathy for most of them (Although I did give my jacket to a homeless guy once). I use the word sympathy rather than empathy because I've been there and done that. Many of the hard core homeless have been exiled from homeless shelters because of intolerable behavoir induced by drugs, booze and good old fashoned mental illness of some sort.

[AQHA]

But why Montana? Its cold here.

[Timberwolf232]

Cold = sympathy. Sympathy = Money. I gave a guy a sandwich from my lunch a year or so ago, and he threw it back at me and called me an @## hole. His sign said "Hungry, anything helps."

On the other side, I was helping push a car in Bozeman a few weeks ago that had died in an intersection and one of them came and helped without holding their hand out after we got the car moved. Seemed like a nice guy.

[Rickers]

Easy picking here and not much competition from other homeless people stealing shoes and hobnobbing in the middle of the night for your money at the homeless camps in the river beds and under bridges in the warmer climates. Most homeless you'll See in Montana either come up for the summer or live in the bleeding heart shelters, where they can get a bed and a free meal and may or may not have to listen a bit of preaching. Many don't want any help and most of the street island panhandlers are junkies and are playing the public. Please discourage this behavior by yelling "get a job" and do not give them money. Believe me they will put your "spare change" in in their bodies in the form of heroin or booze and not food. Force these misfits into programs and don't let them turn Montana into another freebie zone (Thinking of Portland Oregon), enabling their misbehavior.