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submitted 1 day ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[-] [email protected] 20 points 1 day ago

So apparently around Los Angeles there's a supposed begging "cartel", wherein some of the folks who beg at stoplights and freeway off ramps are actually working for an organized ring. The way it was explained was that this group takes the lionshare of their donations and offer protection, food, and safe sleeping areas. I don't know how true this is, but I've heard it from quite a few unrelated people, one of which being a cop, so either there's some truth to it or it's a very elaborate hoax to get people to stop giving beggars money.

[-] [email protected] 3 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago)

This is insane peak capitalism at work. Paying "donations" to an organized group to provide food and shelter is literally just recreating what the government should be doing with taxes. If this cartel is real, it's just criminalized socialism.

As long as they're not hurting anyone, I'm not against it, but that's just such a batshit crazy concept that that's where we're at with the world.

[-] [email protected] 17 points 1 day ago

Not even homeless people can escape landlords

[-] [email protected] 13 points 1 day ago

That sounds like an urban legend. The Sherlock Holmes story “The Man With the Twisted Lip” includes a wealthy man who had made his money by begging. The “beggar king” trope goes back further than that, and as far as I can tell it’s just a comfortable fiction to excuse society’s failure to care for its most vulnerable members.

[-] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago

It does happen in some third world countries. Not sure for LA though.

[-] [email protected] 16 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

In India, this kind of thing is common, especially when the beggars are children.

[-] [email protected] 6 points 1 day ago

One of the story arcs of Slumdog Millionaire.

[-] [email protected] 11 points 1 day ago

Pretty sure that it is one of those things that does happen rarely, but people tend to assume everyone is doing it as an excuse to dismiss the homeless problem.

this post was submitted on 06 Jul 2025
91 points (83.7% liked)

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