An intersection proves popular with panhandlers, who measure success in spare change and cigarettes. Putting up with a little harassment, but not from the police, is all in a day's work.
By CASEY CORA
Published July 23, 2006
ST. PETERSBURG -- Dressed in a tattered Army coat and dirty slacks, Don quietly patrols the median on a muggy afternoon, holding up a sign: "Homeless Vet - God Bless."
Some drivers avoid making eye contact as they uncomfortably fiddle with the radio. Some nod a quick "what's up" or say, "God bless you." Sometimes they hand over a buck. Other times, they call him garbage.
"Hell, I don't care," he said in a thick twang behind crooked teeth.
Don, who wouldn't reveal his last name, is a South Carolina native and Vietnam veteran who has panhandled his way through Tennessee, Georgia and his home state.
Now, he's at 54th Avenue S and U.S. 19 in St. Petersburg - a smart location considering the heavy traffic traveling on and off Interstate 275.
He's not alone. The intersection, popular with newspaper hawkers on Sundays, has proven to be just as popular with panhandlers. On some days, all four corners are occupied.
On Wednesday at the northeast corner of the intersection, Matt Kahn sat on a red and chrome bicycle, clutching a folded cardboard sign.
Kahn moved in with his sister a few years ago. She was recently evicted from her place in St. Petersburg.
"That put me on the street," he said.
Someone will scream "Get a job!" as the light turns green, he said.
"Hire me!" he'll counter.
Kahn said he has trouble finding work because his mother has had trouble tracking down his birth certificate in Michigan City, Ind.
It's not that he's lazy, he said. He did plenty of hard work back home. But no birth certificate means no Social Security card, which, Kahn said, means no work.
Don said he was injured in a car accident a few years back. Discs were removed from his back, which makes it hard to hold down steady work.
"I do what I gotta do," he said.
Food and cigarettes, not dollars and cents, are the measure of a day's pay, they said. Cold beers are in order, but only after they call it quits.
"No drinking on the job," Don quipped.
The city takes a lenient approach to vagrancy, arresting only confrontational panhandlers.
"If they're not aggressive, we don't bother them," said police spokesman George Kajtsa.
Don said the police extend courtesy to him. At most, he said, they'll tell him to give it a rest for a while and come back later.
"They're the best police officers in the county," he said.
When a Pinellas County sheriff's cruiser approaches the stoplight, Don salutes him.
No clocks are punched when quitting time approaches. Don said he'll just grab his backpack and go. So will Kahn.
