Affordable Housing Institute : US

Every day I walk past panhandlers.  I never give them money.

 

 

Because some stories are inherently implausible

 

Why don’t I?  Because I doubt that it will do any good.  As I wrote back then:

 

A dozen winos (as we would have called them in my youth) frequent the sidewalks between my subway stop and my office.  Perhaps it’s because the adjacent St. Anthony Fraternity, they are usually found across the street, drinking Listerine, eating handouts provided by the local 7-11, and urinating in loading docks. 

 

St. Anthony’s Shrine, on my walk to work

 

Sometimes a friar is earnestly trying to break through the inebriated shell to find the divine spark within.  Occasionally the EMS technicians are loading someone into a medical van.  Always the same ones come back, with new bruises, new blotches, new bandages and ankle supports. 

 

I don’t know who is helped by this cycle. 

 

Not only do the same bludgeoned faces recur, they are present only on weekdays.  Weekends when I come to the office, the winos are gone.  Their personal hell runs a route though hazy.

 

That’s the issue, isn’t it, any time you are confronted with a possible charitable intervention.  How do you know it will do any good?  When it comes to donor entities, be they global multilaterals or small local charities working with community groups, the question you ask is, will it do any good? 

 

What the donor always fears

 

For in addition to the question of what they will do with the money, there’s another possibility — they could be a fraud, preying on your humanity, as demonstrated by this article from

Boston Now:

 

Published on January 14, 2008

Matthew Wilding BostonNOW Staff

The question is seemingly high-minded and simple: “Will you help fight racism?”

 

Who could be against that?

 

Well, glad that’s cleared up

 

But much is wrong with the band of young men who swarm pedestrians walking through the streets of Downtown Crossing asking the question.

 

What do they really want? The answer is money - specifically, cash.

 

It’s a feature of capitalism that it enables any grievance to be converted into money, and hence to be quantified. 

 

Start at one, and keep counting up

 

Although it has bizarre secondary consequences (cf. tort litigation), most times this is a clear benefit.  Here it invites a simple guilt shakedown.

 

They call themselves the “Free the World Association.”  The association as an actual entity doesn’t exist.

 

It’s a fairly simple case of non-presence

 

It isn’t registered with the Attorney General’s Office’s Division of Public Charities, and according to the Boston Assessing Office, its [alleged — ed.] office address was knocked down years ago to make way for Suffolk University dorms at 141 Tremont St.

 

To add charm to their approach, there’s a fair chance if you rebuff the group’s not so thinly veiled attempt to shame you into giving money, you’ll be loudly branded a racist.

 

An extortive tinge often accompanies some of the less reputable charitable asks.  In Nairobi, I was warned not to drive with the windows open, lest someone threaten to toss a bag of HIV-infected blood into the car.

 

Another pushbutton approach

 

Andrew Kelly, a frequent solicitor for “Free the World,” approaches people from the Corner Mall to Faneuil Hall, he says, in hopes of raising money for the group’s after-school anti-racism program.

 

There’s the beauty of such a scam — if the cover story is pushbutton, the typical mark accepts it on face value.  Suspension of reason brought on by a threatening appeal to guilt.

 

Kelly - who on other occasions introduced himself as Michael Brown, Joe, and a slew of other names - and at least two others have continued to solicit downtown shoppers for more than three years, often within shouting distance of the Downtown Crossing police booth.

 

Still, Boston police say they are not familiar with the group.

 

“None of [the officers working at Downtown Crossing] have any knowledge of this group. They may have fallen through the cracks,” said Capt. Bernard P. O’Rourke, commander of area A-1, which includes Downtown Crossing.

 

 

Easy enough to hide in plain sight here

 

They probably have.

 

But Chris Fijal, assistant manager of Casual Male XL’s Downtown Crossing location, is quite familiar with the routine.

“One of them stopped in front of me and said ‘you don’t look like a racist’ and then he went into his spiel about anti-racist training for at-risk youth.”

 

 

You don’t give me money = you’re a racist.  Compact and effective.

 

Three times in my life, I’ve given panhandlers money.  One was in Washington, on Capitol Hill, where a fellow in red-checked flannel and blue jeans told a story of having his car break down and needing to get back to West Virginia.  I gave him ten bucks because he seemed so totally lost and out of place.  Another was in downtown Boston, miserable winter day, when a visibly distraught teenager told a story of his pregnant girlfriend needing to get back to Maine on the bus.  Was I right to do so?  Was I conned?  One always wonders.

 

Making this tale particularly discouraging is that Matthew Wilding wrote exactly the same story about exactly the same scam artists a year ago, for a different free paper (the Weekly Dig), and reposted it to his blog:

 

If you haven’t heard of the Free the World Association, you’ve probably heard the pitch. Representatives of the group approach pedestrians in Downtown Crossing to solicit donations for their after-school programs, which are supposedly aimed at eradicating racism in our fair city. They wield clipboards and a laminated informational sheet littered with grammatical errors and bizarre philosophical bedfellows (the Quakers and Marcus Garvey are listed as inspirations). After giving you a quick look at the sheet, which you’re not allowed to take with you, they ask you for a donation. And if you want a receipt, you’re shit out of luck.

No receipt?

One of the FWA canvassers, who’s been working the Crossing for two years and goes by the name “Thomas Brown,” told me the fundraising was to purchase things like notebooks and pencils for the kids at their center, which, according to the group’s literature, is situated at 9 Temple Place. Brown was quick to mention that although the center is not currently operational, it will be open again soon.

“The more money you give, the quicker we can get it rolling again,” he told me.

What a great argument!

According to the city Assessing Office, however, 9 Temple Place doesn’t actually exist.

 

“Do you guys work with the public schools?” I asked Brown. “Yeah, we work with the schools,” he said. But following an inquiry to the Boston Public Schools, I was redirected to Boston Centers for Youth and Families. “We don’t know who these people are,” said spokesperson Sandy Holden. Holden also pointed out that even though Boston‘s after-school programs are decentralized, if an organization was working with them, the BCYF would know about it.

One of FWA’s trainees, with Brown present, also assured me that the Free the World Association is a nonprofit.  [Trainees! — Ed.]  This claim, too, is bogus. According to the secretary of state’s office, with which all Massachusetts nonprofits must register, there is no organization registered under the name “Free the World Association” or anything even resembling it.

One must ruefully admire the organization required to coordinate such a small scam.

 

 

I can’t believe I fell for that trick

Finally, later attempts to reach Brown via phone were unsuccessful, as the number he gave me actually belongs to a local tile and ceramics contractor who told me he’s not affiliated with the group.

While unwitting rubes in for the holiday shopping season fall prey to the FWA, employees of the Corner Mall and surrounding stores aren’t having it. An employee of Champs Sports (who requested anonymity) claimed, “I’m new to this store, but management told me that they were running some kind of scam about racism or something when I got here. I’d love to see them gone. They harass our customers.”

 

In the larger global context, for customer, read ‘donor foundation.’  For scam artist, read ‘corrupt government body’?

 

 

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