I say that is crap. If people get hungry enough and poor enough, there isn't a job they won't do. The problem is, you can get money from the government, and that changes the dynamic.
Who would work for a lawn service or as a bus boy when you can get money handed to you?
I can safely say that if I need to buy food and heating, I will do any work that will pay a wage rather than stand by a road with a cardboard sign asking people to give me money.
I will clean filthy urinals or porta-potties. I will pick up sodden cigarette butts with my bare fingers. I swear to God I will do those things, if am physically able, before I will stand by a road and beg with a sign.
Those people should be ashamed of themselves, buy they are beyond that. Especially up here in Massachusetts, I think the town government (Cambridge, for example) actually encourages and organizes the begging. I am not kidding.
They should be damned ashamed. But I will say this: Whenever I see someone, dressed in clothes that are clean, shoes with no holes and no evident disability walking up and down asking for money, I think of this guy below:
I have seen this guy over the years in his wheelchair, usually at the corner of Newbury Street near the Boston Common.
He has a cooler full of soda that someone has stocked for him and a money box. Notice no lock on it.
If you want a soda, you put your money in the slot, and with his one arm that can barely move, he manages to reach over and lit the lid on the cooler. You grab a soda.
I asked him if I could take his picture and post it. He couldn't talked, but nodded his head yes.
When I see a guy like this, providing a service, and making money, however little, I want to kick one of those cardboard sign begging dummies in the rear end.