A Tough Ask: Are Panhandlers After a Hand Out, Or a Hand Up?

Differing views on an increasingly obvious problem across the streets of pandemic-hit America

Women walk by a panhandler along Madison Avenue, one of Manhattan's premier shopping and residential streets in this 2011 file photo taken in New York. Spencer Platt/Getty Images

COTTONWOOD, Ariz.—Catherine Schwab of Michigan sat in a folding chair holding a cardboard sign in the dry heat of the afternoon sun.

“Please Help,” the sign in magic marker said.