plight of the homeless

Whenever I eat at the low budget Panda Express near my apartment, I almost always get approached by a homeless person. Most eating establishments in L.A. have outdoor eating patio areas of some kind. Sitting outside the Panda Express draws many homeless for some reason. A little while back, a scruffy looking man walked up to me and began talking to me from behind a shrub.
"Got any change?"
"No, I'm sorry. I don't have any change." At least I was being honest.
"Thank you, sir. At least you're nice. Most people ain't nice."
Once I was in McDonald's with my low budget food, and a short little Indian woman approached my table. She stood uncomfortably close to me, and asked me for the Monopoly game pieces from my drink. I told her I collected them, which was a lie. She said, "Oh,...I don't think so." So, I gave her the game pieces that were supposedly "for her kids", just so she would go away. But, that wasn't enough. She thought there was another game piece on my french fry box, so she grabbed the box and started trying to rip the game piece off. Whoa. I have limits.
I've been approached by homeless people that were more of the "insane" persuasion. There's a lovely diner in North Hollywood that I frequent, known as the NoHo diner. Once, my friend Travis and I were leaving after a hearty meal. As we rounded the corner going into the parking lot, we were awkwardly confronted by a scraggled Hispanic man. Most of his teeth were gone, his skin was grundgy, and his tattered flannel shirt must have been sweltering in the summer sun. We had to stop, however, because he was blocking us from our cars. He proceeded to explain to us that he had just gotten out of jail, and he needed to get to Santa Monica. He told us he had learned some terrific jokes while he was in prison for twenty years. His English, by the way, was not the best. He asked us to pick a number in our minds. Then, we had to add, subtract, and multiply that number by certain amounts. Then, at the end, you would have the number he proclaimed. "9!" He was right. Maybe he was psychic, or something. He then told us that we could go into any bar, and really impress the senioritas with that trick.
My friend Les was going to the bank one day, and as soon as he opened his SUV door, and elderly homeless man approached his vehicle. Les couldn't even step out of his car. The man told Les that he needed to borrow some money for the drug store because he was bleeding from the anus.
My friend Ward was at the grocery store one day when a younger man came running up to him in the parking lot. he told Ward that his wife was in the hospital, he desperately needed to get there, and he needed to borrow Ward's car for just a couple of hours. Um...no thanks. There will be no borrowing of cars by weird people in parking lots.
Living around homeless people is just part of the experience of being here. I don't know if there's a perfect way to handle the situation, but Les and I have given homeless people leftover food from our work before. You can at least be concious that they exist, without accomodating their drug habits or helping the problem. Travis used to give them a phone number of a shelter where they could get some help. That's better than giving them thirty five cents, I guess.