I was in the subway one day and there was a young guy always panhandling. That morning a lady behind me started yelling at him. She knew him, called him by name, and said he lived in an upscale condo with another woman and they both came from wealthy homes, he was just too lazy to find a job. Another time through my apartment window I watched a guy hide his expensive looking bike in the bushes behind my building, change into ragged clothes and grab a homemade sign, walk across the street and start panhandling all the cars for money. A lot of the panhandlers are pretty well to do people that just don't want to work and would rather get money by begging. I have given actual homeless people food - some were grateful and some complained that they wanted money instead. One time I was in another subway station with a bagel shop. I bought myself a bagel with cream cheese and was anticipating eating it. As I made my way to the bus area a young girl stopped me and begged for food (actually money for food), her sign said she had not eaten in days. I gave her my unopened bagel. As I walked away, out of the corner of my eye I saw her throw it into the garbage. I was ticked, it was a lot of money myself (I had a low income at the time) and was looking forward to eating it, but decided to give it to her since she said she was hungry and I wanted to be nice.