BEGGAR FORCED TO ASK FOR MONEY BECAUSE HE SAYS HE IS BARELY GETTING BY

Rebekah Cavanagh  Herald Sun March 10, 2013

A beggar in Melbourne asks for money to buy food and a room for the night. Picture: Jake Nowakowski Source: Herald Sun

A BEGGAR has challenged Lord Mayor Robert Doyle to live a day in his shoes.

David, 52, who did not wish to give his surname, said he was forced to beg because he could not afford to survive on his $750-a-fortnight disability pension.
"They are saying I can't (beg), so what do they want us to do, start robbing people?" he asked.
"I don't like doing it. It's hard. But it's the last hope."
David was responding to Cr Doyle's call for Melburnians to stop giving beggars money.
"I'm not harming anyone. I just put my sign up and sit quietly," David said. "Every time I get 5c I say, 'Thank you, God bless'."
He added: "I've been abused, spat at, you name it, I've had it all. I've even hit rock bottom and tried to take my own life.

"But I am doing the best I can so I can get a few bucks to get a room for the night so I'm not sleeping on cardboard on the street.
"I'd like to see the Mayor come down off his high pay cheque and try and pay rent, bills and everything else on the pension."
David said the homeless needed more affordable accommodation.
"It's not the food - it's the bed and shelter. They can produce all of these programs to help us, but where are these people going to live?" he said.
"There's that many empty buildings around the city that could be turned into cheap accommodation."
But David says begging should not be made legal, as others have suggested, "because then everyone would be doing it".
Most of the city's beggars rise early from their makeshift beds hidden away in parks and along the Yarra, and spend a good 12 hours trying to collect enough money for food and a room.
David said he got $30 to $40 a day on average. Sometimes it could be as little as $10, or as much as $200.
David has been homeless on and off for 15 years and begs daily. Most weeks, he rents a room for $45 a night once or twice; other nights are spent on the streets.
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/beggar-forced-to-ask-for-money-because-he-says-he-is-barely-getting-by/story-e6frf7kx-1226594286033
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