Commence the Rant
I live in a very nice, warm oceanside community. A small town really that just happens to be on the Monterey Bay and is both beautiful and temperate.
We're close to the Silicon Valley (of Death) and only a little further away from San Francisco and all its joys. Napa is a few hours drive, Tahoe's about the same, maybe a little further. Monterey's just down the coast, Carmel and Big Sur just beyond it by an hour or two.

I live in a great place and I'm thankful for it everyday.

What I'm totally getting sick and tired of isn't politically correct to talk about but I really couldn't give a shit. Its the hassle of walking through our downtown area. Its the pain in the ass of having to work your way through packs of beggars, homeless people, discharged mental patients without a place to go and younger folk intent on having a shitty life on the street and spending every last nickel they beg to insert ever more metal into their faces, testicles and assholes. Oh yeah, they also spend that money they guilt people out of on tattoos and safety pins to hold their tattered crappy black leather jackets together. And stink cover because they don't bathe very often or very well.

Its becoming more of a pain in the ass to walk downtown than the hassle in being dragged over a field of broken glass.
Why?
Because our beggars are snobs.
Our beggars, for the most part, are not really snobs and are genuinely happy to get whatever handouts they can.
But some of them seem to have some utterly misguided concept about their place in the universe. Some of them have been begging so long they thought they should get a raise. Some of them no longer ask for "spare change, sir?", some of them now say, "Do you have a spare dollar or two, sir?" or the obvious heroin addict outside the bank, "Can you spare $20?"

Um, let me put this is gently as possible. NO. FUCK NO. ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR FUCKING MIND NO.
Begging and greed are typically two opposite ends of the spectrum but leave it to the twisted stupidities of the homeless malt liquor set to decide they should be and could be getting more if they aim higher and go for paper money instead of spare change.

I may seem unsympathetic or cold or whatever other label you want to attempt to smear me with but I've seen real poverty. I've lived among people that truly had no choices. There were no jobs for them.
The beggars and homeless people in Santa Cruz are, by and large, lazy fucks who want to skim their livelihood off the top and out of people's change purses. I see the same lazy bastards in the same places, always smoking cigarettes, always needy but never doing a damned thing for themselves. They sit and wait and try to look as forlorn as possible so that people can feel good about themselves for helping another lazy degenerate asshole get drunk in the middle of the day.

I've had it with beggars. I'm as cold as can be with them. Especially the part time begging dicks who aren't homeless and may even have a job. They beg to supplement their income. They just ask people in an offhand way, "Hey, can you spare some change?" to which my response is to look them in the eye and say "No, no I don't have any spare change, I need my money for my own life and needs." and silently, to myself I'll add, "Why in the fuck do you think I work? Why would I want to take the money that I work for and give it to you for doing nothing but polluting my town with your piss on my building, your stink on my sidewalks and your bulk in my way. Why would I ever want to encourage you to beg more, to steal pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters from people who EARN it? Who work, who contribute to the functioning system known as society. Why would I ever want to give you money so that you can sit around with your loser pals drinking 40's of St. Ides Malt Liquor so you can get stumbling drunk at 10 in the morning and be assholes to everyone within earshot? Why would I want to give you any of my money that I trade my time and effort for? You do nothing, you contribute nothing, you are a parasite on society and you are worth almost nothing now. Get up off your lazy ass, get a job, get your own God damned money."

But no, that would be wrong or rude or something. Not that the predominance of beggars aren't rude fucks behind your back, laughing at you for being stupid enough to give them money. They do, I've seen it. To which I say, fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me. And you will not fool me twice, ever.

[Update: I was thinking that it might be amusing to propose a test to a beggar to see if they can "earn" whatever change they are asking for. Ask them a question that most people should know or shouldn't know. See if they're engaged in the universe or whether they're lost in their own little world. Just a thought.]