Early Saturday afternoon, as I got out of the car in the office parking lot, an unkempt woman walked up with the now-tired greeting, “Excuse me, but can I ask you a question?”

Once I nodded, here came what is now becoming a daily scenario. “I’m hungry and I have nowhere to go. Can you give me some money so I can get something to eat?”

Normally I would give somebody in need my last dollar, but I was asked the same question in downtown Chattanooga Thursday afternoon and again on Friday night so when I told Saturday’s beggar, “Not today,” she launched into her spiel about how hungry she was, how pitiful her life had been, and why I needed to change my mind.

I was tempted to give her the sandwich-to-go I carried in my hand, but I was running late and didn’t have time for a debate so I shook my head and interrupted her tale of woe. “I’m sorry, but not today.”

Chattanooga’s homeless are a real problem. There is no one who wants to see anyone suffer, but there is also nobody who wants to endure three straight days of panhandlers on the city streets.

Those wonderful Samaritans who come with their modern-day soup lines to Miller Park mean well and serve such a need, but the poor who are packed in the old Hotel Patten nearby now look at such offerings as a picnic. So often the ones who need it the most are left out.

Once I heard of a guy who was living in his car down by the Farmer’s Market and was using the gutter for his restroom.

When I was asked to take part in a fund drive for the homeless later in the day, I told those who made the request that I was appalled by such squalor and that nobody should use the sidewalk for bodily waste.

“I agree with you. You’re right,” said the doctor who was enlisting my help. “All you need to do is tell that guy in the car where he can go.” And therein lies the rub: he had nowhere to go, which was why he was camped in his car to begin with.

Some say that when we made sweeping reforms in our mental health system some years ago we drove the crazies onto our streets. To care for someone who is nuts costs big money, much more than someone who is in jail, but by turning them away at the hospitals the taxpayer costs are naught.

There are some down near the Aquarium who have turned begging into an art and there are a few so good at it that if we could channel their zeal into the work force, they would probably make somebody fine employees. But that isn’t going to happen because, as the police who chase them away have found, these people suffer often severe mental issues.

Sadly, the sane and savvy beggars have figured out how to apply for welfare, Section Eight housing and the rest. The ones who camp under highway overpasses, in the woods down by the river, and hide in deserted houses aren’t as lucky.

So as we wrestle with where we should tell a guy to go who uses the gutter as his restroom, I wish somebody would tell me how to handle the pitiful people who now approach me almost every day downtown for a handout because – this I promise - they’ll be back tomorrow.

royexum@aol.com