Benjamin Rogovy of Bumvertising (a scheme to get the word out about Poker Face Book) appeared on the The Daily Show Tuesday night, which may be the best place for him, given the hard-to-take-serious nature of his enterprise.
Here’s some of his flimsy argument.
Bumvertising™ does not take advantage of beggars; it makes them more legitimate. Many homeless advocacy groups argue that Bumvertising™ is terrible for the homeless community at large. So far, their greatest complaints point to the use of the word ‘bum’, the theory that these individuals are being exploited, and the theory that Bumvertising™ contracts make it easier for a person to remain destitute.
Bumvertising™ very well might be exploitation. Instead of bums holding one sign, they are now holding two and getting paid more money, thus exploiting their own talents.
The important thing to remember is that these are individuals entitled to make their own lifestyle choices. The beggars that are able to sell their Bumvertising™ space are coherent, semi-responsible, and are often quite savvy in their own business world. They usually have a good claim on a corner, and understand the fundamentals of high volume, low conversion advertising. Unfortunately, due to alcoholism, drug abuse, and mental illness many of these people have no choice but to be independent contractors, since conventional employers would shy away from them.
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I think any way of hiring a homeless person should be a good thing. I am sure they do not get paid that well for having a sign at the bottom, it’s not like they get paid by the hour (they only get $1-$5 a day plus sandwich and bottle of water for advertising all day long in extreme weather conditions, making a lousy 5 cents an hour to 25 cents per hour, wow, BIG MONEY)…
Now the panhandler is less likely to get spare change from passer-bys as it looks as though they have a “job” advertising, this was the case with “panners” that sold the “Spare Changes” or “Street News” type newspapers (they could get much more money begging without selling papers).
http://www.SpareSomeChange.com is the homeless search engine (poverty link portal) I made.