A day with a Philadelphia panhandling 'sign-flier'

When the enviable spot on the median strip of Columbus Boulevard across from the Walmart was vacated in the fall, Samantha leaped at the opportunity.

For a decade, two homeless men, Guy Thompson and Charlie Levy, had reported there for duty without fail. Thompson would push Levy's wheelchair onto the concrete island between abandoned trolley tracks, and they would take out their cardboard signs and settle in for another moderately lucrative day, conducting the time-tested if not honored business of panhandling.

"Those two?" said Samantha, a single mother and recovering heroin addict. "They made money."

And now, so does she.

Enough to pay the $50 a week for a room in a nearby building with no running water or electricity. Enough to supplement her monthly $150 food-stamp allowance. Enough to send spare cash to help support her two children, who live with their paternal grandmother in Florida.

One tar-melting July afternoon, four hours into her 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. shift, Samantha prepared for a fresh round of solicitation. She smoothed the white headband pulling her blond hair tightly off her face and took a sip of Sprite from a plastic McDonald's Monopoly cup. Then she pulled a ratty cardboard sign from a stack in her backpack.

"When the cops take one away, I have backup," she explained. Her pitch: "Single mother lost apartment needs help with motel room. Anything helps. Thank you. Bless you."

Samantha, who declined to give her last name because it would embarrass her parents, is a "sign-flier," the most recent parlance for panhandling. Like many others who rely on this approximation of self-reliance, she struggles with addiction. But she is neither homeless nor flagrantly mentally ill.

The light turned red. Samantha dipped her head. "I look down most of the time," she said. "I guess because I'm ashamed."

Holding the sign against her chest, she walked past a few cars, giving the drivers time to consider. They all stared ahead, avoiding eye contact.

Indifference she understands. It's hostility that upsets her: "Crack whore, druggie," and worse.

Once traffic started moving, she plodded back to her starting point, waiting for the light to change again, repeating the pattern for hours on end, timed to the city's rhythmic breath.

Business has been slow. Normally during the summer, she brings home $40 a day. So far this day, she had collected only $10.

During peak generosity season, from Thanksgiving to Christmas, she often pockets several hundred dollars in a shift.

A spindly 5-foot-7, Samantha, 35, is missing most of her teeth except for a few decayed stubs. Delicately featured, her fair skin scorched and dry, she wore pink Converse sneakers, clean cotton shorts, and an aqua T-shirt.

Taking a break to grant an interview, she left her belongings on the median and crossed the road to find a shady spot. She limped slightly, having twisted her ankle trying to walk the train track like a balance beam.

Samantha grew up in South Philadelphia, the youngest of four girls. Both her parents worked two jobs - her father primarily in printing, her mother as a dental assistant.

In high school, Samantha's beauty was striking, her mother said. "She looked like a model."

As a cosmetology student, she worked briefly at a high-end salon, her mother said, but was intimidated by the customers and quit.

In her 20s, Samantha fell in love with an addict and moved south. They had four babies - one stillborn, two now with their grandmother in Florida, and one put up for adoption at birth.

In her most recent attempt to get clean, Samantha returned to Pennsylvania for rehab. She stayed sober for eight months, working in fast-food restaurants, before relapsing.

Her parents still try to help her. Once a month, they take her to an IHOP for her favorite meal - breakfast for dinner - where she always orders chocolate chip pancakes.

For a year, her parents shuttled her to a methadone clinic in West Philadelphia, until for reasons muddled in Samantha's recounting, she was booted from the program.

Samantha inherited her current prime sign-flying spot last fall, after running into Levy pushing himself in the wheelchair.

"I asked him, 'Where's Guy?' And he told me he died." The coroner recorded Thompson's cause of death Oct. 22 as "drug intoxication - accidental." He was 58.

Samantha had coveted the intersection for its long lights, spacious median, and busy traffic. But she respected their territory.

Two weeks after Thompson's death, Levy stopped showing up. Only then did she set up shop.

Panhandling is legal in the city as long as it is not aggressive or a threat to public safety. Even though she stays on the median, Samantha said, police find ways to ticket her.

Municipal Court records show she has been cited at least 35 times in the last two years, almost always for "highway obstruction."

According to the records, over the last 10 years, her predecessors, Levy and Thompson, had several drug-possession charges, but none for highway obstruction, loitering, or other panhandling-related violations.

Police spokesman Sgt. John Stanford said there was no clear explanation for the difference in the number of citations. "Perhaps it is based on the type of complaints initiated from citizens," he said.

A spokesman for the Third District said that because Columbus Boulevard is heavily trafficked, officers try to keep panhandlers from putting themselves and motorists in danger.

Enough passersby take pity on Samantha to keep her going. (Occasionally, her father's cardiologist stops to give her money.)

Her mother prays, with diminishing confidence, that Samantha will return from the street.

"I'm really afraid I'm going to lose her," she said.

Samantha is afraid, too. Her plan to avoid that?

"Hopefully, I am going to stay clean and sober, move back to Florida, get a job, and be back with my kids. That's my plan."

She stood, apologizing for ending the interview.

"I have to get back to work," she said. "My rent is due tomorrow morning."