I’ve known a number of homeless folks, and not a single one has made anywhere near that flying a sign, but plenty of them have had everything they owned trashed by the cops, who also confiscated any cash because the homeless folks “couldn’t explain where they got it.”

That sounds like an urban legend. The Sherlock Holmes story “The Man With the Twisted Lip” includes a wealthy man who had made his money by begging. The “beggar king” trope goes back further than that, and as far as I can tell it’s just a comfortable fiction to excuse society’s failure to care for its most vulnerable members.

Got kids? Percy Jackson (and the other Rick Riordan written) series are great. Older kids? Get them reading chuck wendig or Margaret Killjoy.

Introduce yourself to Kafka and Marquez and Butler and Morrison and so many other great great writers who make JK Rowling look like the utter hack she is.