Panhandling increases in North Suffolk

Al Rogerson, 75, says he doesn’t like accepting charity.

“I know other people are worse off than me,” he said, sitting on an overturned five-gallon bucket in the grassy island of a Wal-Mart parking lot in North Suffolk. With a scruffy beard and wearing layered flannel shirts, Rogerson holds a handwritten cardboard sign that reads “American Vet.”

Rogerson, who says he was a Navy corpsman from 1961 to 1965, says he managed motels in Newport News and Chesapeake until medical problems forced him to quit four years ago. Now he rents a room from his grandson in Western Branch and struggles to get by on $100 a month in food stamps and his Social Security check.

“Food is my No. 1 priority,” Rogerson said. “I have to be out here to make ends meet.”

“If I’m out here every day all day, I might get $600 a month … but I can’t come out here in the cold weather,” said Rogerson, nursing a cup of black coffee. He has panhandled off and on for the past four years, first around Chesapeake Square and more recently, in the Harbour View West Shopping Center parking lot.

Rogerson is one of a growing number of panhandlers that have popped up in medians throughout the thriving Harbour View community in recent months. The issue has prompted growing concern among business owners, residents in the affluent Harbour View communities and city leaders.

On Friday, five panhandlers were in medians on corners in the Harbour View area, mostly in the retail corridor off College Drive.

Jason Calamusa, 39, staked out a spot in front of Kroger Marketplace, at the corner of University Boulevard and College Drive, early Friday morning. Calamusa, who says he is temporarily staying with his mother in Huntersville, said he is panhandling to earn money for a train ticket to join friends in Florida next week.

Calamusa says he doesn’t ask people for money. On a sign taped to a street sign, Calamusa has written a rambling note over several pieces of cardboard, saying, among other things, that he is not a “bum.” As cars drive by, Calamusa writes in a notebook or plays his recorder unless someone speaks to him.

“I don’t ask for anything,” Calamusa said. “If it’s in their heart to help me out, they will. I’m not sweating anything … I have faith.”

Some days are more lucrative than others, he said. One day last week, he collected $100 in 60 minutes; on another day, he pulled in $10 over three hours.

While he is willing to work a “temporary, under-the-table” job, Calamusa says he’s not interested in anything permanent, because he receives disability and he usually lives a transient lifestyle.

Calamusa said he has panhandled in cities around the country on his travels.

“If they don’t want us, they need to make a law,” he said.

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