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I donate to a number of charities to that cater to the homeless, but I never give money to panhandlers. I always say, "Sorry, nothing for you" when asked. It's relatively honest. I have money, but none for them. I don't feel obligated by the asking. I generally find panhandling to be rude, but I understand that they have a right to ask me for money and I have a right to say no.
I've often heard that people "don't see" the panhandlers. I see the people standing on the side of the road with signs, but I feel no obligation to look at them any more than I would feel an obligation to look at anyone else.
On a separate issue, people often use "the homeless" and "panhandlers" interchangeably. Of course, they're not. Panhandlers likely represent a small fraction of the homeless. We don't see many of the homeless simply because they're not the ones asking us for change. Somewhere I've seen stats...
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