Hey there,
I've been vague-following this issue for a couple years now, been intensely following it for the last few weeks.
WOW. Just...just WOW.
Welcome to the forum and the endless saga of Gene Steinberg.
I can't imagine being the other half of this situation. Okay sure, she's just got out of the hospital etc., but she has to know there's issues. There's no way you're evicted twice in three months and you're not aware that something is very, very wrong. And she's supposed to be younger than he is, right? And she's just...blithely going on and watching TV? She's not been actively trying to improve their situation?
Steinberg's wife has been with him as long as I have been aware of his begging (12 years or more).
Given how long Steinberg has been conning people with his fake emergencies and constant begging I think the possibility that this is a new thing is extremely remote. He was probably doing it before she met him (if not all his life).
She has also been part of a previous begging scam where she was going to use donations to help her start a business.
There is absolutely no way she is not fully aware and complicit in what he has been doing - so I have no sympathy for her.
Also. There's jobs out there where he would never have to leave the comfort of his home. There's work from home call center jobs out the wazoo, all he has to do is Google them. Customer Service Reps. They pay about $8 an hour to start with, depending on the company. There's online transcription work, one of the biggest legal transcription companies in the country is based out of Phoenix, actually. And if you get good enough, you can make decent money. Of course, he'd have to start at the bottom and work his way up, but if he's got good enough hearing to edit his shows, he could do transcription.
Of course there are and for anyone who actually wants to work they are not hard to find - the problem is that they all involve doing actual work and putting effort in order to get paid.
They don't pay you for doing nothing.
What has become clear over the last decade of begging is that Gene is not interested in doing any real work.
He just wants people to give him money without asking questions or expecting him to do anything.
He basically feels that other people should support him and that is his basic starting and end point. Anyone who questions that is labelled a hater or a stalker.
Even on his own podcast he usually finds someone else to do most of the work.
All Gene supplies is unfunny jokes and irrelevant references to his life in the 1960s (none of which have much to do with the show topics), as well as a black hole for 100% of the ad revenue and subscription money to go into (the cohosts get nothing).
Oh and he also uses a stopwatch to countdown the ad breaks (which incidentally ruin the flow of the show and have basically made the show unlistenable over the last few years).
And I said all that to say this; my husband and I are raising two kids on about what he's making a month. We're in the Southeast. Of course, our cars are both paid for, and both of them are well over 10 years old, but you know, it's possible to live decently if you're willing to work.
The difference is that you want to work and pay your way. You are also satisfied to drive old cars and stay within your means.
Gene begs for money on the one hand and then uses it to buy new cars and tech while living in top class apartments which are way out the price range of someone who has no real job.
Then when he can't pay his rent (a frequent occurrence) it is someone else's problem (i.e. all the rest of us who have to put up with his insufferable begging).
Of course there are people who either don't have the education or the ability to get these jobs, people who don't have the internet connection or the knowledge to look for these kinds of jobs, but if he just wants to sit on his butt and talk, or listen (not that he does a lot of that anyway), these kinds of jobs are out there. I know.
Gene could easily do most of these low paid jobs. He just refuses to. No matter what has been suggested to him he always has some excuse why he can't do it. He has said to several people in the past (in rare moments of honesty) that that kind of work is beneath him and he therefore won't even consider it.
At this point, though, anyone in the Phoenix area needs to start watching the exit ramps for an old guy with a sign and a little green man coffee cup...with a what, a VW Jetta discreetly parked about a hundred feet away...
Will never happen.
Gene has always been "on the brink" of being on the street but somehow he always ends up living in a new apartment - who keeps renting accommodation to him when he always gets evicted for not paying rent is one of those amazing mysteries that nobody has yet solved.
Also there is no need for him to beg on the street, he has the email lists for his podcasts to beg on. He also begs guests and pretty much anyone he comes across directly (as his previous cohosts have discussed in the past).
Why stand on a street corner with a cup - when he can use his podcasts and beg from the comfort of his own home?