I see these folks as human beings.  I have varying amounts of respect for them on kind of a sliding scale.
 I was driving a same old route to work and always got stopped at a certain light in the far left lane.  I was maybe always about 15 feet from a young lady with a cardboard sign saying the usual stuff.  one day I asked her if she knew which generation of her family came to America,   from where. i caught her off guard,  she answered her grandparents, and from Romania.  I asked here if she knew what sacrifices that generation of her family made to get to America, what they did without, how they must have worked their tails off to make enough money to get out of romania....the getting over here in itself on a often seasick ride....and here she is not 100 yrs later begging on a corner by choice.  
 she didn't face me for a few weeks and then disappeared.  3 months later she was standing at the corner, looking a little more put together and she was working! showed  me her paycheck .