If you are pathetic enough looking, and on a prime corner, you can pull in $50 to $100 an hour, easily.
Get out of that habit of shaving and taking a bath for a week or so, then stuff a pillow inside your shirt, so you look like a hunchback. Get a set of fake teeth on ebay with gaps and hit it.
Pick your sign text with imagination. Will work for food is out, Vietnam Vet is overused....so go with something like "Lost it all, want to start over"
This should get a buck or five out of the wallets of the upper middle class, who have eaten a shit sandwich themselves on their way up.
A sick friend did this in San Jose California after his wife left him, he lost his job, and home, and almost his life on drugs. He made 10,000 in a month and got going again. Pathetic, I know, but :WTF: if you are desperate, get some shit going