This homeless man stays under the 8 Mile overpass on I-75 and accepts credit card donations. (Photo: Mike Campbell/WWJ) 
 
 DETROIT (CBS Detroit) Volunteers in Detroit and across the nation spent the night counting the homeless, and one of those men who lives in the cold is dealing with it in a, shall we say, unusual way. 
 
 He calls himself “Honest Abe” and he panhandles not just for pocket change, but also for the donor’s credit and debit cards. He accepts cards with a reader attached to his cell phone. 
 
 His real name is Abe Hagenston and he’s been homeless in Detroit for seven years or so. The 8 Mile overpass on I-75 is home. 
 
 Looking at that bleak, gray freeway facade with the wind whipping through, one could imagine he’s happy about the relatively mild winter metro Detroit has experienced so far this year. 
 
 Not so fast. 
 
 “It’s not really that easy, what we’re lacking is snow,” Abe told WWJ’s Mike Campbell. “Of course, there’s no snow removal. I used to look forward to that, doing some shoveling.” 
 
 Without the extra cash, he hasn’t made enough money this winter to buy new eyeglasses, he said, and he could use a new prescription. 
 
 But as a bonus, with the extra time Abe says he and a group of fellow homeless have organized themselves “like a union” to panhandle in shifts. He also used the extra time to figure out a way to make donations more efficient. Don’t have any change in your pocket? No problem. 
 
 “I take VISA, MasterCard, American Express,” Abe told Campbell. “I’m the only homeless guy in America who can take a credit card. It’s all done safely and securely through square.com.” 
 
 Square readers attach to credit cards and basically turn a smartphone into a card reader. They cost about $10 and square providers charge vendors a fee per transaction. In the case of itunes, the charge is 2.75 percent per transaction. 
 
 It’s unknown how many homeless occupy Detroit — or how many people have trusted Abe with their credit card information — but last year’s count of people who live on the streets of Detroit included a rough estimate of 2,700. 
 
 This year’s count isn’t ready yet, but people like Stacy Brackins, a case manager with mental health agency Detroit Central City spent the night cruising around town with gloves, hats, sleeping bags to count homeless men and women and try to encourage them to seek shelter. 
 
 Hundreds of volunteers were involved in the count. According to the National Alliance to End Homelessness, the number of homeless in Michigan had declined 6 percent in the most recent report. There were an estimated 578,424 people experiencing homelessness across the country in 2014. 
 
 How many homeless were ready to accept offers of warmth and shelter in Detroit Wednesday night? Some were, others were not. 
 
 “Some, they just don’t want to come inside — they want their freedom,” Brackins told the Detroit Free Press. ||||| (CNN) Forget the old "I don't have change" excuse you give panhandlers. Abe Hagenston has an app for that. 
 
 Well, more like a card reader. He takes credit cards through Square as he works the corner of Woodward Avenue and 8 Mile Road in Detroit. 
 
 Oh, and he has a website too. 
 
 "Being homeless is my business now," Hagenston told CNN affiliate WDIV . "My business is being homeless." 
 
 On the web 
 
 Through his website, people can make contributions to a collection of homeless people, hire them for odd jobs or even report fake panhandlers who drive from the suburbs. 
 
 "I'm trying to turn this situation into something that will not only help me but help others," he said. 
 
 Hagenston's been on the streets for 10 years and goes by the name "Honest Abe." 
 
 "I've rebuilt my life a few times but this time I'm not getting it," he said. "People don't realize how tough it is to come from nothing when you don't have any family or any friends." ||||| A homeless veteran, who received a reward he never expected after he spent his last $20 to help a stranded woman buy gas, now says he wants to touch other people's lives the way his was touched. 
 
 Marine Corps vet Johnny Bobbitt reunited with the woman he helped, Kate McClure, for the first time on TV in a heartwarming interview that aired Sunday on "Good Morning America." 
 
 ABC News 
 
 McClure, 27, has raised more than $360,000 for Bobbitt after he helped her buy gas when her car broke down on the I-95 exit ramp near Philadelphia. 
 
 Bobbitt, 34, said he's been "overwhelmed" by people's generosity. 
 
 "I just got her gas to help her get back on her way. I didn't think anything about it. I wasn't expecting anything in return," he told "Good Morning America." "That's how I got the money to start with -- from other people. [I had to] return the favor. I can't constantly take and not give back." 
 
 A homeless veteran acts as a Good Samaritan 
 
 ABCNews.com 
 
 McClure, who ironically works for the New Jersey Department of Transportation, was driving into Philadelphia's Center City district to meet a friend about two months ago, she told "Good Morning America." 
 
 It was close to midnight and she was driving alone on I-95 when her car ran out of gas as she was on an exit ramp. 
 
 "I pulled over to the side of the road as far as I could and I was going to get out and walk to the nearest gas station because it was not that far away, and that's when I met Johnny," she said. "He walked up and he said, 'Get back in the car. Lock the doors. I'll be back.' I was just like, 'OK." 
 
 McClure couldn't believe what happened next. Bobbitt used $20 he had collected from panhandling that day to buy her gas. He even filled her car up. 
 
 "I almost couldn't believe it," McClure added. "I said, 'Thank you...I swear, I'll be back. I promise I'll be back to give you [the] money back.'" 
 
 ABC News 
 
 McClure said she and her boyfriend, Mark D'Amico, made several visits to Bobbitt at that fateful exit ramp where her car broke down, delivering gift cards, cash and toiletries. 
 
 Then one day, the couple decided to create a GoFundMe to raise money so Bobbitt wouldn't have to spend the upcoming holidays sleeping out on the street. Their initial goal was $10,000. They had no idea that their crowdfunding efforts would eventually total more than $360,000 by Saturday. 
 
 "I wasn't expecting it," Bobbitt said of their generosity. "[I was] just helping someone out...I was glad to offer the help when somebody needed it." 
 
 How a former Marine found himself living under an exit ramp 
 
 ABC News 
 
 Bobbitt is originally from the Raleigh, North Carolina, area. 
 
 As a panhandler in Philadelphia, the homeless veteran is comforted by a few friends who have found themselves in a similar situation. 
 
 But prior to that, he was a paramedic, his Facebook posts depict. 
 
 One post dated September 201, said Bobbitt not only provided "non-emergency transports" as a paramedic, but also "provided advanced life support" ambulance transportation. 
 
 ABC News 
 
 His Facebook posts also detail a relationship gone wrong in 2014 and how hard it was for Bobbitt to recover. 
 
 "Today makes one month apart. Hands down, absolutely the worst month of my entire life," he wrote in November 2014. 
 
 Before becoming a paramedic, Bobbitt had a stint in the Marines where he was an ammunition technician, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer. 
 
 He has now been homeless for more than a year, the newspaper said. 
 
 An unlikely friendship proves fruitful 
 
 ABC News 
 
 Bobbitt and McClure have since formed a friendship. It's been a welcome development for the veteran, who was sleeping under a highway just four days ago. 
 
 In fact, he had to wear sunglasses during his interview on "Good Morning America" Sunday due to an eye infection caused from wearing contact lenses too long while living on the street. "You don't have comforts of home," Bobbitt said. "Normal things become struggle." 
 
 "It does get kind of lonely out there. People treat you differently ... when you're homeless," he admitted. "People don’t look at you the same." 
 
 Bobbitt said McClure and D'Amico, however, "treat me like a regular person." 
 
 With more than 12,000 people donating to Bobbitt to help him get back on his feet, many are wondering what he plans to do with the windfall. Bobbitt said along with securing a place to live, and perhaps buying a used truck, he's thinking long and hard about it. 
 
 ABC News 
 
 "I want to change my life, but you know it just happened," he said. "I need to time to figure it all out." 
 
 McClure, a Florence, New Jersey, resident, has also arranged meetings with a financial planner and a lawyer to help the veteran. 
 
 "I just want to do the right thing," Bobbitt continued, noting that he plans to donate some of the money to organizations that help those in need. 
 
 "This money was given to help me. Why not help other people in similar situations or people that are actively helping other people in different situations?" he said. 
 
 "Everybody out there is facing some kind of struggle, so if I can touch their life, the way mine was touched, [it'd be] an amazing feeling," Bobbitt said. "I want to feel the feeling on the opposite end." ||||| click to enlarge Justin Keller/Twitter 
 
 Man has blog, internet bites him. 
 
 
 
 I am telling you, there is going to be a revolution. People on both sides are frustrated, and you can sense the anger. The city needs to tackle this problem head on, it can no longer ignore it and let people do whatever they want in the city. I don’t have a magic solution… It is a very difficult and complex situation, but somehow during Super Bowl, almost all of the homeless and riff raff[1] seem to up and vanish. I’m willing to bet that was not a coincidence. Money and political pressure can make change. So it is time to start making progress, or we as citizens will make a change in leadership and elect new officials who can. 
 
 the marketplace of ideas 
 
 @FitzTheReporter @RoyMcKenzie look at the headlines of your paper. We as citizens are concerned about out safety. pic.twitter.com/RAodbFVbhP — Justin Keller (@johnny5sf) February 17, 2016 
 
 @MadMaxFlapper @FitzTheReporter @RoyMcKenzie I'm not a rand rich dude. I ride the bus 2 work. I went to a state coll. I live in a studio apt — Justin Keller (@johnny5sf) February 17, 2016 
 
 @edzitron @w2crystallake I am asking for change. I am asking for the city to address the problem. No longer ignore it. Your vilifying me? — Justin Keller (@johnny5sf) February 17, 2016 
 
 Justin Keller is no Greg Gopman. He did not live in city-subsidized affordable housing while calling the city's homeless "hyenas," all before morphing into the self-appointed savior of San Francisco street people.He's not even a Peter Shih — he did not write a listicle calling the city's women "49ers" (in Shih's world — that is: 2013 — that could have been a compliment; it's every kind of bad now).But Justin Keller, startup founder , is a tech guy. And he has a blog. And he's a tech guy who on Monday typed out an ill-advised lament in which he states, in the three years he's been a San Franciscan, he has become increasingly alarmed by the "homeless and drug problem that the city is faced with" — which means that he's now and forever in the same category as Gopman and Shih, whose rants about city life earned them internet scorn."I’ve been living in SF for over three years, and without a doubt it is the worst it has ever been," he wrote, in what he describes as an "open letter" to Mayor Ed Lee and SFPD Chief Police Suhr (because homelessness is a political and law enforcement problem, natch)."Every day, on my way to, and from work, I see people sprawled across the sidewalk, tent cities, human feces, and the faces of addiction. The city is becoming a shanty town… Worst of all, it is unsafe."He went on. And so did the rest of us , on Twitter and elsewhere, where Keller has earned the all-too predictable scorn. First, a reminder: while anecdotes and the number of tents on 13th and Division streets suggest that San Francisco's ever-present homeless problem has become noticeably worse in the past several years, statistically, things are the same: The "official number" of street people in our fair city has hovered around 6,500 for the past decade. (Plenty of homeless advocates beef with that figure; considering that the city's school district counts over 2,000 homeless kids in public school, it's almost certainly low.)But that's not news to you. And it wasn't news to Keller, who says that his motivation for the post was to draw attention and take action — and not sit silently by, like all of us hardened San Francisco citizens now taking him to task.Keller, he writes, had his parents and other family in town for the long weekend. While he reports "countless times that we were approached for money and harassed," Keller was driven to the blogging point by a series of incidents: one at the Tadich Grill, one outside, and the denouement at the Sundance Kabuki movie theater. You can read it for yourself, but the gist is: Keller encountered people, who may have been intoxicated, who were yelling or taking their shirts off or shoving people, and he and his people were "terrified."He makes no mention of the causes of homelessness or what San Francisco has done in the last decade to address it, only to be stuck at the starting point — he just asks someone to please do something.There's a real possibility that Keller is trolling us. We are, after all, easily trolled, and our reaction is a total troll's reaction, bro. But there's an earnestness about Keller that leads us to believe he's being honest... even as he slogs through unintentional irony (such as his Super Bowl comment below.)Showing off his liberal arts education, he finishes with a flourish, name-checking Plato'sand noting that Socrates warned us that we're headed towards tyranny. Or something.He has, predictably, spent the last 14 hours or so defending himself onTwitter. Now that's tyranny.Can a startup guy install blog software that comes with a warning that noticing and then blasting a longstanding, well-noted, and clearly difficult-to-solve societal ill is neither original nor wise nor productive? We'd invest in that.At press time, Justin Keller was still a tech guy, Mayor Ed Lee was still mayor, and neither homelessness nor mental illness had been solved. Check back in the next decade for updates.
– It's been a mild winter in Detroit, which means less snow for Abe Hagenston to shovel, and he could certainly use the income, CBS Detroit reports. Instead, Hagenston—who's been homeless for a decade—used his free time to set up a website and buy a credit-card reader, according to CNN. “Being homeless is my business now,” the 42-year-old tells WDIV. “My business is being homeless.” CBS reports the card reader from Square costs about $10 and works with any smartphone. It means Hagenston now accepts Visa, MasterCard, and American Express while panhandling, so people who tell him they don't have any change need a new excuse. Visitors to Hagenston's website get a welcome video from "Honest Abe" and can make donations to him or other homeless people who've signed up on the site or hire them for odd jobs, CNN reports. According to WDIV, Hagenston updates the site at the public library. "I’ve rebuilt my life a few times," he says. "People don’t realize how tough it is to come from nothing when you don’t have any family or any friends." In addition to the website and card reader, Hagenston is trying to organize fellow panhandlers "like a union," CBS reports.