A homeless man crouched alongside the Wilshire Boulevard offramp of the southbound Harbor Freeway on Wednesday morning.

     Apart from the boilerplate words ''hungry'' and ''homeless,'' his neatly lettered sign tried a different pitch. It read:

     ''Will Vote for Change.'' [The word ''change'' was actually a ''cents'' symbol but perhaps because of inflation, there is no ''cents'' symbol on my keyboard any more.]

    If the light hadn't changed to green at that exact moment, I'd have given the guy a buck just for ingenuity. He's homeless -- he's not stupid.