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Cities try to contain panhandling problem

ATLANTA — In recent years, an increasing number of cities around the country have developed ordinances that restrict panhandling. Concerns about its effect on quality of life, safety, tourism and business are the main reasons.

Crackdown efforts include limiting begging to daylight hours, barring it from certain areas and from being done while on drugs or alcohol, and ticketing or fining panhandlers and requiring them to have licenses.

JOHN SPINK/Cox News Service (enlarge photo) Eugene Hall offers Maggie Hughley a flower before helping her find her bank near Peachtree Center on Friday. He lives on the streets but says he never asks directly for money.

Baltimore has specific restrictions, but its Downtown Partnership is using its Make a Change campaign to discourage panhandling and encourage would-be givers to donate to social service agencies.

All the proceeds from collection boxes in downtown business, hotels and other public places will go to the city's homeless services program.

"It's really a carrot and stick approach," said Mike Evitts, a partnership spokesman. "What we want to do is take the money out of panhandling and apply it to areas of need."

Des Moines, Iowa, bans soliciting to or from a motor vehicle or in public libraries or the city's skywalk system, and has begun testing police panhandling patrols.

Sgt. Todd Dykstra, a Des Moines Police spokesman, said he has heard only positive things about the pilot program now in its second week.

"We have a problem with the homeless, public drunkenness and the problems they cause," Dykstra said. "I know they [the panhandling patrol] have had a large impact on keeping these folks in check."

Such anti-panhandling efforts, however, haven't gone unchallenged.

Over the years, First Amendment and homeless advocates have waged successful battles in support of panhandlers' right to free speech.

Courts have struck down as too broad laws in cities including Austin and Minneapolis. New York City also has been successfully sued over its panhandler policies. Indianapolis' restrictions, however, have been upheld.

Some cities have had to revise their ordinances to avoid infringing on the free speech rights of panhandlers.

Tulin Ozdeger of the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty considers the get-tough efforts wrong-headed.

She praised cities, such as Madison, Wis., that have taken less punitive routes. Madison, she said, launched an outreach program instead of passing an ordinance.

"These laws aren't very productive in dealing with the issue of poverty and homelessness," said Ozdeger, a civil rights lawyer. "Unfortunately, we've seen more and more cities turning to these kinds of measures mostly as a result of business and community concerns about panhandling."

S.A. Reid writes for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. E-mail: sereid@ajc.com