Social Agencies, Police Battle Panhandling

Social service and law enforcement officials take an unromantic view of panhandling and its practitioners.

Most, they say, are homeless. Many are mentally ill. And many, experts say, use some or all of the alms they collect to support destructive drug or alcohol habits.

“In many instances, (panhandling) is the only mechanism these people have to make ends meet,” said Bob Vilmur, homeless projects coordinator for the city of Los Angeles. “They are made vulnerable by the very fact of their conditions. When you don’t have a predictable place to sleep and you are unsure of where your life is going, you are at the mercy of whatever fortune you run into on an hourly basis. Their existence is rough.”

Not to mention illegal, says Sgt. Rod Luckenbach, the Los Angeles Police Department’s community relations officer for the central area, which includes downtown. “The primary problem is that the majority of them are not well-dressed and present an unsightly view,” he said. “Quite frequently they disrupt the normal flow of pedestrian traffic. It’s quite disturbing to downtown shoppers and those who work there.”

Acting on the complaints of area merchants, he said, police have recently stepped up enforcement efforts, resulting in the monthly arrest of as many as 80 panhandlers in Downtown Los Angeles alone. They are charged with violating a state law that makes panhandling a misdemeanor punishable by up to six months in jail and/or a $1,000 fine.

Such laws made national headlines earlier this month when a federal appeals court declared panhandling in New York City’s labyrinthine subway system a “menace to the common good,” overturning a lower court ruling and upholding a city ban.

The case was brought by a beggar who claimed his panhandling constituted an exercise of free speech, which should be protected by the courts as has been done for religious and charitable organizations soliciting in public places. A similar case, legal experts say, has been filed in San Francisco by a former homeless man, arrested five times for begging in violation of the 1961 California law that forbids accosting others to solicit alms.

Although enforcement of the law has not become a major issue in Southern California, many experts concede there is confusion on how best to react to the rising incidence of panhandling, which they say is keeping pace with the rising rate of homelessness in the area.

Luckenbach says he discourages giving money to beggars because, to do so, he says, rewards them for indulging in a criminal behavior.

Sheila Pagnani, homeless services coordinator for the city of Long Beach, offers the same advice, but for a different reason. “I don’t want to give money to people to support their drug habits,” said Pagnani, who, instead, refers panhandlers to agencies where she knows they will get help.

Vilmur says he generally gives money to beggars as long as they are polite and not overly aggressive.

And Maxene Johnston, president of the Weingart Center Assn., which runs a 600-bed downtown health and human services complex, has hit on what she considers a creative way to satisfy both a pedestrian’s desire to give and a panhandler’s need for help.

For $2.50, her agency sells a coupon to hand to beggars; it is redeemable for a hot meal at Weingart Center.

Since the program began last August, she said, the agency has sold more than $60,000 in coupons, which are being redeemed at a rate of up to 60 a day.

“The program has started an awful lot of people thinking creatively about how to react (to a panhandler) with something other than avoidance or anger,” Johnston said.

“Our premise here is that the problem is not going to go away. We as a community just have to figure out how to manage it differently.”