In Dispute / SEEKING CREATIVE LOCAL...
Our mind’s-eye image of the homeless is changing. No longer do we think of an elderly woman bundled up in a tattered coat and pushing a shopping cart. Instead, we see a youngish man with hard, cold eyes, in need of a shave and a haircut. He may be leaping through traffic lanes at stoplights or blocking the sidewalk at coffee shops and markets, demanding spare change.
In the past few years, the demographics of homelessness have changed dramatically. More and more young men and women, who have few skills and are either estranged from their families or have no family, are coping with the tight job market by panhandling.
As a result, there are growing numbers of highly aggressive homeless panhandlers and a growing incidence of violence, usually against other homeless people but increasingly against the general public. Society has good reason to be alarmed.
In fact, concerned that crime has increased with an influx of homeless people, a group of residents in the affluent Studio City area has called for authorities to use a public nuisance law to prosecute transients. They are aiming at so-called transient criminals as well as vagrants who harass them if they refuse requests for money, block their entrances to grocery stores and swear at them when told not to pick through residential garbage cans.
Is there a way for you and I to respond without giving money or using ploys that don’t resolve the problem? If you care about poor and homeless people, if you have compassion for those less fortunate than yourself, don’t give money. Cash is too easily converted into drugs or booze. Cash attracts the greedy as well as the needy (not all panhandlers are homeless).
How, then, can you help the truly needy? The answer is simple. Less cash, more creativity.
A few years ago, when aggressive panhandling was rising in downtown Los Angeles, we at the Weingart Center introduced meal coupons. Each coupon is good for a hot breakfast, lunch or dinner at our cafe. Large corporations and small companies alike have purchased books of coupons to give to their employees to pass out when approached on the street. Other charities and organizations in Southern California should also adopt this approach.
Coupons aren’t perfect, but they work far better than spare change. They are giver- and receiver-friendly. The giver has the satisfaction of knowing his or her contribution will provide food. The recipient gets a nutritious meal--and a chance to use Weingart Center services such as medical and mental health care, drug- and alcohol-abuse treatment, literacy training and job counseling.
To combat aggressive panhandling, we must be aggressive in inventing creative programs on a citywide basis. Our aim should be “hassle-free zones.” Let’s devise programs that enable people to offer coupons or tokens redeemable for meals, transportation, shelter and other goods and services that homeless people need. Increasing the places where you and I can buy coupons and tokens, and where the poor can redeem them for survival services, will go a long way toward creating a safe and sensible society.
Cooperating businesses and organizations could display window stickers showing that they accept these coupons. Bumper stickers, antenna balls and lapel pins could proclaim “Coupons, not cash,” “Couponing counts,” or a similar message, and thus enable concerned citizens to discourage the aggressive spare-change seekers.
Community couponing campaigns are ideal projects for churches, service organizations, junior citizen groups and chambers of commerce. Properly done, they can drive out confrontational panhandling, help get people off the street, and result in a cleaner, healthier city.
If we want to separate the economic victims from the con artists, if we want to offer real help in providing permanent exits from street life, we need to do more than hand out pocket change. We need to make a real change.
