Mayor Ponders Fingerprinting or Permits for Panhandlers : Thousand Oaks: The ideas spark strong opposition from homeless advocates and from other members of the City Council.

Disturbed by homeless people who panhandle for a living, Thousand Oaks Mayor Elois Zeanah has asked city staff to consider fingerprinting beggars or requiring them to buy solicitors’ permits.

Although preliminary--Zeanah herself has not decided whether to endorse such stringent measures--the proposals have sparked strong opposition from homeless advocates and other council members.

“I think she would be laughed out of the universe if she tried to charge the homeless a business license fee so they could stand on the boulevard and ask for a quarter to buy a cup of coffee,” Councilman Alex Fiore said.

As for checking criminal records by fingerprinting the homeless, activist Roger Toft suggested the city might as well take fingerprints of “everyone who walks into The Oaks mall, because we know a high percentage of them will be shoplifters.”

But Zeanah insisted that panhandling has become “more and more obvious” in Thousand Oaks, and said the city must “not do anything to encourage that situation or serve as a magnet.” By monitoring transients--through background checks, fingerprinting or permit applications--the city might be able to reduce the number of people haunting shopping plazas or aimlessly wandering through the streets, she said.

In raising the issue, Zeanah said she was responding to a flurry of constituent complaints about panhandlers who “seem to have made homelessness a lifestyle” and have no intention of getting a job other than asking for handouts.

City Manager Grant Brimhall, who received the suggestions from Zeanah in a memo dated Oct. 6, agreed that the city does receive numerous complaints about panhandlers. His staff is investigating the proposals and will report back to the City Council.

While she emphasized the need to help the down-and-out--especially by referring them to city and county support services--Zeanah said Thousand Oaks should seek to more aggressively “protect our residents from transients.”

To avoid attracting more homeless citizens, she said, city leaders should consider “trying to take some precautions.”

Although she asked Brimhall to specifically study fingerprinting and permitting beggars, Zeanah emphasized that she has not decided whether to support those proposals.

Still, some activists were incensed to find Thousand Oaks’ mayor mulling such solutions.

“She has to consider every constituent’s ideas, yes, but I would have thought that in the first millisecond of hearing this one, she would have considered it long enough and moved on,” said Toft, who heads the Conejo Homeless Assistance Program.

Fingerprinting a certain group of people, he added, “is a total violation of individual rights.”

“If the city makes a move in that direction, I think a phone call to the ACLU would be in order,” said Jim Kinville, a member of the Ventura County Homeless Coalition.

The American Civil Liberties Union has frequently championed homeless people, fighting against restrictive city ordinances on their behalf. Last summer, the ACLU lined up against an Anaheim proposal to require panhandlers to obtain a city business license, at an annual cost of $100.

Backing down after the ACLU’s legal challenges, Anaheim this month passed two less severe laws designed to control begging. Under the new ordinances, panhandlers may not stand on curbs or in the streets. They are also forbidden from aggressively pursuing people or pestering those who decline to donate money.

Several other California cities, including Santa Barbara and Berkeley, have tried to discourage begging for money by printing vouchers redeemable for food, showers, clothing and laundry. Local stores sell the vouchers, and good Samaritans pass them on to panhandlers, knowing their donation will not be frittered away on alcohol or cigarettes.

In her memo to the city manager, Zeanah did not rule out a voucher program, although she focused on fingerprinting and permitting. She suggested that any licensing fee on beggars be nominal, enforced “just so we could check their backgrounds and monitor them.”

The City Council on Tuesday will consider charging street vendors $250 for a peddler’s permit and a city-issued identification card. Extending that requirement to beggars appealed to some residents, including Jim Oos, a retired telephone engineer who worries about panhandlers sullying Thousand Oaks’ image and frightening residents.

“I don’t think the people who are permanently homeless would stick around here if there was fingerprinting or licensing or some kind of control,” Oos said. “Right now they’re running free because they know nothing’s going to happen to them, and they figure on being here for the rest of their lives.”

Even homeless activist Toft said he could support a business license fee for panhandlers--especially since one beggar reported raking in up to $400 a day by standing on a street corner with an outstretched cup.

Yet others, equally concerned about an apparent increase in the number of homeless vagrants, found Zeanah’s suggestions implausible.

“I just can’t see anyone who’s going to panhandle going over to City Hall and asking for a license,” said Ellyn Wilkins, an insurance saleswoman who has complained to the mayor about homeless men loitering around her office on Thousand Oaks Boulevard.

Furthermore, several citizens questioned whether fingerprinting transients would provide any useful information. Zeanah suggested that background checks of homeless residents might tie them to various unsolved robberies in the central Thousand Oaks area, but others bristled at that notion.

“It’s absurd,” Councilman Frank Schillo said. “What’s the purpose of fingerprinting a homeless person--because it’s nice to hang the print on the wall or what?”

Any effort to crack down on panhandlers would probably run into some formidable legal roadblocks.

Several judges have determined that beggars have a constitutional right to ask for alms under the First Amendment’s free speech guarantees. In July, a federal appeals court judge ruled that New York City’s ban on panhandling in public streets was illegal.

Aware of these rulings, Thousand Oaks City Atty. Mark Sellers has been exploring other options. Sellers was on vacation and unavailable for comment last week. But the assistant city attorney, Bob Rogers, said their research remains “very preliminary--we don’t have the answers.”

One possible answer, social service workers say, would be to create a drop-in center where homeless people could shower, pick up phone messages, type resumes and wash their clothes. The city has applied for a $300,000 federal grant to build such a facility, possibly next to the Human Services Center on Hillcrest Avenue.

“You cannot get a job if you smell because you have no place to take a bath,” said Karen Ingram of Lutheran Social Services. “If people are really concerned about the homeless, they should pay attention to the root causes--they should make sure there are enough jobs, housing and mental health services in their community.”

Zeanah has expressed skepticism about a homeless drop-in center, fearing that it would attract homeless people from throughout Ventura County and the San Fernando Valley. She has also voted against most low-income housing projects on the grounds that the developments would be too crowded and too close to busy streets.

Estimates of Thousand Oaks’ homeless population range from 80 to 150. Many of them live in the city permanently, camping out on a hillside or under a bridge.

“Almost every cop can tell you where the homeless are living--I could tell you where they are,” said Wilkins, the insurance saleswoman. “We have to solve the social problems to help them. The homeless are real, live human beings and we can’t throw them away.”