University District/Sun Feb 21/Noon
Officer Oscar Gardea reports: “I was dispatched to investigate an assault that occurred two days ago at the Safeway parking lot. The victim stated that she exited the front door of the Safeway pushing a shopping cart and she had her iPod earphones in her ears. She then stopped the shopping cart and began putting her groceries into her vehicle when the suspect approached her. The suspect then pushed her shopping cart into her, hitting her in the stomach area. The suspect told her, ‘You need to respect me like I respect you.’
“The suspect then walked away and went back to the front of the Safeway to panhandle some more. The victim said that she thinks the suspect kept asking her for money while she was walking, but she couldn’t hear him because of the earphones she had on. The victim also heard the suspect tell other people he needed money because of something to do with his kids and that he was from Tacoma.
“The victim was unsure whether she wants to file charges against the suspect, but she did want the incident documented.”
This is the kind of report that Seattle City Council member Tim Burgess would hold up as irrefutable proof that “aggressive panhandling” is a serious problem that needs to be addressed with robust laws. For him, the citizens of Seattle deserve the right to walk down a street without being challenged by threatening looks and demanding hands.
From Burgess’s newly proposed ordinance: “Residents of and businesses in the greater downtown area in Seattle believe aggressive solicitation is a serious problem in their home neighborhoods, and residents of the rest of the city agree. A 2009 survey of residents of downtown, South Lake Union, Belltown, Pioneer Square, and International District/Chinatown found that two-thirds of residents are concerned about aggressive solicitation and fewer than half believe the city is adequately addressing the problem.”
There are, however, many of us who find certain parts of Burgess’s ordinance to be totally ridiculous—for example, one section would require beggars to stand 15 feet away from ATMs. Many of us see nothing in all of this but the continued criminalization of poverty. Problems of poverty and mental illness are, once again, being solved not with improved social services but with increased law enforcement. But what our lawmakers and upstanding citizens must understand is that the police are not the solution to all of our problems. The men and women in blue do not need the extra work of confronting beggars who are standing too close to ATMs or hanging around Safeway. 
The Seattle Human Rights Commission is holding a panel discussion on Tim Burgess’s proposed restriction on Tue March 9 from 7 to 8:30 pm at Seattle University’s Sullivan Hall, Room C5. Burgess will be a part of the panel.
If there were some aspect of poverty that forced the poor to stand within 15 feet of ATMs and panhandle, then this would indeed be the criminalization of poverty. If all beggars were to move out 16 or more feet from all ATMs, they would not by any wild stretch of the imagination become invisible, and their poverty would continue to not be a crime.
I’m really baffled why The Stranger has put such a high priority on keeping panhandlers within 15 feet of ATMs. What does that accomplish? They’re panhandling within 15 feet of ATMs now and it obviously hasn’t helped their situation much.
I kind of feel like Mudede is being intentionally naive about what is considered aggressive. Did the girl deserve to get the cart shoved into her because she didn’t want to give him money? No.
I’m not in support of Burgess’ proposals, but I have been spat at, had things thrown at me, and been followed to my apartment by panhandlers. There has to be some sort of line. I would love to see more social services offered to those in need. I tend to vote for any legislation that would make that possible. I also think that people should be able to walk down the street without being spat at for not giving someone money.
As for the ATM portion… 15 feet may be extreme, but its an arbitrary number that basically give people a little breathing room at the ATM. Do you see smokers standing a full 25 feet from teh nearest door when they leave the bar for a cigarette?
I’d like to see the act of panhandling go away. Those who have given money to panhandlers — why do you do so? Are you getting a happy feeling from feeling magnanimous? Do you believe that, if not for your money, the panhandler would go hungry or perish? That the crack, meth, steel reserve purchased with the money will help the person you gave the money to do any better? Do you think that by giving that money that your actions are actually saying louder than any words you might utter, “This is a relatively cheap and easy way to deal with you and assuage my middle class guilt”? The next time you see a headline or news story about poverty or just how fucked the economy is, you’ll get a distant warm glow thinking “I’m a good person! I supported the guy who needed to feed his family! God Bless!” All this without actually doing anything to help anyone.
I, and family members, volunteer with, and donate money, clothing and goods to, organizations that support people who are living in poverty. I have no interest in giving money directly to people who will use the money on alcohol, tobacco, and other recreational drugs. Alcoholism and drug addiction are rampant — why subsidize the problems that are in many ways a negative feedback loop keeping people on the street?
Food, shelter, job training, computer access, cleaning stations are all provided by social services in downtown Seattle. Unfortunately, NIMBY people who will hand money out of their window at a stoplight would shriek in outrage if a walk-in addiction clinic or day/night shelter opened up within their neighborhood.
Let’s focus on providing social services, and really helping people in poverty, rather than pretending that tolerance of panhandling is helping anyone.
I grew up here, am used to panhandlers, and have never had a bad experience at all with them. Probably that’s due to luck and that I live in N. Seattle, but the fact that I greet them and look them in the eye probably doesn’t hurt either. (I am downtown and in Pioneer Square area frequently, and again, have never had a problem, at all, any hour day or night.) BTW, I’m female.
Still, all that said, if a panhandler approached me while I’m at an ATM, or paying for parking at a lot by putting money thru a slot, in other words, if a panhandler approached me when I have to have my wallet out for a reason not having to do with the panhandler, I wouldn’t like it. I’d feel I was being taken advantage of in a moment of relative weakness. I might feel intimidated.
I’m not familiar with Burgess’ law but I think the 15′ rule with respect to ATMs and where we pay for parking in private lots (not meters)sounds reasonable.
Meude’s logic is not reasonable, as previous commenters have stated.
Giving people plenty of room to operate an ATM privately is common courtesy whether or not you intend on asking them for a handout.
What next? Are we going to throw people who we find unattractive in jail because they tried to ask someone out on a date? If someone whistles or says “nice ass!” should we call the cops on them?
Get over yourselves!
Life is tough right now for a lot of people and more and more are ending up on the street everyday. Just protect yourself and report actual crimes when they happen. Giving police recourse to discriminate on the homeless isn’t going to solve the problem. All it will do is cause it come right back and bite us in the ass!
15 feet is appropriate for the next person in line let alone some one who wants you to give them what? 10 or 20 dollars, the only denominations to to be dispensed.
I think the author of this article is confusing mental illness with poverty. If you poor you don’t go standing on freeway ramps and ATM machines begging for money. There needs to be more supervision for mentally ill people. Turning away or giving them money is not helping them. They need to be supervised. The enforcement will show how many truly mentally ill people we got and may attract federal funds to create services here. It’s not a secret that downtown is infested with unsupervised mentally ill, so stop pretending it’s poverty.
Maybe if people behaved themselves, we wouldn’t need to enact laws to force people to stop acting like idiots. When I say no, leave me alone. Don’t shout at me, don’t call me a motherf*cker, don’t spit at me. I said no. Go away. You don’t need money for gas, or to get to Tacoma, or for your child’s uniform. You need it for crack and alcohol.
How about giving money to the people who aren’t strong enough to be out on the street bullying you for money? How about giving to women’s shelters and childrens’ organizations?
This isn’t at all about the criminalization of poverty. This is entirely about enforcing civility. A segment of our population has decided that they don’t have to play by the rules. They can be complete a*holes and get away with it because we’re too afraid of offending ourselves to enforce good behavior.
I’m sick and tired of being bullied and treated like crap. The only way to stop this behavior is to stop tolerating it and stop supporting it. Give your money to organizations that will really help: the YWCA, Unicef, United Way, etc. not to the guy that harrasses you long enough.
Mudede’s fluffy example here shouldn’t persuade anybody that aggressive panhandling is NOT a problem in Seattle. I personally think I tend to encounter more aggressive panhandlers on the streets of Seattle than in Chicago or New York. The type of behavior that Burgess is proposing to penalize is the aggressive behavior of repeated solicitations, following someone after they have already declined to give money, etc. As the Seattle P-I reports the story, though this article fails to say so, the proposal is to punish aggressive panhandling behavior with a $50 ticket, or for those unable to pay, community service time (http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/lo…). This does not strike me as unfair. Furthermore, the proposal is not strictly punitive, but also calls for increased outreach to homeless people and improved housing options in an effort to alleviate potential causes of aggressive panhandling.
Maybe I’m missing something — but what is so outrageous about the proposal?
Heck you can’t smoke a legal cigarett within 25 feet of a building or in many place of our parks. Sounds like the panhandlers would still have it better than the smokers of a LEGAL product that is paying HUGE amount of taxes that fund your state.
I’m not even a smoker and this angers me! The worst a smoker ever asked for was a light.
Agressive panhandlers now want $20’s. I personally have known too many people who’s life goal was to be homeless and live outside the “grid”. They pursue it and most wouldn’t give it up of you GAVE THEM A JOB AND A FREE PLACE TO LIVE. They want the legal right to harrass people for money and use your rest room to shoot up!
I lived the majority of my life under the povery line, dead ass broke, getting $15 a month in food stamps (thanks for nothing), getting the rest at the food bank, I never ever panhandled for a living. For one thing you can’t get a job while you’re doing that!
I have worked hard to get my education, get a decent job. I get up at the butt crack of dawn to go to work, to be harrassed on my way home by some guy that just got up and ate free breakfast at the mission, who’s entire day consists of ammassing enough money to get high/drunk all night long and start all over again.
And one last rant. Many of said “off the griders” are there to avoid child support payments. I dont support dead beat dads that wont get a job because their wages will be garnished because they could’t keep it in their pants.
In response to all the “offering more social services” comments, are you kidding me?! There are so many resources for people in need, especially the homeless. I work in an Emergency Dept along side a social worker and have witnessed first hand all the help they receive. The problem is, they dont want the help. More often than not these people prefer to be on the street panhandling for money because they don’t want to abide by the very reasonable rules they would have to follow to receive housing, treatment, or financial services. They would rather beg for money and live on the street because it means they dont have to give up drinking or their drug habit. There is absolutely no need to offer MORE services to help these people. Instead, we should be helping those who actually want help and are trying to be productive members of society but have temporarily fallen on hard times. Those are the people deserving of government help, not the violent, drug addicted assholes who think the world owes them because they dont feel like cleaning themselves up and working like the rest of us.
Professional panhandlers … which is what you are dealing with here, as in other homeless-friendly cities … are quite often …gasp … far from “poor” in the monetary sense. Surprise! They often actually take in quite a bit more than members of Keillor’s POEM Members (i.e., The Professional Organization of English Majors)
Get a clue from the Peoples’ Republic of Santa Monica, which hardly a bastion of Right Wing Fascist Bastards, is yet firm with its beggars. No panhandling within reach of a movie industry person, food tokens instead of spare change, “Will work for food? OK, step right this way, have a sandwich, and sweep the parking lot.” An apparently amazing dis-incentive to panhandlers!
More often than not these people prefer to be on the street panhandling for money because they don’t want to abide by the very reasonable rules they would have to follow to receive housing, treatment, or financial services. They would rather beg for money and live on the street because it means they dont have to give up drinking or their drug habit. There is absolutely no need to offer MORE services to help these people. Instead, we should be helping those who actually want help and are trying to be productive members of society but have temporarily fallen on hard times.
Never would have guessed that I would actually agree with a subscriber who, although obviously believing that BHO, Jr., is a Natural Born American Citizen, has a sensible view on this lifestyle issue!
I agree with je suis and durango.
Idiots who give them money only perpetuate the problem. And the author of this article has obviously not lived in a neighborhood where this is a problem or encountered aggressive or annoying panhandling.
Also the point of the article ‘criminalization of poverty’ misses the point. Criminals are criminals. How is this it criminalizing poverty? It happens to be that many criminals become so DUE to poverty. Duh.
1. Why not make panhandling illegal?
2. Why not discourage people from giving them money on the side of the freeway when they knock on your car window. Educate people to give ‘smart’ to organizations, non-profits etc.
3. There is no such thing as giving a bum on the street money for food, shelter etc. There are adequate food banks EVERYWHERE. Numerous shelter options. Tons of social service and welfare programs everywhere.
4. Full-time panhandlers make a ton of money, up to $50,000 a year one expose showed. They, often ‘choose’ to be like this. So why can’t the majority, working-class citizens, families, general public ‘choose’ to be rid of this nuisance???
Seattleites need to get over this PC crap and say NO to Panhandling.
Has anyone (who has witnessed Seattle over the past 10-15-20 yrs) noticed that panhandling has risen dramatically?
Bums and panhandlers are actually relocating/gravitating toward Seattle?
I think if we were tougher on crime and didn’t give them money when they panhandle this wouldn’t happen.
Sadly, along with being a nuisance and/or potential crime (like the article story) they make a beautiful city like Seattle dirty and dingy and uncomfortable.
I am so with number 11 on smoking! What a ridiculous law. While it’s ok to get harassed, yelled at, and humiliated on a bus or the sidewalk, smoking is some evil sin. What a city of non-sense. At least smoke can keep the stink off when a crazy psycho is trying to get in my face at a bus stop. Acting like an obnoxious monkey is more normal then smoking here, wow!