Urban Exile: Ann Arbor Panhandling Task Force Recommendations Wrong-Headed, Study Shows
There is a lot of advice in recent articles about the right and wrong way to help panhandlers. Many times this advice conflicts with the on-the-spot feelings of individuals who want to give to panhandlers. Some are adamantly against giving directly to a panhandler, and suggest the best way to help someone asking for money on the street is to donate those funds to a local charitable organization. However, this advice is really difficult to follow when you are actually out on the street and faced with a coatless, cold person asking for money. It’s also contrary to what a major study of panhandling suggests should be done.
Is there a right or wrong way for individuals to help these individuals? Is this an issue that will just continue to plague our community no matter what individuals, non-profits, or the government does?
The Ann Arbor Street Task Force came out with its 47-page report to the City Council. It may be found here. After meeting since September 2010, The Task Force’s main finding was that everyone in the community needs to work together in partnership to solve the issue of panhandling—government, law enforcement, merchants, and the general public.
Didn’t everyone already kinda know this? Six months of study and the Task Force, chaired by First Ward Council member Sabra Briere, concludes the obvious?
Panhandling touches everyone, and everyone in our community must be part of the solution. The last recommendation the Task Force made is to increase awareness about the panhandling issue through a planned outreach campaign: the Have a Heart, Give Smart campaign. Those who participate in the program are given pocket-sized cards to hand out with information about services in the area that may help those that require it. I don’t want to disparage the hard work that the members of the Task Force did, and I am glad that no funds were used to do a study, but the Task Force spent six months re-inventing the wheel. Worse still, I’m really not sure if this campaign to stop panhandling will really work, or was a political show.
Similar campaigns are now in place in other cities around the country such as Anchorage, Boise, and Philadelphia. It’s a long list. (Let’s not forget infamous “cleanup” of human beings around Tampa, Florida before the 2009 Superbowl—done under the guise of putting the city’s “best face forward” for the country.) Have a Heart programs stress not to give directly to panhandlers, but rather to give to charitable organizations. Denver launched a “meter” donation program. The meters—refurbished parking meters—are for spare change in an effort give individuals an opportunity to give to charity immediately. There are other programs that have been on-going for years. The problem of panhandling is national.
But are meters, police sweeps, tweaking the city’s panhandling ordinance and pocket-sized cards effective? Do campaigns such as the one suggested by the Ann Arbor Street Task Force really have any impact on the panhandling issue? The question is this: What would make a panhandler stop? A comprehensive 2007 study done by the city of Winnipeg surveyed panhandlers directly and asked that very question. Their answers?
“Eighteen interviewees said that a job was all they needed in order to be able to stop panhandling. A couple of respondents mentioned, however, that they would need a fulltime job that pays more than panhandling does. A young woman who used to panhandle said, ‘Even on minimum wage, working 2 jobs, I still had to panhandle.’ Another eight interviewees included a job along with another factor, which was usually a place to live….Some respondents identified that first and foremost they need training or education in order to secure a fulltime job.”
Interestingly, ten of the respondents in the study indicated that they didn’t want to stop panhandling. One man told the interviewer: “I like being free. I don’t want to get hooked up in the system. Everything I get everyday is free. No worries about paying bills on time or anything.”
The Ann Arbor Street Task Force did not survey the city’s panhandlers. This was a serious oversight because, really, without doing so, implementing a “cure” or pushing a particular program is like making a diagnosis without examining the patient. It makes the most sense to ask the people doing the panhandling what they need to stop, or even if they would stop. The Ann Arbor Task Force report includes outlandish anecdotal “evidence” of panhandlers who make $300 per day. The Winnipeg study revealed that panhandlers in that city, which has six times the population than does Ann Arbor, average $30-$40 per day.
The results of the 2007 study done by officials in Winnipeg provide clues, perhaps, to the apparent lack of success that Have a Heart and other similar programs have.
In Ann Arbor, the panhandling issue has suddenly come to the forefront. So, I have been asking my friends what the right way to help panhandlers might be. The most frequent response I got was that it is really hard to refuse someone who is asking for help. So where does the money go, as a rule, when given to a panhandler? According to the Winnipeg study, 93 percent of respondents said they use money for food, and 40 percent reported buying alcohol. Keep in mind that according to research done by Dr. David Hanson of SUNY Potsdam, college-educated Americans are twice as likely to consume alcohol than high school graduates, and American college students, on average, consume 1.5 drinks per week. When asked what happens when they are given no money, half of the respondents reported that they “do nothing and/or go hungry.” Surprisingly, the study revealed that 81.3 percent of interviewees reported sharing proceeds with others, particularly those who are “worse off.”
My friends told me that it was the immediate gratification of giving that made them give to someone on the street. And the thought of giving to some organization that, perhaps, they did not agree with ideologically sometime in the future was not even on their radar. These individuals know that this might not help the panhandling issue but the act of giving money to a panhandler somehow to them is the right way to help a panhandler, even if the giving was made at the expense of the community.
Once Ann Arbor’s Have a Heart, Give Smart campaign gets underway, the real question is whether it will make any difference in the panhandling “problem.” The results of the Winnipeg survey of panhandlers suggests that the program will have little impact. The reactions of my friends (my own informal survey) suggest that people would rather give in the moment to the individual rather than wait and give later to an agency or organization.
Erika McNamara was born in Ann Arbor and grew up in nearby Whitmore Lake. She attended and graduated from Whitmore Lake High School. Erika earned her BA in International Studies of East Asia from Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan, as well as a certificate of course completion from Tian Jin Foreign Studies University, in Tian Jin, China. After graduation Erika worked for an American/Chinese Joint Venture business in Chongqing, China. Upon return to the United States she attended Eastern Michigan University and earned a Masters of Business Administration. Erika continued her education at The Thomas M. Cooley and earned a Juris Doctor degree. She now practices law in Whitmore Lake. Erika is a member of the Michigan Itinerant Shelter System Out of Necessity (MISSION), and advocates for the rights of homeless individuals.
Brandon there is a difference between aggressive panhandling and asking for change. Yes, panhandlers continue on because it works. It’s a job for some and, as the entry points out, a job some don’t have the desire to give up. Can you tell me what the difference is between these agencies and a panhandler? The agencies ask for money directly, repeatedly. Unlike panhandlers, the agencies will phone me at home during the dinner hour. They will send mail to my home address. Call me overly sensible, but I think it’s time to cut out the middle man.
Giving directly to panhandlers IS the problem. Why do we have panhandlers who are aggressive and confrontational? Because it works!
Stop giving! We have social service agencies that can provide food, clothing, shelter and training for jobs. This is NOT what these people want.
If you like giving to anonymous strangers so much, where do you live? I can show up at your door and you can give me your money.
Erika thanks so much for your thoughtful writing about this issue. I have been conflicted about whether to give directly or not. You helped me see that giving directly isn’t the problem.
Give directly to individuals. Yes! They are adults. They are capable of making their own decisions. If they buy food, their choice. If they buy a ticket to the movies, their choice. Who are we to try to dictate. It seems particularly insulting to hand someone who asks for help a card with a list of a bunch of agencies. I can’t understand the reasoning, but it strips those in need of their status as adults.
Panhandling has definitely gotten worse downtown. I would say that everytime I’m there I get hit up 3-4 times. I give everytime I get asked. I can’t even imagine what it would take for me to stand on a street corner or in front of a shop and ask for spare change. I think the Task Force was a political circus. Everybody is up in arms about panhandling so Council forms a “task force.” Politics pure and simple. Have you read the report? It’s 40+ pages of pseudo-education and political correctness.
Panhandlers are panning for money. Didn’t you write recently that Briere took $2000 from a developer? So how is that not panhandling, too?
Re. “Why not call it the “Beggar’s Banquet”?”
Why not be insulting and inaccurate?
This meal program is for people who are hard on their luck. Some people just lost their jobs. Some people are working but have trouble making ends meet. Some have had serious illnesses. Some have had any number of issues in their lives, sometimes through no fault of their own.
If you want to call me a beggar because I’ve eaten there, go ahead. But that’s a YOU problem.
@Mark, I know that people who use the Delonis Center as a shelter have to prove residency in Washtenaw County. Is the same rule in place so far as the meals are concerned?
“The Delonis Center operates quite a nice meal program for anyone who wants food.”
Why not call it the “Beggar’s Banquet”?
@Sam, thanks for the comment. Just a quick note. The Ann Arbor Street Task Force end product was a report, not a survey. Three panhandlers “spoke before” the group. That’s not a survey; it’s public input. The report contained “anecdotal” evidence, which is not reliable by virtue of the fact it’s anecdotal. This is a tough issue to parse out, I think, particularly when reading the results of the Winnipeg study in which panhandlers concluded they simply didn’t want to stop and offered a variety of reasons for the decision.
What if the answer to panhandling was to give them money? Would society as we know come crashing down? In Fiddler on the Roof, Tevvya almost “forgets” to give Nachum the Beggar a some milk for the Sabbath. What if the answer was to give to panhandlers directly?
I’m glad you surveyed your friends. Maybe they could come up with solutions to other social problems and global warming while they’re at it. Why do we even do studies when you have your friends at hand?
Seriously, the A2 study was very valuable. Sometimes you might have a hypothesis, but it takes a study to validate it. And, maybe the study did not “survey” the city’s panhandlers, but it did conduct interviews.
Interviews can be just as valid or invalid a measure for the purposes of doing a study. Quite a bit of social research relies not on surveys, but on interviews.
But to answer your question: What would it take for Ann Arbor’s panhandlers to stop panhandling — it would take people NOT giving them money.
The Delonis Center operates quite a nice meal program for anybody who wants food. (It’s very good; I’ve used it myself). These panhandlers are NOT panhandling because they’re going hungry.
And they’re not panhandling because they’re homeless. Many of the most notorious panhandlers, including Crutchy, have a home. If you live near Huron, you can watch crutchy leave home, pick up his Crutch, and dash across Huron.