四 川 铁 FourRiverIron

I would figure the First Amendment would give you the right to beg for money. Of course I suspect our royal government rulers think any people that they consider vermin doesn't have Constitutional rights.

Source

Proposal aimed at chronic panhandlers

By Jason Riley, The (Louisville, Ky.) Courier-Journal

LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- William Hensley has been cited or arrested about 50 times this year, mostly for charges related to chronic panhandling.

That generally lands him in jail for a few days before he is put back on the street. There, he sleeps outside the downtown Louisville Free Public Library and then spends his days asking for money before being locked up again.

"It's a merry-go-round and we want to get off," said Col. Yvette Gentry, an assistant Louisville Metro police chief who is meeting with city and judicial officials on ways to end persistent and aggressive panhandling on Louisville streets.

Hensley, identified by police as Jefferson County's most arrested panhandler over the past few years, has become the poster child for one of their proposals: Giving persistent, convicted panhandlers a one-way ticket out of town, to stay with a family member or acquaintance who has agreed to take them in.

Hensley, who has spent about four months in custody this year, had been at the Louisville jail since Aug. 19 for his latest offenses -- including loitering and disorderly conduct -- and was supposed to be jailed until Oct. 31.

But after Hensley agreed to take a bus ticket back to his hometown in Bell County where he will stay with his sister, a judge commuted his sentence. A police group paid for the ticket, and Hensley left on a Greyhound out of Louisville on Thursday.

"Prosecutors took an interest in me and wanted to help, wanted to figure out another way other than sending people to jail to get them off the street," Hensley said in a jail interview before his departure.

Hensley said he got stuck on Louisville's streets a few years ago, after being released from a halfway house and then losing a restaurant job. He said he has wanted to go home for a long time, and knows others who feel the same way.

"I think a lot of people here in Louisville that I know on the street -- I hear them talking -- would like to get home, but have no way to get home, and they are, like, stuck," he said. "They don't know that people will help them if they will ask."

While there is no official policy in place, police, the Louisville Downtown Management Distict, prosecutors and judges are interested in making it work.

Assistant County Attorney Pamela Rochester, who worked with Hensley, had already received another request and was planning to attend a church service for the homeless Sunday morning to gauge the interest level.

Chief District Judge Sean Delahanty, who has been involved in the discussions about the initiative, said judges would give chronic panhandlers a choice: a lengthy stay in jail, since penalties for repeated offenses stiffen the sentence, or finding a family member or support group to help them break the cycle.

"Part of it is, 'We're going to hold you in jail, but there is an option,'" Delahanty said. "If you can find a loved one who will take you in and take some responsibility for you, then we will work with you."

Delahanty said the initiative could clean up areas where panhandlers have become more aggressive and people have complained about being scared.

In other cities with similar programs, such as Nashville and San Francisco, critics have questioned whether officials are basically just moving the problem to another location without addressing the root causes of homelessness.

But Ken Herndon, director of operations for the Louisville Downtown Management District, an agency that oversees planning, security and beautification in the center city, stressed that in Louisville, people would only be given bus tickets if they had no outstanding warrants and had someone willing to take them in at the end of the bus ride.

"It's not just saying, 'Leave. Here's a bus ticket,' " said Herndon, who had been involved in the discussions about the proposal. "It's making sure that there's a good place to be when they get there."

Natalie Harris, executive director of the Louisville Coalition for the Homeless, said she has not talked with anyone about the idea, but that it could help a small percentage of the city's homeless, depending on the person and the situation.

"It's when the program becomes the solution to everyone that it no longer makes sense," she said.

In fact, the coalition last week surveyed 240 local homeless people and found the majority are from Louisville and have very few family or friends still willing to help them.

"At the point where they are sleeping on the streets, they have usually burned all their bridges," she said.

Maria Price, executive director of the St. John Center for Homeless Men, said the city already has traveler's aid run by the Volunteers of America for some people stranded in Louisville, and it is better when the homeless express their own self-dermination to leave "instead of being backed into a corner."

And, Price added, "if there are resources to give, I wish it would be directed toward providing housing and services to the homeless, because our stats tell us that when individuals are moved off the streets and into housing, the number of times they are arrested drops dramatically.

"They are safer and the streets are safer."

Alternatives to arrests

It is illegal in Louisville to beg near automated teller machines, bus stops, restaurants with outdoor seating, public restrooms, on any bus or inside a parking garage. Convictions can bring up to a $250 fine and 90 days in jail.

The arrests or citations have seemingly had little effect, however. Louisville's top panhandlers have been arrested or cited hundreds of times just this year.

"What we have been doing has not given us the result we want," Gentry said. "We've got to do something different."

Thus Gentry initiated the meetings with Herndon and judicial officials to find new ways to combat "overly aggressive" panhandling in the center city, where citizens and businesses have complained.

Other proposals being discussed include issuing a public service announcement telling citizens to no longer give money to panhandlers and strengthening panhandling laws.

Herndon pointed out that there are also metal coin boxes strapped to poles around downtown put up in July for residents and visitors to deposit their spare change, rather than encouraging those looking for a handout. Thus far, the boxes have raised about $400. [ Yes they have those boxes in Tempe too. They seem to be there, not to help poor people collect money, but rather as an excuse for the government to prevent people from giving money to panhandlers. ]

The idea of sending panhandlers back to their hometowns was spawned by a trip Gentry took to San Francisco, where panhandlers who don't live in the city, or have family or ties there, are urged to go home, and receive assistance in doing so.

Gentry said she imagines several groups would step up to support the Louisville plan financially, whether it be with a bus or plane ticket.

In the case of Hensley the fare was paid by a nonprofit group of Christian police officers called Shield of Faith.

Since it cost $63 a day to house an inmate at the Louisville jail, and some of these panhandlers are spending weeks on end in jail, a ticket out of town would be a bargain, Gentry said.

Gentry said in an email to Delahanty last week that it cost about $182 to reunite Hensley with his family, which she called "priceless."

"We may be on to something here," she said in the email.

Success in Nashville

Herndon and Gentry said they will be speaking to officials in Nashville in coming weeks about a program there called Homeward Bound.

Tom Turner, CEO of the Nashville Downtown Partnership, said since the program was initiated by police in June 2008, his agency has paid for more than 300 people to go home, with only two known to have returned.

Turner said there have been complaints from local homeless groups that they are not addressing the problems, just changing the scenery, but he said some of the same critics have asked for help in getting people home.

"If sending somebody to a place where they have friends and family and better prospects is a negative, then we are all about the negative," he said.

For now, Gentry said she has been working with officers to identify Louisville's most persistent panhandlers. She said the plan is to reach out to these people and see what help they need, such as substance abuse treatment or just a ride.

"I think we've got a lot of momentum," she said. "Everybody agrees we've got to do something different."