San francisco panhandling laws

As a professor of law and urban studies , I study how local ordinances can harm the poor, particularly people experiencing homelessness.

I volunteer with the American Civil Liberties Union and other nonprofits to help fight for more equitable local policies. And I have brought together nonprofits and individuals to successfully change unconstitutional anti-panhandling laws across Ohio , my home state.

Over the past 30 years, cities have increasingly adopted laws to reduce or eliminate panhandling. Although a few jurisdictions simply ban panhandling outright, most ban the practice in certain areas, such as parks, near roads or near bus stops.

The First Amendment protects everything from distributing pornography to waving hateful signs outside military funerals. So it is should not be surprising that it also protects fundraising pitches of all kinds. In a trilogy of opinions issued in the s, the Supreme Court struck down several state laws that restricted charitable solicitation , including laws that prohibited requests from nonprofits that, according to regulators, spent too much money on fundraising. In ruling against charitable solicitation limits, the justices established two important precedents.

First, charitable solicitation is constitutionally protected speech. The listeners can make that decision for themselves. Panhandling is a basic form of charitable solicitation with a long history. Almsgiving dates back to the days of ancient Greece and the Bible.

Instead of asking for help on behalf of an animal shelter, food pantry or any other kind of nonprofit, the panhandlers ask for help satisfying their own personal need. Despite showing the police their tickets, both men were told that although the buses they were awaiting would arrive within 30 minutes, they could not wait on the premises because they were loitering. The police subsequently evicted the men. In some instances, others have been told that they could not wait at the bus station "because you are homeless.

Over the summer in , a free public event was held at Riverfront Park in Little Rock, at which various businesses and manufacturers of goods including the Tyson Chicken Company set up booths and tents to give away free samples of their merchandise to the public. Vendors encouraged homeless persons at the event to take free samples, which many homeless people gratefully did. However, officers of the Pulaski County Sheriff's Department told the homeless individuals, including a handicapped man at a picnic table, that they had to leave the event immediately or be subject to arrest for loitering in a park.

Another homeless man was denied entrance by tour operators to the free and public tour of the Old Statehouse Museum. The ordinance also prohibits panhandling within 15 feet of an ATM, bus stop, taxi stand, pay phone, public toilet, or train station anywhere in the city.

Many opponents believe the ban outlaws panhandling virtually everywhere, rendering it unconstitutional. Two days after the signing, the Atlanta Police Department announced in The Atlanta Journal Constitution that homeless people would be rounded up and identified for entry into the City's new facility called The Gateway, which provides shelter beds and supportive housing.

Unfortunately, although The Gateway houses homeless people, there is an overall net loss of places to sleep in Atlanta; emergency beds for women and children were closed by the Mayor at the end of May Up to eighty of those women and children now sit up all night, waiting for shelter at the Task Force for the Homeless.

However, more than half the current requests for shelter and services in Atlanta go unmet because of insufficient resources.

Most shelters and support service agencies report turning away dozens of desperate people daily. In addition, the Mayor's Commission is persuading service agencies to relocate into the Gateway, making formerly independent, voluntary services available only there.

In two weeks, I will have enough to rent my own apartment, and I have it all picked out. If I hadn't been able to ask for help, I wouldn't be working today. In the devastating aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Atlanta has stood firm in its resolve to criminalize panhandlers. James Scott was sleeping in his car with his brother, his sister, and her two young children after seeking refuge in Atlanta. After living in their car for several days, the family panhandled at a mall in the affluent Buckhead neighborhood.

According to Atlanta Police Department spokesman John Quigley, while soliciting on a public sidewalk is allowed, soliciting in traffic is prohibited.

I just think I have a right to tell somebody what I need, and let them decide. There was an outpouring of emergency assistance from churches that only offered help to hurricne evacuees, thereby creating a desperate competition for much needed shelter. City Councilman C. Martin believes the threat of a potential lawsuit has caused the city to withhold aggressive enforcement of the panhandling ban. Although homeless advocates in Las Vegas stated that shelters are overcrowded, city officials have done little to increase resources for individuals experiencing homelessness.

Similarly, charitable organizations scrambled — albeit unsuccessfully — to replace the services the Crisis Intervention Center provided. The police conduct habitual sweeps of encampments, which lead to extended jail time for repeat misdemeanor offenders. Homeless inhabitants of a campsite on Owens Avenue were forced to vacate the area just before Christmas Former residents of the campsite worried about finding a bed in one of the shelters because most of them are reserved for older men and women.

Despite reports that city, county, and state agencies were working together to provide homeless persons displaced by a January sweep of a downtown bridge, only 45 people out of residents of the camp were placed in temporary housing.

The site was declared a health hazard in August because people were urinating and defecating in the area around the camp. They also noted that homeless people need treatment, supportive services, and permanent housing, all of which are not available. Several homeless people were unable to receive help from local agencies, because they were already receiving money from the federal government. An analysis of Las Vegas police records revealed that arrests for charges such as trespassing, jaywalking, and pedestrians failing to obey traffic signals increased after a recent cleanup of a homeless camp.

When homeless people are ejected from the camps, they move to other public places where they interact more with members of the community. Officials attempted to avoid criticism by posting signs at the site in both English and Spanish, warning people that the authorities were going to clean the area. The Southern Nevada Homeless Coalition was not informed of the sweep. Frank Wright Plaza, a small park across from City Hall, was a favorite daytime spot for homeless people seeking a place to nap.

Regular visitors to the park said that it is a safe and comfortable place to recover from a tough night on the streets. However, city officials saw the park as a public nuisance, and have assigned marshals to patrol the area several times daily. In order to keep homeless individuals out of future parks, the city considered privatizing the parks, enabling owners to kick out unwanted people. The Metro Police have been at the center of the homelessness controversy on many occasions in recent years.

In addition to their role in homeless camp sweeps, the Metro Police have faced allegations that officers were targeting homeless people for misdemeanor crimes, such as urinating in public. The new liaison would work with both public and private agencies to help homeless people, and will hopefully prevent future arrests and sweeps. Officials attempted to address the growing homeless population by making it illegal to take a shopping cart off store property.

Instead of acknowledging the root causes of homelessness, the new law only spurred homeless people to become more creative. Fleets of damaged baby strollers and shopping carts are now common in the area. A positive result of its investigation was that the Interim City Manager, Mary Suhm, vowed to replace the personal property, including blankets, identification, and medication, that the city officials confiscated during those sweeps.

Suhm also promised to provide oral or written notices at least 24 hours in advance of sweeps, giving homeless people time to relocate. In an attempt to gain more federal aid for homeless services, volunteer canvassers surveyed and counted homeless people in the Dallas area. The city bulldozed the camp several times before, but the inhabitants kept rebuilding their homes.

City officials hoped that demolition would give the residents an incentive to seek help for their drug and alcohol addictions, as well as mental illnesses. The Avondale Association has gathered enough signatures to require a public hearing on whether the ordinance should be expanded beyond the Central Business District.

The ordinance, which is currently confined to downtown, prohibits people from sitting or lying on sidewalks between 7 a. Paul Luccia, owner of Keystar Events Complex, says the conduct of homeless people at nearby Interfaith Ministries hurts his business, which provides a venue for business meetings and weddings.

Others contend that if local business paid a living wage people could work to get themselves off the streets. In addition, these laws prohibit people from sleeping or putting their head, feet or legs on tables, using library restrooms to change their clothes, bathe, or shave, as well as outlawing large backpacks and blankets in the building.

What is the plan now? Sweeps of homeless people are also becoming commonplace in Puerto Rico. At least five homeless deaths have been attributed to these sweeps. People experiencing homelessness have also reported being victims of police violence and intimidation. One man reported that he has frequently been a victim of police violence including being assaulted with nightsticks and pepper sprayed for the fun of it and having his bicycle tires slashed while being mocked by police.

Another man also reported verbal abuse by the police while they trashed the place where he slept. Under a new proposal soon to be floated by City Council Member Bob Holbrook, city groups that provide meals to homeless people in parks may be fined for clean up costs. She also contends that they leave the park cleaner than when they arrive each day, and that there is no need for park ranger supervision. It's not that aggressive panhandling wasn't already illegal -- it was.

Or that police couldn't already arrest the homeless for blocking traffic or for panhandling around ATM bank machines -- they could.

What Newsom's law did was tighten and reiterate the rules, mainly by setting a foot perimeter around ATMs and specifically naming traffic dividers and highway ramps as prohibited places for begging. It also put new emphasis on referring homeless people to drug diversion or mental health programs instead of jail -- the city's principal approach for years. Studies have shown that among the city's homeless population of up to 15, people, about 30 percent are mentally ill and 70 percent are addicted to either drugs or alcohol.

But among the 3, to 5, "hard core," those who are most troubled and most visible on the street, about 90 percent have either substance abuse or mental problems or a combination of both.