Tomorrow, a re-worked version of Oklahoma City's proposed ordinance against panhandling in medians will be considered by City Council. When Ward 6 Councilwoman Meg Salyer introduced the proposal in September, the ordinance was explicitly designed to rid city streets of the blight of panhandling, addressing it as a quality of life issue--not for the panhandlers, but rather for the people in their cars who don't wish to look at panhandlers.
After substantial public outcry, the proposal was tabled utimately until December 8. Since then, supporters of the proposal have shifted the focus away from panhandling per se and onto public safety, now claiming that the ordinance is needed to save the lives of people in the medians, who are at risk of being struck by motorists. Meanwhile, the Oklahoma City Homeless Alliance, which supports the popular Curbside Chronicle, a paper which employs the homeless, claims that the ordinance will kill the Chronicle, 90% of whose sales are made from public medians.
I'm not entirely convinced that this is the case. I'm not at all sure that the Chronicle will be destroyed of vendors are forced to move from the median to the curbside. I am, however, completely convinced that "safety" is not at all the true purpose of this ordinance. The city has been unable to show that people being hit by cars while in the median has been a considerable or consistent problem. One highly publicized case involved a firefighter being killed in Michigan while collecting money during the "Fill the Boot" campaign, but this turned out to be a premeditated homicide. Meanwhile, Phil Sipe, president of OKC's IAFF, the firefighter's union, said in the NewsOK linked above that the most serious injury he can recall in our own city during a Fill the Boot campaign has been a sprained ankle.
The fact is, there is no data to support claims that this ordinance is necessary for public safety. Instead, tying the issue to public safety is clearly a rhetorical move, made to make an anti-panhandling ordinance (which many critics consider an anti-poverty ordinance) more palatable. The need to address poverty and homelessness is very real. And the need to address panhandling is even understandable. I fully appreciate that many in the voting public are uncomfortable being constantly confronted with panhandlers, though I admittedly look down on these people for their squeamishness. But to claim that this ordinance is about safety, and not about getting rid of panhandlers is simply disingenuous.
I don't personally think that panhandling ordinances are useful. They do nothing to solve the real, root problems, or even to improve them. Rather, they simply sweep the problem under the rug and may even make it worse. While there is some research (and a great deal of overblown anecdotal evidence) to suggest that many panhandlers are not truly street-homeless, policies that may inhibit worthwhile projects like the Chronicle, the work of the Restoration Church, the Fire Department's "Fill the Boot" campaign, and the like are not at all helpful. To me it's clear that there's not actual public safety problem at issue here. The actual question is if we are willing to kill off the Chronicle in order to insure that commuters in our urban areas have a less ugly ride to work.
