News   Jan 09, 2025
Oxford's Union Park Swaps Office Tower for More High-Rise Residential
 349     0 
News   Jan 09, 2025
UrbanToronto Industry Updates: Record-Low Sales, Award-Winning Innovations, and 2025 Training Opportunities
 285     0 
News   Jan 09, 2025
UTPro Q4 2024: GTHA Crane Count Stabilizing After Several Large Drops
 529     0 

City Strategy to Reduce Panhandling

unimaginative2

unimaginative2

Senior Member
Member Bio
Joined
Apr 23, 2007
Messages
4,554
Reaction score
12
Location
New York
PANHANDLING

City wants to examine impact of beggars
JENNIFER LEWINGTON

CITY HALL BUREAU CHIEF

May 28, 2007

A two-month pilot project to assess the needs of downtown panhandlers - and their impact on tourism - is set for debate today at Toronto city council's executive committee.

The fact-finding approach, with no policy changes until 2008 at the earliest, contrasts with calls by some for an outright ban on aggressive panhandling in the tourist-rich downtown.

Under the proposal, city staff would work with "passive" panhandlers (who simply hold up a cup for spare change) to identify their income and health issues as a way to coax them off the street.

As well, the city would also work with businesses in the entertainment district and others to quantify the negative financial impact of panhandlers.

City officials would also meet with the members of the Toronto Police to assess their experience in enforcing the province's Safe Streets Act, which targets "aggressive" panhandling.

If approved, the pilot project would be carried out between July 3 to Sept 17 in the downtown area bounded by Spadina Avenue, Dundas Street, Jarvis Street and Queens Quay.

A report on the findings would be due in the spring of 2008.

Councillor Case Ootes (Ward 29 Toronto-Danforth) is among those who have called for an outright ban on aggressive panhandlers downtown.

But city officials, in a report for today's debate, cite legal and other restrictions that limit a clear-cut prohibition.

The federal Charter of Rights and Freedoms protects begging as a form of freedom of expression.

"It would appear that broad restrictions on panhandling based on time and location are unlikely to be upheld," the report concludes.

As a safeguard against a legal challenge to a crackdown on panhandling, the city would have to prove negative economic and social impact. That's why the proposed pilot project would ask businesses for specific evidence that beggars drive away customers.

An anti-panhandling bylaw in Vancouver, upheld by the courts, focuses only on aggressive beggars who obstruct a passerby on the street.
 
Panhandler Row?

A street set aside where panhandlers would be the main tourist attraction? Could be the thing Toronto becomes famous for! (Thinks of ugly downtown Toronto St that could see a boost in traffic: oh got it! Dundas St West is really ugly and needs a boost. Pay 25 cents and you get to look at a homeless person; for $1 you get to speak with them; for $10 you can buy them dinner! $50 gets you a Date! Date a homeless person and take him/her off the street for a night!)

Hope some of you appreciate my attempt at humour. The city is almost bankrupt and worrying about homeless people?
 
"Under the proposal, city staff would work with "passive" panhandlers (who simply hold up a cup for spare change) to identify their income and health issues as a way to coax them off the street."

One thing I can't fault Miller on (or maybe his bureaucrats, whoever) is that he hasn't buckled under to the dogooders who think people have a right to sleep on the streets or in Tent Cities - not that the dogooders do that themselves. Personally that's a form of existence I don't feel is good enough for any of my fellow citizens. Get them housed, then get them work, get them help.

Meanwhile...
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/toronto/story/2007/05/25/panhandler-beating.html?ref=rss
 
Agressive panhanling can be considered a form of harassment as it infringes on poeple's rights. But passive panhandling is difficult to justity a ban on.

"...specific evidence that beggars drive away customers."

I wonder what evidence they can submit- surely it must be something concrete and verifiable.
 
I'm sure unattractive, obese and badly dressed people also demonstrably drive away customers. Where do we draw the line?
 
You can't legislate physical appearance or hygiene, nor is vagrancy a crime. But there are situations where certain loitering behaviour can infringe on the rights of others. For eg. a shopowner may have to deal with a couple of homeless people outside his door of business begging for instance. BUT how does one actually prove that the business is losing customers, to say- a competator down the street, as a result..?
 
PANHANDLING

Crackdown on begging targets homeless, activists say
JEFF GRAY

May 29, 2007

Business owners compared panhandling to "organized crime" while advocates for the poor and homeless invoked the Holocaust at a heated city hall hearing on the issue yesterday.

Mayor David Miller's executive committee heard from the public before directing city bureaucrats to study the needs of panhandlers and review the effects of panhandling on downtown businesses.

In one of yesterday's speeches, a downtown Tim Hortons owner told the committee she was slapped in the face so hard it drew blood when she asked a "panhandler" to leave her doughnut shop.

Restaurateurs said panhandlers routinely steal beer, food and tips from sidewalk patios. One restaurant owner said panhandlers work in teams, comparing them to "organized crime." Several also complained that police did not respond promptly to their calls.

Activists accused businesses and city councillors of targeting the poor.

"Take that word homeless out, and use the word Jewish," said activist Beric German, with the advocacy group the Toronto Disaster Relief Committee.

"Would we be studying whether Jewish people could come down and ask for help, if they were in trouble? We wouldn't be studying that. That would be thrown out. And I ask you to throw this out."

Mr. German was echoing an argument from a letter submitted to the committee from Peter Rosenthal, a lawyer leading a challenge of the province's Safe Streets Act, which already targets "aggressive panhandling."

In an interview, activist Cathy Crowe, a nurse and co-founder of the Toronto Disaster Relief Committee, said she thought the Holocaust was a fair comparison since the homeless face "a pattern of laws and bylaws" and discrimination.

Mr. Miller persuaded his committee to refer the proposed review to city bureaucrats, asking them to "engage" with panhandlers in the area from Spadina Avenue to the west, Yorkville to the north, Jarvis Street to the east and Queen Quay to the south. Businesses and residents will be consulted about the effects of panhandling. The city will also ask police for a report.

Councillor Case Ootes (Ward 29, Toronto Danforth) has called for a panhandling bylaw, but city lawyers say an outright ban would be open to a constitutional challenge.

Mr. Ootes said he was satisfied with the result yesterday and dismissed those who invoked the Holocaust as "professional anarchists."
 
A panhandler who frequents the busy Danforth Ave corridor between Broadview and Pape lives in a half-million dollar home in Riverdale owned by his mother. I asked him once why he does it. His response: "because I can".
Enough said.
 
Although not a strategy, I noticed in Alberta that homeless left people alone because that province had a pretty generous bottle return program. The homeless would rescue bottles and cans that had wound up in the garbage and return them for refund. This way, two birds were killed with one stone: it got rid of panhandling and it helped the environment.
 
The recent 20¢ deposits put on wine bottles here is ridiculously low, and the deposit should be raised to 50¢ per bottle. That said, that's only one tiny way that may help, and doesn't solve the greater problem.

42
 
The wine and liquor bottle return counter at my local beer store at Logan and Gerrard is very popular with unkempt and rather odiferous pickers and their large hauls of empties. I wander in now and then with the odd sherry bottle, or half a dozen wine bottles from a party, and the usual crowd of good old boys is there in force. And, yesterday morning on my way to the streetcar stop, an elderly Chinese woman was scurrying down Logan ahead of me with a big buggy crammed with empties.
 
You must log in or register to post here.

Back
Top