Seattlest: Panhandling Threatens, uh, Something

Tacomamama

Tue, 04 Dec 2007 15:46:45 -0800

I'm not sure how I feel about the ban, I do think it possibly goes a little too far. However, Tacomans are very aware of their image problem, and I think that's what this is intended to tackle. Seattle has always had a lot of panhandlers, or at least it did when I lived there in the 90s, but that's not the primary image people have of the place. Another important difference between Tacoma and Seattle: population and numbers of people downtown. When you encounter a panhandler on Broadway in Seattle, chances are there are lots of other people around. When you encounter one on Broadway (or more likely Commerce, Broadway's actually kind of happening these days) in Tacoma, there may not be very many other people on the street. A pushy panhandler starts to seem less like a pushy panhandler and more like a possible mugger. I'm not saying this perception is accurate, I'm just saying it's easier to be frightened when you're relatively isolated.

Jeremy M. Barker

Tue, 04 Dec 2007 14:05:31 -0800

As always, MvB is classier than I.

Michael van Baker

Tue, 04 Dec 2007 13:30:31 -0800

Other than not disliking Harris, I agree with Jeremy -- it's another "insteadness" moment, as if the real problem isn't the physically being without a home, it's the begging for money on the street. It's also disingenuous to suggest that panhandling is part of that urban vitality we all cherish, and "suburban" types don't get it. Seeing the chronically ill or severely disabled or mentally unbalanced out panhandling in the elements day after day is emotionally taxing, and the answer is no single citizen's responsibility. These people need more than spare change. "Regular" panhandlers ought to be regulated by the city and, in constructive ways such as newspaper sales, shoeshine stands, encouraged to go legit as actual service vendors. I'd like to see something like micro-vendor licenses, so that people trying to make a living off foot traffic aren't hassled by the police but are actually encouraged in entrepreneurship.

Jeremy M. Barker

Tue, 04 Dec 2007 12:21:58 -0800

One of the reasons I dislike Harris is because he's so patently political vis-a-vis his relationship to the city as an activist; it skews his judgment, and this is a case in point. Panhandling has gotten worse, and the cause--which he ironically doesn't bring up (unless Crosscut doesn't properly quote him) is that the city has aggressively allowed affordable housing to be eroded and housing for the very poor to be eliminated. It's putting more people on the streets in downtown because there's nowhere else to go. It's true that the condo-dweller attitude plays a part, but it's unfair to blame them for responding to a detriment to their community. Development happens, and the question's not whether condo dwellers just need to suck it up so much as, with the redevelopment of downtown and the elimination of the low-cost residential hotels (largely eliminated during the 1990s), will we come up with a new solution and provide necessary services, or will we just treat them as a nuisance and regulate them away? Harris has always gone too easy on the city government for my taste, and this is a case in point. Instead of properly laying the blame on the city, he chooses to blame residents' "attitude" and downplay the development that's eliminating housing, since the latter point would help establish the reality that things are getting worse, which, of course, could help justify punitive regulation. I'm not for punitive regulation or the banning of panhandling (which is likely constitutionally problematic and Tacoma may well be forced to backtrack); but that said, it's wrong to downplay the most important factor in the growing problem for the sake of trying to claim the problem's not growing. It's the sort of cynical politicking you get from a number of poverty and housing activists in this city, and shows how well Nickels & co. have played them. It's a depressing scenario and is doing nothing good for poverty and housing issues in the city.