By Rudabeh Shahbazi
Staff Writer
Ana lives in the filthy, contaminated ghetto of Skid Row. She hasn’t always lived on the streets. She ended up there after escaping from one abusive man after another, all heavily dependent upon drugs and alcohol.
Now she lives in her friend’s tent, hiding from men who come to beat her for leaving them. The homeless who aren’t fortunate enough to live in tents in downtown Los Angeles live in boxes that plaster what is left of the sidewalks for blocks on end.
Maybe we should design a means to keep them out of sight, and out of mind. Oh, I forgot, that’s what Gavin Newsom, Marina Supervisor, is doing right now in San Francisco with a newly proposed ordinance modeled after the one in Los Angeles in December 2000.
If a raggedy person asks for change in the more affluent areas of the San Francisco, the new laws would make the request a misdemeanor with a maximum fine of $500 and up to six months in jail. This is similar to the laws implemented in the more affluent areas of Los Angeles, just miles away from Skid Row.
The ordinance would also make it illegal to panhandle around ATMs and banks, urinating in public and sleeping in doorways. God forbid the wealthy citizens of the area be affected by the less fortunate.
Ana remains a faceless statistic to you now, but she is very real. So are the other 84,000 homeless people living on the streets of Los Angeles every night. Yet these people go unseen and unheard.
Her only source of income is the money she brings in from prostituting herself on the streets.
She says her work does not bother her anymore. And why? Because she’s used to it.
Another woman, living near Ana, said she would rather “starve than open my legs to nobody. I’m not a prostitute …” She was malnourished, dirty, and could barely clothe herself with what little she made from begging on the streets around her wet cardboard box, the streets that people with money never see anyway.
Still, because she makes an ethical decision not to sell drugs or her body, she is being punished with harsher severity.
The panhandling ordinance isn’t really aiming at keeping people safe. It’s to keep Glendale looking pretty.
San Francisco is the third “meanest city to homeless people,” ranked behind New York and Atlanta, according to the National Coalition for the Homeless and the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty. Los Angeles and San Diego are also criticized in the report for lacking enough shelter and beds for the homeless.
The anti-homeless laws that these communities are adding include rules against panhandling, which is described in a city staff report as approaching or following pedestrians, use of abusive language, unwanted physical contact, or intentional blocking of a pedestrian or vehicle traffic.
What is wrong with just saying no to panhandlers? This proposed law is the latest in a dangerous trend in America today – criminalizing that which we find ugly or that makes us uncomfortable. The truth is, we can’t keep running from things that bother us. That is why we still receive calls from telemarketers at dinner and why junk mail floods our e-mail accounts.
The fact that there is an isolated neighborhood desolate enough to be called Skid Row in the middle of a sea of prosperity is proof enough of the cruel measures society will take to keep the awkwardness out of the mainstream domain. As long as these alien people stay on their filthy, poverty-infested island and away from us, they are allowed to destroy themselves and each other.
Drugs, beatings, theft and prostitution appear perfectly legal in this confined area, despite the police station located in the center of the neighborhood and countless patrol cars that cruise by without an inquiry. It seems as if it takes murder to get anyone arrested.
And why not? Maybe jail wouldn’t be a bad environment. After all, it seems the only place with a guarantee for food and a bed, even protection to a degree. Granted, the opportunities for what little chance a homeless person has for employment would be even more aggravated with the addition of a criminal record.
City officials should at least have the veracity to call the proposed ordinance what it is. Perching on the ground rattling a cup would be the only way to comply with the city’s definition of panhandling without being aggressive. It is not a prohibition on aggressive panhandling, but on panhandling itself. Even walking up to a person and asking for change in the most polite, inoffensive manner, would potentially be a crime.
And where is a person on the street going to come up with $500? Aggressively panhandle in another city?
This new ordinance would also be dangerously arbitrary. Apart from actually witnessing the incident himself or herself, just how is a police officer supposed to determine that a request for pocket change crossed the line into pushiness?
The city’s homeless population is already the least protected and least trusted segment of the community. My guess is that the police will generally side with the accusor, and not the accused.
There are already laws that prohibit obtaining money through intimidation (extortion) and making physical contact with someone against his or her will (assault), not to mention that little section in the constitution stating that every American, even the homeless have the right of free speech.
Approximately 40 percent of San Francisco’s homeless people are members of families with children. Caduceus, a psychiatric treatment and social service organization, says there are 168 families waiting in line for a shelter that cannot receive the treatment or protection from the cold that they desperately need. There are not even enough beds.
“The state of California doesn’t provide enough benefits for disabled or elderly individuals to live indoors in San Francisco and eat at the same time,” said Marykate Connor, executive director of Caduceus Outreach Services.
“I would ask why the government subsidizes corporations to the tune of billions, while it cannot care for its most vulnerable citizens.”
While our politicians want to criminalize homelessness, homeless people can hardly be expected to use shelters that don’t exist. The pool of subsidized housing shrinks every year, jobs are disappearing and welfare time limits are setting in.
As the social safety net disintegrates, more and families are losing their housing.
It would be easy to outlaw something that the general public finds unpleasant, but that isn’t what this country is about. It’s about compassion for all citizens, even those on the down and out.
So instead of going for the quick fix, let’s try and make a lasting difference.
January 31, 2002