REPO: Saskatoon's plans to hound panhandlers must be defea

REPO: Saskatoon's plans to hound panhandlers must be defea

Postby Oscar » Fri Dec 16, 2016 11:35 am

City of Saskatoon's plans to hound panhandlers must be defeated!

From: Marjaleena Repo
Sent: Friday, December 9, 2016 9:19 AM
To: Friends
Subject: City of Saskatoon's plans to hound panhandlers must be defeated!

Dear Friends,

The City of Saskatoon is, once again, going after panhandlers downtown and in other business districts. This time it is attempting to increase the number of locations and venues where panhandling is forbidden, which would make it just about impossible for a panhandler to find a "legitimate" location — just think of the restaurants on Broadway Avenue and downtown with its multiple banned locations! I wrote to the new mayor, Charlie Clark and Councillors, and also included my previous interventions on the very same topic. Please do read and make known your own opposition to this regressive way of "dealing with" visible poverty among our midst: https://www.saskatoon.ca/write-letter-councilcommittees or by calling you councillor.

There is no time to lose, as December 12 Council meeting will deal with the new restrictions, and so far only one councillor, Hilary Gough, has spoken out against them!

[ http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatoon ... -1.3884422 ]

Marjaleena

=========

Mayor Charlie Clark and Councillors
City of Saskatoon

Dear Mayor and Councillors,

I am shocked that the new mayor and council will once again attempt to make life more intolerable to those among us who resort to panhandling for their survival. The plan is now to introduce more restrictions on where an individual can panhandle, so that an area like the downtown will soon be a place where no panhandling is possible. Banks and liquor stores are out of reach already, except from a distance, and now the proposal is to add cinemas, performing venues and also parking meters as banned locations. Take a walk downtown, Mr. Mayor and councillors, and try to find spots where a panhandler could sit or stand without breaking the by-law — consider marking them so there will be less hit and miss on the part of those who rely on the occasional donation from strangers!

The problem with the new additions is that they would put a squeeze on panhandlers, hoping that they would go "elsewhere," which does not exist. Failing safe spots, there is a likely chance of a fine, (for which a person would need to panhandle to be able to pay for it!), and an inability to pay for accumulated fines would lead to a prison stay sooner or later. Here we have the debtor's prison emerging as a permanent institution in Saskatoon, due to incurable poverty. Welcome to the Dickensian world and a Scrooge perspective on society's unfortunates!

The enriched by-law against panhandling will, of course, be impossible to enforce without additional police keeping on eye on the various business districts. As it has been shown in the city's own research, most panhandlers are not aggressive in any way, far from it, and the occasional disturbances that occur are of drunken and disorderly nature, which the police are already obligated to deal with. Is it not more important that our police deal with real offences, rather than be chasing panhandlers from pillar to post, first handing them fines and then having to go after them for non-payment!

In the recent past, I have critiqued previous attempts to criminalize panhandlers. I have enclosed my three short briefs which would, I hope, inform the new councillors, at least, that criminalization of poverty is morally and ethically bankrupt. I have offered practical and humane alternatives to deal with the kind of poverty that sends people to sit on cold sidewalks in Saskatoon and other Canadian cities.

Sincerely,

Marjaleena Repo
201 Elm Street,
Saskatoon, SK S7J 0G8
306-244-9724

= = = = =

December 31, 2010

Mayor and city councillors
Finance and Administration Committee members

Re: panhandling bylaw extension

Dear Mayor and councillors,

I wish to comment on the proposed extension of the panhandling bylaw which the committee is meeting to discuss in the new year.

Anatole France famously wrote: “The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under the bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.”

Anatole France appears to have described the essence of the bylaw and its extension very accurately!

The bylaw constitutes an act of harassment of those who are forced to panhandle to have something beyond bare existence. Some of the meager funds raised are spent of items that bring comfort: food, cup of coffee, alcohol, perhaps legal or illegal drugs of some kind. (Councillor Lorje saw fit to present the canard that some panhandlers brag that they are making huge amounts of money on the streets. Bragging is one thing; reality of nickeling and diming on the streets is another!)

It is not up to councillors to regulate how people use their hard-earned money, whether they earn it by working or by panhandling. If some panhandlers choose to buy alcohol, heaven forbid, that is their perfect right. I doubt that the councillors who are prepared to regulate others’ behaviour are teetotalers themselves, and therefore should not attempt to force abstinence on others whose habits and needs are publicly exposed by their poverty.

It is not up to councillors to tell me or any other citizen that we should not give money to panhandlers. If I choose to give, I consider it sort of voluntary taxation to compensate for the miserable amounts of money that the seriously unemployed, the mentally ill, those too old or disabled to work, those travelling across the country looking for better opportunities, the homeless, are getting from government sources or charities. (Here again, Councillor Lorje falsely claims that there should be no need for anyone to beg as we have generous social programmes in our country and besides people can rely on charities. Little investigation reveals that neither claim is true!)

The current bylaw and its extension have penalties for infractions: the poor will be fined and then fined again, and if not able to pay up (with what funds?), will end up with a prison sentence “not exceeding one year.” As Mr. Scrooge, when faced with the needs of the poor, exclaimed: “Don’t we have poor houses! Don’t we have prisons!” The better-off and privileged council members heartily agree, it seems. Do any of them know how many panhandlers have already landed in prison for their inability to pay their discriminatory fines? Welcome to Charles Dickens’ England right here in Saskatoon!

Those in favour of the bylaw (and more regulation of the lives of the downtrodden and underprivileged) ignore the fact that drunken and disorderly behaviour is already controlled by existing law and policing, therefore nothing additional “targeting” is needed. I go to liquor stores from time to time and have passed the one on 2nd Avenue almost daily for years, and have yet to encounter anyone aggressively blocking my way. Mostly few people hang around in high hopes, strum their instruments, talk to friends, wait for a familiar figure to come out, and perhaps rely on the empathy of drinkers who have more money than they have, have a soft spot for down-and-out fellow drinkers and don’t mind dropping a coin or two in their hats and mugs. That is how it is and how it should continue to be.

The draft bylaw forbids panhandling while ”intoxicated by alcohol or under the influence of illegal drugs,” immediately raising the question: how, in what manner is that to be determined? Will there be breathalyzers and involuntary drug tests, or are liquor breath, slurred speech, erratic walk, glazed eyes and a waft of pot enough for an arrest, and if so WHO is going to perform the tests and on what grounds? Suspicion alone, perhaps? (Yes, this is definitely a Charter of Rights issue, as some councillors suspected.)

Several councillors refer to the fact that they have “gotten calls” from constituents who are “uncomfortable” with panhandlers. This discomfort, I believe, has to do more with the unpleasantness of the sight of someone’s poverty than any true claim of being harassed or bothered. (In my over thirty years of living and working downtown, in the belly of the beast, I have encountered only a couple of obnoxious drunks asking for contributions and walked easily away from them. So how common can it be?)

The council would be well advised to stop harassing the poor and develop an approach to poverty that actually sees fewer people having to depend on panhandling just to survive. A guaranteed annual income and a far more progressive taxation system (enabling us to have more effective social programmes) would eliminate a lot of the visible poverty among our midst. These are approaches that the council members could study to enlighten themselves, but a third one would assist those now on the streets, homeless or in deplorable living conditions: a full time outreach worker along the lines that the City of Vancouver (and perhaps other cities as well) has successfully employed, who actually goes and gets housing and services for people who have fallen outside the safety net, (and who by their appearance and habits now “bother” the so-far-lucky citizens.) Much benefit can come out of this, in terms of fact finding about “these people” that the council now wants to chase around the city, and also in provision of much needed care, attention and services. I hope that the council will elect to follow this practical course rather than step deeper into what is already an ethical and constitutional minefield.

Sincerely

Marjaleena Repo

=========


April 4, 2011

Mayor and Councillors
City of Saskatoon

Re: panhandling

Dear Mayor and Councillors,

In my December 31st brief to the Council in defence of panhandlers I offered a quote from Anatole France: “The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under the bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.” I believe this distorted sense of equality continues to be the modus operandi on this issue, and will remain so until it is put to rest, once and for all.

The city solicitor’s report confirms what I argued in my previous brief, namely that there is no documented evidence regarding the necessity to prohibit passive panhandling (page 6). In other words, passive panhandling which is mostly what we encounter in certain areas of the city, such as the downtown, is not a problem that needs to be controlled, and aggressive panhandling is already covered under laws against harassment, intimidation, and drunken and disorderly behaviour.

I have recently walked the downtown streets in search of problem panhandlers and have not found them, not in front of the liquor store nor on downtown streets. The panhandlers that I have encountered make it known, verbally or nonverbally, that they would appreciate a donation. They are not rude or aggressive, do not accost passers-by and do not insult you if you do not have that spare change to give or care not to donate. (They have a mournful look if you pass them by without a gift, but the guilt you feel is your own.) They usually sit quietly on the sidewalks, away from shop doors, or lean against the walls. I have yet to have to ask any of them to move out of my way when I shop or visit restaurants. They are as much a non-problem as any group of people can be, as city councilors can easily discover should they undertake such a necessary fact-finding mission.

Trying to control and regulate a non-problem appears to be a knee-jerk reaction by some council members. We recently had a similar attempt of preventing citizens from recording at city-run public meetings. It became an issue, briefly, when a few individuals, we were told, felt “uncomfortable” at having their words and faces exposed at such meetings by non-media people. (There was no attempt to ban the media for the same reason.)

Probably there is a “discomfort” element regarding panhandling as well as it makes poverty visible. Star-Phoenix columnist Bronwyn Eyre, vigorously in favour of getting rid of panhandlers, expressed it well when she wrote that “their down-at--heel presence … constitutes an unpleasant reality the citizenry should not have to abide.” With aggressive behaviour rare and already controlled, it is the down-at-heel presence that seems to be the real irritant and leads to the suggestion of drastic measures against the poor of the street.

Luckily we have the Charter of Rights, and it is the documentation of these rights regarding panhandlers which makes the City solicitor’s report so enlightening. It makes it clear that discomfort on the part of the better-off citizens is not a sufficient cause to legislate against panhandling. There has to be more, much more.

The proposed $50,000 “scan” study intends, it seems, to provide that “much more”, but I believe it is a waste of time and money. This study is guaranteed to find out that some people are “uncomfortable” with passive panhandling, others are not, some businesses are bothered by the nearness of panhandlers, others are not, and most panhandlers will tell the research team that they are on the street, begging, because they don’t have enough money for survival or that “little extra” that makes grinding poverty more tolerable, at least for a moment.

I would suggest that the $50,000 would be better spent in hiring a full-time outreach worker for the City of Saskatoon who actually goes and gets housing, care and services for people who have fallen outside the safety net, some of them homeless, others malhoused, many of them chronically ill, others unemployable, some suffering from burnout from psychiatric drugs. The purpose of an outreach worker would not be primarily to get “these people” off the street to protect the sensibilities of those who are disturbed by their appearance, but to make the lives of the most downtrodden and marginalized people in our city more dignified and livable.

I hope that the council will seriously consider this option rather than settling for a “scan” that will tell us, at considerable cost, what we already know.

Sincerely

Marjaleena Repo

=========


November 21, 2011

Mayor and councillors
City of Saskatoon

Re: panhandling study and recommendations

Dear Mayor and Councillors,

I am appearing for the third time on the issue of so-called panhandling problems, this time with the hope of saving citizens the $550,000 it would cost to follow the Panhandling Task Force’s recommendation “to hire five civilian uniformed Community Support Officers for two years.”

As the Street Activity Baseline Study clearly indicates, page after page, there is no panhandling problem of a serious nature in Saskatoon that would require this expenditure on a plan that is clearly ill-defined, in more ways than one.

If there is no panhandling problem of a serious nature, as most panhandlers are described as “passive” and “non-aggressive” through the study, and, as the study clearly states, panhandlers are not necessarily homeless and ask for money for necessities and little extras for living, what is the role and function of the officers, who have the appearance from the recommendation of being partly police and partly social workers, but not necessarily trained in either field? Are they to befriend the panhandlers — and then what? Are they expected to judge how the panhandlers spend their money and try to get them to stop smoking, drinking coffee, consuming liquor and using prescription and illegal drugs? Are they supposed to discourage panhandling with their presence, trying to get panhandlers to move “elsewhere,” away from areas that people frequent and therefore away from their source of handouts? What exactly will these “officers” be asked to do?

The role that these hired individuals are supposed to carry out is mystifying, to say the least, but also disturbing, as it would fit into previous attempts that City of Saskatoon has made to get rid of panhandlers by by-law extensions and other measures whereby an individual’s right to beg would be seriously curtailed even when their panhandling does not constitute a disturbance of any kind. It was suggested in an earlier city solicitor’s report that a proposed total or near-total ban could result in a Charter of Rights challenge, unless – and this is, I believe, the crux of the matter – the City can prove that it has tried the necessary “something else”, which in this case would be the “civilian uniformed Community Support Officers” who will be given an impossible task of somehow lessening the presence of panhandlers. Doomed to failure — and a waste of the $550,000 — this effort would then justify more stringent and punitive measures that perhaps are the true agenda of this whole enterprise in front of us.

It is my hope that councillors who have a strong civil libertarian impulse – as well as a deep respect for the taxpayer’s money — will not entertain this dubious make-work project driven by a knee-jerk reaction to deep seated social and economic problems among our midst.

Sincerely

Marjaleena Repo
Oscar
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