This article was published in the Ryerson Free Press, February 2009 issue. Here's a look at panhandling and the Safe Streets Act in Toronto.
The city needs a better way to deal with real poverty.
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(photo originally on:
http://therandomizer.wordpress.com)
George Hill, part-time panhandler, carpenter, and father of five children, sits in front of Blockbuster video store on Parliament Street near Winchester Street, kitty-corner to his friend Chris ‘The Viking’ who sits outside the St. Jamestown Delicatessen.
It's an early Saturday evening and the guys are about an hour into their regular shift from 5 to 10 p.m. (when the neighbourhood liquor store closes). In the darkening light, each of them holds a paper coffee cup up and asks passers-by to “spare some change”. Most people passing ignore them or nod their head. Chris, who refuses to give his last name because he says it is dangerous, says he has been in the shelter system in the 16 years since his wife died. He says his bed is full of bed bugs. He uses crutches, has long disheveled blonde hair and appears to be middle-aged.
Hill wears heavy working boots and a fall coat. He says that he’s suffered from mental illness and left his wife and kids. Now, he says, he pays child support and rent, buys food and goes to the food bank. In order to make ends meet, he does occasional carpentry work and he panhandles. “It’s my part time job,” he says. On a good shift, he says he makes $5, two sandwiches and a loaf of bread. On rare days, he says, he makes $50.
At the time the province adopted the Safe Streets Act, in 1999, the Toronto Star wrote it was “supposed to protect Ontarians from annoying beggars and squeegee kids”. Nine years later, across the GTA, people are still complaining about panhandlers.
The act made it illegal to panhandle near an ATM, pay phone, public toilet, TTC stop, or on the road. It is also illegal to panhandle and: threaten; use abusive language; obstruct a person’s path; walk in front, behind or beside them; be intoxicated; or ask for money repeatedly. In 2004 police gave out 2725 tickets, and in 2007 that number almost quadrupled, with 10,584 tickets given for aggressive panhandling, according to Toronto Police Services. Panhandlers say the tickets range from $65 to $170.
Even though he knows panhandling can be illegal, Hill claims that he doesn’t know much about the act. But he said the streets are safer with him there. Hill says that the regular residents who get to know him sometimes ask him to look after their dog or bicycle.
Douglas Rowlands, resident of 10 years, and survey writer for the Don Vale Cabbagetown Residents Association, says he regularly gives a panhandler a few bucks for looking after his dog while he shops. He says, “I have no problem with that. He’s doing something respectful. There are some pretty ratty people who come to you and lay it on thick and that’s where my sympathy stops.”
According to the association’s 2007 survey of 468 residents in Cabbagetown, 82 per cent said panhandling is a very serious problem along Parliament Street. Rowlands said residents cite panhandling as the major deterrent to bringing up Parliament Street’s appeal for residents who would like higher-end stores moving in. He said people support the local businesses but at the same time, “People are saying ‘We don’t like going to No Frills.’ Everyone goes to Loblaws at Queens Quay, or to the Danforth.”
According to Rowlands, it’s not only that most people want nicer shops; they don’t want to be panhandled all the time. Rowlands said, “You can be asked four or five times in a few blocks. You can’t get away from it.” He said, “It is about perceived danger rather than actual attacks… There was one tall skinny black guy. He followed me down Wellesley Street, yelling at me. A few years ago there were some Native Canadian men in a state of drunkenness and disrepair, panhandling and yelling awful things about white people.”
Toronto Police Const. Kevin Cummings, with 51 Division, regularly deals with calls in Cabbagetown, but he says they are not for panhandling. When Cummings was told about the association’s survey results about panhandling, he said, “It sound(s) like panhandlers are on every corner … They are not outside every business. It’s not like that at all.”
He says he comes across panhandlers on his bike, and he’ll give them several warnings before he writes a ticket. He explains, “I am fair. I am not going to see one guy and say ‘you’re going to jail today.’ There are bigger fish to fry. I’m not going to go after the one guy that has a problem. On the flip side… If we get community complaints we have to answer to those. Our primary goal is the community’s enjoyment...”
Cummings says he wouldn’t classify panhandlers as criminals, “Essentially we are giving the same kinds of tickets like you would get when you drive through a stop sign. It’s a nuisance.”
Chris says he believes the way the law is written it is illegal to panhandle, whether aggressively or not. When he gets stopped Chris said the police usually don’t say much. “Most of them know me. Some of them say, ‘Chris, Move on.’ Some of them are harsh. Some of them wave and I know it’s time to move. Out of respect I move. I am not here to cause trouble. I just sit here with my cup.” He said, “I don’t know what goes on in the precinct, but it seems like they say ‘lets go hit Parliament Street and clean it up.’ Then next week they might go to Yonge Street.” He said he’s been ticketed at least once for drunken disorderliness, and on one day he said he got $750 worth of tickets. He and Hill say they post the tickets up on their walls and call them ‘wallpaper.’
Hill, who said he racked up 29 tickets in three years, said he paid his first one, and then he met Chris, who told him he didn’t have to pay. Hill laughed and said, “I stopped paying. Every time the police stop me they check to see if I’m wanted, and it doesn’t come up on their computer.” Hill said “police tell us here’s a ticket, but you know you guys don’t have to pay.” He asked “Why give me a ticket if I don’t have to pay? I don’t know what they are thinking.”
Cummings said he doesn’t think ticketing is effective. He says if panhandlers get a short jail sentence it isn’t going to get people off the street. He said a panhandler will “be back out there because he has a problem. He can’t work. He has an addiction, or no housing.”
Doug Fisher, from the Old Cabbagetown Business Improvement Area, said, “Panhandling is not an issue where the police are very effective. They can’t haul everyone to jail. They don’t have the legal authority to do it, and they don’t have the space to do it.”
A.J. Withers, from Ontario Coalition Against Poverty, says that there are already criminal laws in place to deal with assault and harassment and she doesn’t see why there needed to be law directed specifically toward panhandling. Withers said, “This law was the province’s way of criminalizing regular behaviours that people do under extreme poverty.”
Withers says their coalition used to refer people to Downtown legal Services and Parkdale Community Legal Services, but these organizations recently stopped dealing with panhandling cases. According to Withers, from 2000 to 2006, panhandlers could bring their tickets to the coalition. Withers says that with law students they fought thousands of tickets and had the vast majority thrown out. She says the coalition stopped because they only have one full-time and two part-time staff members. She said, “We could do it again, but the provincial government passed when the access to justice act, which means you need a registered paralegal. We can't afford registered legal aid.” She says that since poor people cannot afford legal defense they will be increasingly convicted. Research done at the Centre for Urban Community Studies at University of Toronto suggested that there is a sizeable sub-group of homeless people committing minor offenses who are stuck in a cycle between shelters, jails, and hospitals, and who are becoming alienated from community life. The report recommends that affordable housing be provided for this sub-group as a more cost-effective strategy.
The coalition says it wants poor people to have their basic needs met through the provision of adequate shelter beds downtown. Members said they want the safe streets act to be cancelled. Withers said the police need to stop giving tickets and the city needs to provide more free legal services.
This past spring, the City of Toronto said it would use a ‘homes first’ approach to get panhandlers and homeless people off the streets. Fisher, who has had some contact with staff from the city’s new Streets to Homes program, said it sounds positive. He said the staff are supposed to work with individuals in the community to figure out what they need –housing, a meal or clothing program, or community contact.
On the other hand, Withers said she doesn’t like the program because she said it pushes homeless people out of downtown. She said she hears complaints from the homeless that the housing provided is far away and sometimes in disrepair. She said people have little money to pay for food or TTC to access services downtown. She said, “It makes space for rich people to not have to look at the poor… The city is working to gentrify the downtown.”
Rowlands said, “I’d like that the social and economic conditions are such that we wouldn’t have panhandlers. But we’re a long way from that. …”