Everyone,
It has become clear that the downtown community is fed up with the panhandling problem. I have received a massive number of e-mail responses to last week’s posts on panhandling, all of them expressing frustration and saying, “Why can’t we all work together on this?” They’re right – we need to get everyone involved. Residents, business owners, downtown employees, civic leaders, political candidates, the police.
So Mike King and I got together and created an online forum where we can all do just that. It’s a Google group called Handling-Panhandling and we foresee the following things happening there:
- Sharing ideas on how existing laws can be enforced better
- Suggestions on improvements to existing laws
- Sharing information on known problem panhandlers – photos, where they hang out, their M.O., and most importantly their NAMES. If we can learn their names, business owners will be able to file Authorizations of Agency against them, and we’ll be able to check to see which ones have warrants.
- Venting frustrations! A place to post your panhandling stories. The Center City Commission’s security coordinator needs these from you, in order to illustrate how bad panhandling has become.
- Politicizing the issue, and forcing mayoral and city council candidates to state what they would do to fight panhandling if elected.
We created the forum Friday and invited about 20 people to join – we wanted to keep the initial number small while we tested for a few days. It’s now ready to be opened up to the public. We already have some important people on board – people who work with the Center City Commission, the Convention & Visitors Bureau, business owners, members of the media. We hope to get civic leaders and the police on the group very soon. Most importantly, we hope to get YOU on the group, if panhandling has affected your life in some way.
We’re implementing a couple of controls to keep the quality of the discussion high: First of all, when you sign up to join, you have to explain why this issue is important to you. Just a couple of sentences is enough – we just need to hear that this issue matters to you personally for some reason.
Second, we’re implementing a code of conduct, posted below. Read over it, and at the bottom of this post you’ll find a link to join.
HANDLING-PANHANDLING GROUP CODE OF CONDUCT
Welcome to the Handling-Panhandling Google group. This is a place where Downtown stakeholders – residents, civic leaders, business owners, community organizations, visitors, etc. – can come together to share information and work together on solutions to the panhandling problem Downtown. In order to keep the quality of information high, we ask that everyone observe the following rules of conduct:
- Off-topic posts – those not about panhandling – will be deleted. This is not a place to discuss other problems Downtown (e.g. cruising) or to promote events, businesses, websites, etc. that are not related to panhandling.
- This group is about the career and aggressive panhandlers who degrade the quality of life Downtown. It is not about the legitimate homeless who are truly in need/want of assistance to turn their life around – that’s an important topic as well, but it’s off-topic for this group. The career and aggressive panhandlers generally are not homeless.
- Please respect your fellow group members. It’s fine to discuss and disagree, but personal attacks on fellow group members (including civic leaders, who we hope will join this list) will not be tolerated.
- Remarks that are racist in nature will absolutely not be tolerated. These posts will be deleted, and their authors banned immediately.
- Group managers reserve the right to delete posts, warn users, and when necessary ban users in response to posts that violate the rules above or the spirit of the group in any way.
In summary – let’s all respect each other on this list, and work together to effect positive change.
To join the group, go to Handling-Panhandling on Google Groups. Mike King and I, who worked with the police last year as part of Residents for a Safer Downtown Memphis, will be the moderators. Thanks and we hope to see you there.