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Health & Fitness

Panhandling in the Spotlight

Panhandling, the political hot potato. Tampa City Council considers bans on street vendors and panhandling. Are we being honest about our motives?

As panhandling comes to the foreground once again, I am hearing the debates for and against. Safety is often cited as a major problem, though we don't really see a lot of evidence that supports it. If reported injuries and casualties are any indication, you are far more at risk riding a bicycle down any of those streets while obeying all applicable laws, than you are selling a newspaper or holding a firefighter's boot.

The majority of panhandlers I see are neither newspaper sales nor formal charity work; they are beggars.  They make many of us uncomfortable and we find interacting with them unpleasant.  Further, they are unlikely to represent themselves making them both unpopular and politically ineffective--a combination that leads them once again to the front of local politics.

One of the options being considered by council is to create various forms of exceptions to allow for newspaper sales while prohibiting begging. If panhandling/street vending is truly unsafe, it is unsafe for everyone, even the politically empowered.  Some of the solutions being considered would remove the unpopular panhandlers and leave the rest based more on the cause they support rather than any empirical measurement of risk.

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Each of these panhandlers, regardless of the ultimate beneficiary of the cash, spends the money. The beggar is more likely to spend that money in a local store than the firefighter's boot-full of dollars bound for the Muscular Dystrophy Association (MDA) headquartered in Tucson, AZ. The contractor selling newspapers supports their own income as well as the reporters, photographers and other employees of the publisher.  

As we wind our way through this politically charged and complex issue, let's keep in mind that we should be legislating for a better future for all our citizens and not as a weapon to remove the politically un-empowered and unpopular from our view. If panhandling/street vending is a risk, it is risky for everyone. If it represents a desirable economic activity, any law-abiding cause should be acceptable.  A good compromise solution should include alternatives for the people who rely on panhandling for their living and strike a balance between jobs and safety.

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