Atlanta
(2008-09-10)
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As part of that, city leaders urge people to refrain from giving money to those who solicit them on the street.
Instead, they hope people will stick their spare change into new so-called donation meters.
WABE's Odette Yousef reports.
Near Centennial Park, convention-goers Paxton McVoy and Adrian Tuck of Boulder Colorado, pondered whether they'd put money into a donation meter, rather than give it directly to a panhandler:
MCVOY: It's a different need in my mind, I have no problem giving money to a homeless shelter. But when you give somebody 5 bucks it's because they need some cash, and it's a different type of philanthropy in my mind.
TUCK: I think I would. I think if I felt guilty by not giving somebody money, I would subsequently go and put some money in one of those meters.
The meters are essentially parking meters with yellow heads.
Money from them will go to groups that serve the homeless, like downtown's Gateway Shelter, or the United Way.
Mayor Shirley Franklin says this will support services that help people actually get out of homelessness:
FRANKLIN: The goal of this comprehensive program is to educate and convince residents and customers, students and visitors, that giving money to panhandlers is not an authentic act of charity.
Police and private security downtown are partnering up to enforce the city's anti-panhandling law more strictly.
A.J. Robinson, head of Central Atlanta Progress, the group of downtown business leaders who spearheaded the campaign, cites an economic rationale:
ROBINSON: If we cannot put our best foot forward to the folks who are visiting here, it's going to have a direct impact on our budgets, on our police department budgets, our city budgets, and everything else, because the city thrives under our convention business.
Robinson, Franklin, and others refute the notion that this crackdown is more evidence that Atlanta's trying to purge itself of its homeless.
Debi Starnes, policy advisor to the Mayor on homelessness, calls those who aggressively panhandle criminals :
STARNES: The people that are panhandling, the people that are chasing people out, and cussing them out, and verbally and physically assaulting people, they are not our homeless people. They are professional hustlers that are giving our homeless people a bad name.
Starnes says that the city now has the resources to help homeless people get their lives on track.
The campaign will run until March, 2009.
Odette Yousef, WABE news.
© Copyright 2009, WABE
