News & Blog

“Helping both the homeless and urban places”

By Ken Stapleton

Most of us have been unpleasantly surprised at some time by someone asking for money, lying in a doorway, urinating in an alcove, or sleeping on a park bench.  Most of us don’t think of our reaction as fear, but many people avoid places with these kinds of surprises.

It typically happens in a downtown or urban area, but can happen in poorly managed parks as well.  It rarely happens in suburban shopping malls, lifestyle centers, or even retail strip centers.  Walking your dog in a gated community?  None of these surprises usually happen there either.

Not everyone feels uncomfortable enough about these experiences to avoid places where they occur, but many people do.  Many shoppers do.  Many families with children do.  Many older people do.  Many women do - particularly after dark.

And many people cannot easily avoid such places because they work there, need to visit there for business or a government transaction, or must use public transportation and transfer in the area.  Those people cannot completely avoid such areas, but they can rush through them or out of them without spending dollars to support businesses in the area.  This second group of people often complains the loudest about the problem because they cannot avoid the places and negative experiences.

The end result is decreased demand for retail, entertainment, office space, and housing in many downtowns and urban neighborhoods.  In turn, there are fewer jobs in those areas, fewer taxes for urban local governments, and fewer resources for social programs to help truly homeless people.

Unfortunately, many homeless advocates ignore the reality that concentrating outreach programs and shelters in downtowns or urban neighborhoods have these negative social impacts, including reducing resources for their efforts.  They prefer to focus on the moral arguments because they can almost always prevail in winning moral support with emotional arguments.  They attack the “greedy business people” on moral grounds.  In the process, they sustain a system that keeps more and more people homeless in simply horrible conditions.

Equally as frustrating, downtown business groups often respond to the complaints from the second group described above by passing punitive laws and funding aggressive enforcement.  This “fists up” approach almost always results in the homeless advocates digging in on the moral position, a flurry of articles in the media with the unintended message that downtown is heavily populated with homeless (so stay away), and political leadership that kicks the can down the road because of the no-win situation.

We all need to stop this.  There are real solutions where everyone wins.

First, it is important to recognize and directly deal with panhandling, which is frequently done by many people who are not homeless.  Some of them may really need help, but many are just hustlers, and others are simply feeding an addiction.  Giving money directly to these people perpetuates the situation.  Because we live in a free society, this is not something we can or should regulate, but there are free market solutions.  There are proven ways to redirect this “guilt giving” to organizations that work to alleviate homelessness without sending unintended messages.  I have seen or been a part of such solutions in cities in Ohio, Florida, and Washington and I know they can be very effective, but I have also observed and evaluated many that do not work and sometimes tell a negative story about a place.  To be successful, it is essential to know the difference.

Second, we need to openly agree that public spaces are available for all to enjoy.  At the same time, we must recognize that being an intimidating presence in those public spaces violates that principle.  Rowdy teenagers, people with aggressive dogs, men who make inappropriate remarks to women, aggressive panhandlers, mimes, and groups of homeless are often intimidating presences in parks, plazas, transit stations and shelters/benches, transit vehicles, and even sidewalks.  They effectively prohibit others from enjoying those places and amenities and we, as a society, should not allow such intimidation.  Many will argue that “quiet use and enjoyment” only extends to private property, but we regularly enforce such rules of civility in publicly funded museums, swimming pools, and even libraries. 

It is time we did the same for urban sidewalks, plazas, and parks so the majority of us can freely enjoy those spaces again.  Making this change requires strong leadership and respectful dialogue as well as reasoned enforcement and judicial support once there is consensus.  But the current “fists up” approach will not lead to this consensus.  It will just keep sending those unintended negative messages and positioning the downtown or urban place as the villain.  It is time for reasonable dialogue about legally defensible rules of civility for our public open spaces so that all may enjoy them.

We also need to make physical adjustments to help change behavior in these public spaces.  This goes beyond uncomfortable benches that make it hard to sleep on them.  Our design of spaces needs to make it clear there are rules of civility for such places, that others have a right to enjoy them, and that all of us will act to help enforce them.  Such design solutions have been used effectively in many places including Miami Beach, Hollywood, Cleveland, and Bryant Park – perhaps the most notable case.  Unfortunately, this intentional and strategic approach is utilized infrequently and almost always takes a back seat to the “fists up” response.  Additionally, many designers and builders of public spaces simply do not really know how to best use such techniques, and the majority of “solutions” are ineffective.  Additional training, expert design reviews, and management innovations are all needed.

Third, the enabling of the homeless lifestyle must end.  Much like welfare reform, the homeless who refuse to work or go to school or deal with addiction or get mental health treatment need to support themselves after we give them a hand up.  Our well-intentioned efforts over the last three decades have resulted in the majority of resources to help the homeless being spent on drop in shelters, daily meals, and drugs/alcohol (where much panhandling money goes) – all hand outs. 

Churches, people who give to panhandlers, non-profit food groups and shelters, all levels of government, and some business leaders and foundations have all fallen into this trap, although some continue to try to move away from the model.  Fixing this will not be easy.  It will also require strong leadership and honest conversation – the same way welfare reform did.  There are strong programs with proven success in many cities, but they can be expensive and lack the resources and innovation needed to take their approach to scale.  The business community can help with strategic guidance and investment, but we must get past the “fists up” approach.

Finally, we need to hold the media accountable for their continued shallow coverage of these issues.  When a street person attacks someone, a new regulation is proposed, a homeless person is a victim, or when people volunteer to serve thanksgiving dinner, we get the same old tired coverage with a few new names and faces, but the traditional emotional angles and hooks and references to scary urban places.  Rarely is the complexity of the problem addressed, and downtowns often take the hit on their image.  Business, civic, and religious leaders need to jointly speak with news editors about the harm those stories do to everyone involved, and they need to ask for a different kind of coverage.

The truly homeless deserve better, hard-working business owners deserve better, and those of us who want to truly enjoy public spaces in our cities deserve better.  It is time to ask our business and community leaders to finally stop kicking the can down the road and fully support the proven solutions described above.  Otherwise, we have only ourselves to blame.