Facebook page takes issue with panhandlers
A Facebook page created four months after a federal court decreed the city’s anti-panhandling ordinance unconstitutional has gotten the attention of the Hot Springs Board of Directors.
Photos and videos of panhandlers and people confronting panhandlers are featured, as well as office phone numbers of city officials and Mayor Pat McCabe’s cellphone number. The page encourages people to call and register their disapproval of panhandling.
“Some of you may have noticed on Facebook that we have an issue in our community where phone numbers are being published regarding people who are on the ends of thoroughfares and offramps asking for funds,” McCabe said during the board’s business meeting Tuesday night. “A caller left a voicemail asking me what I’m going to do about the people at the end of the ramps asking for money.”
McCabe said he couldn’t return the call because the number was blocked.
The city said earlier this week that it’s looking for a private-sector partner to run the program it proposed during the poverty summit in June. Modeled after Albuquerque, N.M.’s Hope-Works anti-poverty program, the city’s plan also envisions paying the homeless to pick up litter and maintain public parks.
It’s the hope that what begins as a transnational relationship will develop into one that steers people toward resources such as substance abuse treatment or mental health services. City Manager Bill Burrough said the city could provide a vehicle, but a nonprofit would have to staff and
oversee the program.
The city began to consider new strategies after U.S. District Judge Robert T. Dawson ruled in April that the anti-panhandling ordinance the city board adopted in December 2017 unduly burdened what courts have said is the constitutional right to beg. The regulation’s stated purpose of preventing traffic hazards targeted panhandlers but didn’t address other pedestrian-vehicle interactions, Dawson said, such as those involving road maintenance or street crossings.
The board repealed a 2016 anti-panhandling ordinance that specifically prohibited pedestrians from soliciting anything from motorists after the American Civil Liberties Union of Arkansas sued on behalf of Michael Rodgers, who was arrested for panhandling under the state’s loitering statute in October 2015.
“By singling out only certain persons with certain types of messages, the city has fashioned a fit that is too small to cover its legitimate and compelling interest in promoting the safety of all pedestrians in unauthorized portions of the roadway,” Dawson, noting that federal traffic safety data the city cited in support of the
2017 ordinance did not specifically address pedestrian deaths and injuries caused by panhandling, ruled.
The ruling required the city to pay ACLU of Arkansas
$30,702 in attorney fees. The advocacy group also convinced a federal court to permanently enjoin the city of Rogers from enforcing a similar ordinance.
“We use attorney fees to fund future litigation,” Holly Dickson, legal director for ACLU of Arkansas, said. “We try to avoid having to file suit, but we weren’t successful in getting the city to change its mind about its ordinance. Unfortunately we had to spend a lot of our time, money and effort, and the city had to spend its time, money and effort to litigate the issue.”
Panhandling in the city became more common after a federal judge invalidated the state loitering statute. Rodgers was arrested under the statute in 2015, but Division 1 Circuit Judge John Homer Wright dismissed his misdemeanor conviction from Garland County District Court.
The amended loitering statute the Legislature passed in 2017 was also invalidated in federal court, a ruling the attorney general’s office has appealed to the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Dickson said safety concerns invoked in opposition to panhandling could be addressed without violating the fundamental right to publicly seek assistance.
“A lot of people want to cite other activity that sometimes is part of people seeking assistance,” she said. “Stopping traffic, creating hazards, making people afraid they’re going to be physically harmed, these are things covered by the criminal code already. The remedy is to enforce those offenses, or cite or arrest for criminal activity, not to try to criminalize the speech of people who are poor or need help.”
Dickson said by extending First Amendment protections to panhandling, courts have raised the profile of poverty, forcing cities to address the issue through non-punitive means.
“One good thing about it being more visible is communities are looking at solutions to address these problems,” she said. “There’s not a good support system in our state for people who are living outside. Perhaps we can actually tackle some of these issues and solve some of these problems.”