Baltimore's Nickel and Dime Approach to Homelessness
"Question: What do you get when you combine the problem of panhandling, the need for financing long-term strategies for dealing with the homeless and a bunch of old parking meters? Answer: a small but ingenious solution.
Baltimore and its downtown organization, the Downtown Partnership, have been thinking a lot about homelessness and panhandling. As everywhere, these are big impediments to downtown renewal (visitors hate walking a gauntlet of panhandlers; residents hate stepping over people camped on the sidewalks). The good news: Baltimore city government is ready to commit itself to the only strategy that seems to work, an approach called "housing first". Better news: The Downtown Partnership has come up with an idea that may cut down on panhandling while helping pay a portion of the expense of programs for the homeless.
That's where the old parking meters come in. The organization has painted some old-style, headed-for-the-scrap-yard meters (the ones that accept only nickels, dimes and quarters) and installed them along busy streets. Rather than dropping a quarter in a panhandler's cup, residents and visitors are invited to deposit it in a "Make a Change" meter. When they do, the meter briefly changes signs, from "despair" to "hope."
How much money will be collected a nickel or dime at a time? Hard to say, since few places have tried this. Probably not a lot. But the aim isn't as much to collect money as it is to change behaviors that hurt cities (people giving to panhandlers). "The idea here," a Downtown Partnership official told the Baltimore Sun, "is to educate the public that it's OK to give, but we want you to give where you're helping to make a change." All the change collected will go to Baltimore Homeless Services Inc., a non-profit that helps steer people out of homelessness.
Footnote: So what is "housing first"? It's a set of programs based on separating the hard-core homeless from those who are down on their luck and treating them differently. The hard core are people so ravaged by drug or alcohol abuse, poor health or mental illness that they will always be wards of the state. The idea is to move this difficult minority into permanent housing where they are surrounded by services that keep them off the streets. Once the hard core are gone, the temporarily homeless become much easier to deal with, through shelters and conventional counseling. Baltimore is one of many cities trying this approach these days. "
Like a few fucking nickels is going to change someone's outlook from "despair" to "hope"
Get!
fucking!
real!
It's not so much my distate for panhandlers, I just think the cost of administering the program will probably cost more than revenues gained. Think of how much it cost to paint the meters to say "despair" and "hope", let alone the other administrative costs. This is about as dumb as former-Cincinnatti-mayor-turned-trashy-talk-show-host Jerry Springer paying a hooker with a municipal check. Why not have the city pay the homeless to do targeted trash removal. Pay em with food stamp credit cards.
My footnote: I think Housing First policies can be effective if adminstered correctly. The jury is still out on Baltimore's experiment.
