police approach root causes of

 

panhandling

By HEATHER MCLAUGHLIN

     mclaughlin.heather@dailygleaner.com
     08 Jun 2012

Aggressive panhandling in downtown Fredericton must be addressed to ensure local residents and visitors feel safe on city streets, says Fredericton city councillor Mike O’Brien.

Downtown Fredericton Inc., Fredericton Police Force and Mayor Brad Woodside have all expressed concern about the growing number of street beggars who are approaching the public for money. There’s been an increase in the aggressiveness of the approaches by some panhandlers who have verbally accosted people, followed them and made sexually suggestive comments.

O’Brien, who has been the chairman of the city’s affordable housing committee, said members of the public need to know they can patronize the downtown and its businesses without fear or intimidation, but enforcement isn’t the full solution.

Building more affordable housing and providing support for individuals who never before had a roof over their head is one of the best measures to get people off the street, he said.

“Most people don’t make panhandling their career choice. It is mostly done out of desperation. You can rest assured that for the vast majority of them, sometime in their life, they were permitted to fall through the cracks,” O’Brien said.

Recently, The Daily Gleaner reported on Brad Reid, a young man who turned to panhandling after graduating from Leo Hayes High School unable to properly read and write. He fell into a pattern of drug addiction and theft. Although he’s not one of the city’s aggressive panhandlers, Reid is a regular on Queen Street seeking to get enough money for food and cigarettes. He gets $333 in social assistance and rents a room on Royal Road for $255 a month.

“Using the recent front page story as an example, if for whatever reason, our system permits a child to graduate without adequate reading or writing skills, that child is almost destined to fall behind. Were adequate social services lined up for this child ahead of time? Probably not,” O’Brien said.

“If, somewhere along the line, that same person enters the hospital with mental or physical health issue, and odds are they will, did the system simply treat the initial symptom then discharge them back to fend for themselves? If so, they are likely to be back soon, or, on our downtown streets,” O’Brien said.

“We collectively should always have a plan to deal with the aggressive ones, and not wait until it explodes and requires a front page story. As for the passive panhandlers, all of us should demand a more cohesive community strategy to put a dent into the problem,” he said.

“We have started foot patrols downtown during the day,” said Fredericton Police Force Staff-Sgt. Brian Ford who is in charge of the city’s neighbourhood action teams.

“They’re not solely for the purpose of panhandling. There are graffiti issues. We have bicycles on the sidewalk ... One of the things we’re hoping by having an officer on the beat is to better gauge what’s going on and that through that information that we can put the proper resources in place through the neighbourhood action team and we’re looking to do that.”

Ford said police have also initiated a community working group comprised of the City of Fredericton, John Howard Society of Fredericton Inc., and one of the street outreach workers, Partners for Youth and their outreach program, the Community Action Group on Homelessness, Downtown Fredericton Inc. and police.

“One of the things that we recognize is that strictly the enforcement of a bylaw will do nothing. It won’t do anything to combat homelessness. So, is the issue the panhandling or the issue of homelessness and we’re taking the approach first that it’s a social problem and that’s how we’re dealing with it through our community partners,” Ford said.

“If we’re just out there with enforcement, we’re just going to displace them and we’re not going to see any positive change. What does that do? We’ll have a number of tickets that won’t be paid and then there’s a warrant issued and there’s a greater cost,” Ford said. That being said, enforcement may be the only measure for overtly aggressive panhandlers, he said.

“One of the things that we’re asking of our beat officers is that they engage both the store owners and the homeless and it’s about building up a trust and a respect,” he said. “Hopefully, what we’ll find is that when we can work together with our partners and the homeless, we can find the proper social service that they need ... Adequate housing we know is really key to this.”

“The issue is homelessness. It’s not pleasant, so the approach we’re taking is that if we’ve identified the root cause as homelessness, then lets work on that,” he said.

Ford said it’s true that some panhandlers are using money given to them to feed addictions, but food, cigarettes and daily living expenses are statistically the driving need for many to beg on public streets.

Local organizations in Fredericton are making a difference in the lives of at-risk New Brunswickers.

When John Howard Society of Fredericton built its new Main Street offices, it was able to include 12 bachelor units on its second floor for men who had formerly been homeless or products of the criminal justice system.

“After one year living in safe housing, with supportive counselling, two have found full-time work and two have registered for general education diploma training. Collectively these 12 individuals experienced a 92 per cent decrease in emergency hospital service requirements, an 88 per cent reduction in hospitalization requirements, and an 85 per cent reduction in justice system costs,” O’Brien said.

    The estimated one-year savings to the social system is $203,000 with 12 men out of
     homeless shelter housing or off the streets.

“This is a smart use of taxpayers’ money,” O’Brien said.

Fredericton’s Supportive Housing Network is another multi-stakeholder committee that has been able to transition 45 individuals who had been homeless into safe, affordable housing, O’Brien said.

That resulted in a 31 per cent decrease in emergency shelter use since 2008.

O’Brien said the city’s own affordable housing committee has encouraged developers to add more affordable housing units in their projects. In 2011, 87 new affordable housing units were constructed in the city.