For many years, I've known a number of people who panhandle for a living, both on an ongoing basis and through temporary acquaintanceships. When they had signs saying they were for hire for casual work, I've hired them to work for me, some on repeated occasions. During cold winter nights for several years, I volunteered at "Out Of The Cold" (a pan-Toronto program that provides overnight accommodation, dinner and breakfast and a take-away lunch, new clothing, etc. for homeless persons during the winter months in a host of church, synagogue, temple, and mosque halls), where I came in contact with and got to know many people who made their living this way. The following information, opinions, and novel resolutions offered re Panhandling came from a consideration of information accumulated over the years through observation of and discussions with Panhandlers; and I'm presenting it to you now in this format in order for you to understand that this is a problem with at least one solution. Since I like win-win solutions best, that's how this one comes out. It's safe to write that no other Mayoralty candidate in the 2010 election gave this problem any creative thought at all; and of course, if you don't like my ideas, you are invited to come up with better ones. Panhandling is a phenomenon supported by lack of a welfare social safety net, and has been discovered by its participants to be a wonderful way to earn money. (There's a place for comments at the bottom of the page.)

• By legislating Panhandling as a recognizable business.
• By turning panhandlers into pseudo-Buskers.
• And by educating them as to what they may and may not do to earn their donated income.

• licence Panhandlers,
• educate them in the limitations of what they may and may not do under the law, and
• require them to earn their income through being entertaining in some fashion or other. In other words, to give value back for the donations they receive.

ubiquitous sight in our city. Presently, panhandlers have not been required to offer the donating public anything other than the nuisance value they present. They beg for their income and give nothing back except to a few people who get to feel charitable by giving money, food, clothing, or a coffee to them.

Under the above suggested conditions, a panhandler would become not a Busker or Vendor, but something more akin to one. Panhandlers would be required to earn their money not by begging alone, but by giving something back to the public in order to deserve it; not by just passively offering empty cups or accosting persons in the streets. Panhandlers could be encouraged to follow the example of their traffic-light lines confreres by wearing interesting outfits, doing services, performing or otherwise entertaining by dressing and acting a part in order to give something back to their donors. They might perform some pseudo service, or actually entertain while panhandling.

[One panhandler I know has tried this method. He always earned his money by offering a cheery smile, and a "good morning" or "hello" to his passers-by at the same location each day. He knew most of his donors by name, and something about them or their families. Until autumn 2007, that was the total value he provided for his customers. But he still looked dirty and sat on the street with a sign asking for work or a handout. Even though he would earn less money for working than he would on the street, he had always chosen to take the jobs offered him rather than panhandling if they became available.

That year, he added entertainment value to his business with a little musical Elmo (a Sesame-Street muppet doll) on a blue-bin crate for kiddies (and adults!) to push a button on, and watch as it sang and played its guitar.
People daily gave him a standard handout. When he wasn't present to greet his regulars, they left their usual contribution in his baseball cap next to the Elmo. Adding the Elmo to his business increased his income by eliminating much of the stigma attached to his panhandling. The location and methodology of his approach did not otherwise change. He even had co-developed a website with one of his regular donors! In it, he gave his views on life in general and on public events as he saw them. (http://homelessmanspeaks.com)

By adding entertainment value, he became a pseudo-busker, akin to a street musician; except in his case, the Elmo played the guitar and sang...and only upon request, since you had to push a button to get it going. But it was he who still provided the cheery smile and greeting and light chat with you even if you didn't push Elmo's button. Because of his age and physical infirmities caused by a drug-ravaged lifestyle in the past, he no longer accepted odd jobs. And, unfortunately because he was stationary and didn't offer any other services except a cheery greeting, smile, and conversation, his income became very sparse outside of regular shopping hours when the streets emptied. But he had become a full-time pseudo-busker, advertising his website on the side of his blue Elmo crate. [Tony Clemens passed on October 18, 2011. There was a short obituary article about him in the Toronto Star newspaper, and the neighbourhood (business included!) dedicated a bench with a plaque on it in his memory.]

Even those just sitting and staring straight ahead with a cup for donations could be dressed to entertain, offer weather report updates placed on a chalk board by helpers or friends, or otherwise 'earn' their income, as in the above example, just by saying "good morning" or "good afternoon", offering pencils or combs in a cup, etc., if they are capable of doing that much, to passers-by in return for a donation. They would wear a licence that proclaims to the public, "this person is trained to not bother you, but rather to offer you a service in order to earn his/her income."

Initially, many panhandlers will be resistant to this idea of giving back; but when they see that those who conform are earning more money (and with less hassle from the authorities) than they, they will come around to appreciating the idea. I've suggested it to panhandlers I know (including the example above), and they've tried it, and it works. "Bosses" will be dealt with as the extortionists they are: reported by law-abiding panhandlers, and arrested, fined and/or jailed on charges of extortion.

The city will then need to set up a school for panhandlers to learn the law and their limitations within it (pass an oral test), obtain a licence, have an opportunity if they so desire to learn juggling, unicycle riding, shoe shining, portable street coffee vending, harmonica or guitar playing, etc. As well, a commercial panhandling outfit depot which will eventually be paid for by the licence fees [of, say $600.00 per year per panhandler (ranges anywhere from a day’s to a week’s earnings)], can provide them with work wear they can purchase.

Thus, a panhandler ‘doorman’ at a restaurant or convenience store might be attired as a formerly dignified but now tattered doorman, down on his luck, with a beaten-up top hat, (wearing a licence on his/her lapel,) and most importantly in the eyes of the public, be earning a living by opening the door and very politely (or perhaps tacitly with a proffered doffed top hat) --depending upon the agreement made with the proprietor about how the 'doorman' would be permitted to request the donations -- or 'tips' -- with the full and glad agreement of the proprietorship based upon the added entertainment value provided to its customers of the self-employed "doorman". (Such ‘doormen’ can also be handy eyewitnesses to criminal activity such as robbery or shoplifting; and possibly assist a store operator or female clerk in trouble by alerting police.)

Squeegee persons at a stoplight might dance up to a car in twos, dressed as squeegees, clowns, etc., (wearing their licences prominently on their costumes); and proffering their squeegees, ask with expressive facial gestures if you would like your windshield cleaned. You, knowing that the contents of their squirt bottles were required by law to be clean, fresh windshield washing fluid and that they were earning a living and knew they should not insist or wash wherever the driver indicates not to, might be more tempted to invite a wash from time to time, be willing to pay a looney or two for it, and smile while your windshield was being well-cleaned with deft, professional strokes. Not only would I hire such a squeegee person, I'd feel sorry for the person who missed out, or for myself if the light changed before I had a chance to enjoy the show. Good shoe-shine 'boys' would be sought-after by business people on a daily basis. Even someone just dressed up as a clown or a giraffe, walking down the street and proffering a hat to passers-by for donations, would make for an interesting sidewalk-scape.

Panhandlers approaching you on the street would be thereby transformed into pseudo-'buskers' of a sort. The entire stigma of panhandling would be replaced by a street entertainment value. They would contribute to the GTA’s being an entertaining place to live and visit. Visitors would exclaim about how entertaining our streets are. Very many fewer panhandlers would feel the need to camp on the streets, since such activity as approval in earnings style gives the earner more dignity.

When I was a child growing up in the mid-1900s in Hamilton, there was a blind man who panhandled in the pseudo-busking style at Gore Park square downtown, playing the violin and selling pencils and combs from a cup. When people dropped coins into the cup and took a pencil or a comb, he smiled and bowed while playing. He was a treasured part of the city, not reviled; and when he died, the city mourned him with radio and TV reportage, and a lengthy newspaper obituary about his life. More recently, our own respected and beloved Ben Kerr, after whom the city named a lane-way just south of Jones and Danforth Avenues near his home, pseudo-busked at the corner of Yonge and Bloor where he met and became acquainted with visitors from all over the world. Ben built on his past career as a country and western entertainer by singing tunes with a portable karaoke system he brought from home each day. When he passed away, Toronto honoured him in a similar manner to the way Hamilton had honoured their blind violinist fifty years earlier.

One doesn't need to know how to play the violin or sing to provide appreciated services in return for donations. Perhaps by giving even semi-skilled panhandlers more dignity as they earn their livings, we might give them a reason to improve their lifestyles outside of work as well.


What Are The Alternatives?

It's certain that if panhandlers were not panhandling an income on the streets, they would be forced to turn to a life of more violent crime to pay for their addictions. With robbery, prostitution, and burglary as the favoured choices for drug addict earnings sources, the real sufferers would be the general citizenry. Fortunately for the rest of us, the panhandlers have calculated that there is more money to be made from the panhandling business, and less jail time as well.

How has the city treated panhandlers to date? City council has postured with anger about the large problem of panhandlers and threatened police intervention to get rid of them every time the issue of poverty comes up in the press in order to side-track that real issue with something more interesting, because they won't employ the necessary imagination to figure out how to remedy either issue. Police, overloaded with real crime prevention, have not massively enforced the postured angered proclamations of the politicians. There are as many panhandlers as there ever were, perhaps more because police departments from other cities have been known to pay the fare to send their vagrants to Toronto where the charitable nature of the welfare system will take care of them.

The city paid social workers out of a specially established $2million annual budget that has since skyrocketed to more than double the amount to move annoying panhandlers off the streets, where downtown business owners can't tolerate the tone-lowering contribution they make to a business neighbourhood, into shelters, and rehabilitate them into upright citizens. While this might be a worthwhile effort in terms of housing only one segment of the population that desperately needs it (although perhaps there are other poor who need the housing more than the panhandlers), it will do nothing --as Toronto police have already pointed out-- to ultimately remove panhandlers from the streets. I surmise that this is because the living they make is just enough to support their chosen lifestyles. The social workers whose job it is to convince panhandlers to move off the streets have an unenviable task. The $2-plus million might have better been spent setting up a program such as the one suggested above, which presents a win-win for both concerned citizenry and those who panhandle, perhaps administered by those same social workers.

Despite the new social worker program, which touts itself as saving our poor panhandlers (by removing them from a very handsome source of income), nothing has been done to either relieve the situation for the general citizenry or to render the panhandlers themselves harmless and useful. By taking their posture of mindless intolerance, the city elders have ensured that Toronto will continue to stay exactly as it is, or continue to deteriorate.

Again.