SAN ANTONIO, TX - San Antonio City Council tomorrow will once again revisit the vexing issue of what to do about the homeless and about panhandlers, who are seemingly becoming more numerous and more troublesome at streetcorners, News Radio 1200 WOAI reports.
Council will receive a briefing from the Police Department, as well as from the Department of Health and Human Services and Methodist Healthcare Ministries on how to attack the problem.
One key recommendation--encourage home and business owners near streetcorners and other places where the homeless and panhandlers congregate to put up 'NO TRESPASSING' signs.
The presence of a sign allows police to charge the panhandler with criminal trespass, which is a Class C violation.
But Police Chief William McManus has long maintained that homelessness is not a problem that can be 'arrested away.' He points out that arresting a homeless person for, say, vagrancy, takes an officer off the streets for two hours, and since the homeless person doesn't have any money anyway, the person is generally released by the magistrate with a sentence of time served.
And people who work with the homeless agree that many of the panhandlers on streetcorners are not homeless people, but are actually 'professional panhandlers,' who are driven to busy streetcorners in the morning and driven back in the evening by organizers who pocket most of what they collect.
The plan that will be presented on Wednesday is short on enforcement and long on outreach, and coming up with programs to identify the chronically homeless and provide them with assistance.
It involves making sure the homeless have identity cards so they can access need government programs and services, most of which require proper identification.It involves use of police Crisis Intervention Teams to interact with individuals who may be mentally unstable, under the influence of drugs, or exhibiting behavior that makes the individual a threat to themself or others.
Officials will also encourage motorists and pedestrians who encounter panhandlers to direct them to the Haven for Hope, the SAMM Shelter, and other resources.
Photo: Getty Images