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| I blurred the sign..Tom |
Councilman Vera only wants the police to ticket you if you are giving to a person who is not "authorized" by the city to beg. His reasoning is that because he almost ran over a homeless person begging for money, and the city not being able to enforce its own laws against panhandling, it is now time to go after the PUBLIC who give these people money.
Now, you may have noticed I use the word begging to describe "all" of the people who stand at intersections and ask you for money, whether they are "authorized" or not.
I moved to Laredo in 1992 from the Midwest I lived in cities of all sizes before moving to Laredo at the ripe age of 39. Until I moved here, I had never, repeat never, seen school age kids, adults, and organizations wanting to raise funds stand in the street, just like the panhandlers, and beg (ask) for money. I don't know if this is just a Laredo thing, a border thing, but I don't, or haven't seen it occur in San Antonio or Dallas. But I must admit, I have not spent a lot of weekend time in those cities.
What really shocked me, and still does, is that our school districts allow kids to work intersections and beg for money. Yes, when they are in the intersections, they are begging you to give them money for some cause, whether it be to fund a trip, or buy uniforms, whatever. How can any parent, guardian, or school administrator allow such an activity to take place? What happened to "earning" your money for whatever reason you are promoting. Have a car wash, plate sale, anything but begging. The only people that should ever be on a street corner asking for something are legitimate charities, ie, Red Cross, United Way, the fire departments boot fill, and the other real groups too many to mention. Even most of the real charities do not stand in the street begging, but fund raise in other manners.
So, if I am a city council person, I tell Councilman Vera during his comments that Laredo should ban all the begging at intersections. No one, repeat no one can go and beg in the street. And then I tell him, we have a police department to enforce that law, and we will not hold the generous public accountable for being generous. And if we cannot find appropriate means to enforce the no begging ordinance, then we will look to the community for assistance in dealing with the truly homeless.
It is time for Laredo to take a big step and tell our children that standing on a street corner asking for money is never a replacement for working/earning money the old fashion way if you want to fund a trip, buy uniforms, or whatever your money making cause is about.
I agree that organizations should always find a way to raise funds through earning of some sort- or, at least, not in an intersection. I haven't ever heard of a penalty for helping someone- and I do think that is what people are trying to do when they give to a homeless person who is begging. Your post brings up an issue I've wondered about.....is there anywhere for homeless people to go to try to get their life back together if they are willing to do that?
ReplyDeleteThis is what I call reactionary, this agenda item literally had to walk right in front of councilman Vera in order to give him something to do. If anyone from outside Laredo tunes in and sees the city council dealing with cracking down on beer runs and fining their citizens for being compassionate, they will go elsewhere even faster.
ReplyDeleteI helped the Food Bank raise money by collecting change at the intersection of Shiloh and McPherson last year. The practice can be dangerous but I'd rather do that than sell raffle tickets, steak plates, or cookie dough.
ReplyDeleteStanding out in the elements, and dodging traffic IS work.
I don't think anybody on council will call out Mr. Vera for coming up with this dumb idea. They'll have a back and forth about the constitutionality relating to donations. Mr. Casso will chime in with a comment. And they'll decide to revisit the issue at a later meeting with suggestions from staff.
I think, especially where children/kids are involved, the raising of money should include some type of pay for work incentives.
DeleteNo begging allowed. Once a begging begins, it is very hard to stop.
Hopefully city council will move to find a solution for the problem of the homeless, versus fining well meaning individuals.
These vagrants are becoming bold and bolder. They approach you when you get off your car to go into any of the convenience stores and hound you until you give them money. If you do not give them money, they start cursing at you and some will even spit at you. They will even approach your kids and do the same. Some will approach your car when you are stopped at a red light, squirt some water on your “not so dirty” windshield, and they try to clean it. And then they DEMAND $5.00 from you!!!
ReplyDeleteAnd then there are those that consider themselves special being homeless and think they can call home any drainage ditch, bridge span or abandoned house, their homeless home.
These homeless are not homeless. Each of them have a home here. However, since they do not want to abide by the rules of their relatives, they go out onto the streets and live off from the streets.
There are two violations in the Health and Safety Code of the Texas laws. And they are, H.S.C. 463.001 CONTRIBUTING TO THE DELINQUENCY OF HABITUAL DRUNKARD, and H.S.C. 463.011 CONTRIBUTING TO THE DELINQUENCY OF NARCOTIC ADDICT.
http://www.statutes.legis.state.tx.us/Docs/HS/htm/HS.463.htm#463.011
On both violations, on paragraph b, it states, A person commits an offense if the person by any act or in any manner encourages, causes, acts in conjunction with, or contributes to the delinquency, dependency, or neglect of a habitual drunkard, regardless of the drunkard's previous convictions.
There are city ordinances in place for solicitation in a street. I can hardly wait for Laredo to have its first vagrant go through the process of getting a permit and be there on any given street, begging for money. By the way, this is happening (vagrants getting permission from cities) in our state and other cities as well.
Oh, by the way, they also get government assistance, in the form of monthly checks and so forth.
There are two points here. First, I too must say that I had never seen people gathering money for organizations before moving to Laredo except once a year the Firemen did "Give Burns the Boot" - it was televised, it was the same weekend every month, and everyone knew what they were raising money for. Now I often look all over to try to see who the change is going to -at the very least it should have to be posted in LARGE LETTERS for every one to see.
ReplyDeleteSecondly, the homeless. I give to homeless on the streets all of the time. I teach my children that we are generous, and this is one way to do it. In the summer we give waters too. I would prefer to have some kind of low value gift card/coupon to give them that can be redeemed to HEB or McDonalds to ensure that they are buying food. If someone could find a way to do this, I'd much rather give that. I can't even imagine how I'd explain to my children that we can no longer give to the people on the streets because our city has decided that if we do - WE will get in trouble. Maybe the City Councilman can explain how generosity is illegal to all of our kids.
Well city council, you see it here, do not pass some ordinance that stops the well intentioned, but look at ways to help the homeless and get them off the street.
ReplyDelete