Greg Burris

We need your help.

City officials continue to work with community partners to address the challenges associated with panhandling in Springfield. Efforts address two large challenges: getting to the root cause of why people panhandle, and staying within the confines of the law when it comes to regulation.

Cities across the U.S. are abandoning efforts to regulate panhandling, as more federal courts declare local restrictions on where and when people can panhandle to be violations of First Amendment rights.

You may recall that in 2015, Springfield City Council passed a measure that built upon a previous aggressive panhandling ordinance. Later that year, a 61-year-old disabled man and the ACLU filed a federal lawsuit against the City, alleging his First Amendment Rights were violated when a Springfield Police Officer warned him that his behavior soliciting money at the corner of Grant and Kearney violated a City ordinance.

Courts around the country have struck down panhandling laws because it is argued that they single out one topic of speech to regulate: panhandling. In 2015, a Supreme Court decision by Justice Clarence Thomas took the view that most panhandling laws were targeting the message, further strengthening pro-panhandling support. Since this ruling, the lower courts have relabeled panhandling restrictions as content-based speech and put them to the harshest legal test, one that few laws pass.

City Council repealed the local ordinance addressing panhandling in February, 2016.

The City has concurrently turned to see if we as a community can address the other side of the equation: the causes of panhandling. Determined to address the root causes of the activity, we turned to One Door, the community’s central point of intake for homeless services, the Council of Churches of the Ozarks, Burrell Behavioral Health and The Gathering Friends homeless advocacy group for help in creating a pilot project.

The goal of the project, which heavily relies on volunteers, is assisting individuals who panhandle to find, and qualify for, dignity-inducing work. Additional partners PeopleReady and the Missouri Job Center are part of the effort, and while we have not been able to place any individuals into full-time employment yet, we are learning a lot about the problem.

The result is a volunteer-driven program called Wheels To Work.

Wheels to Work is designed to work specifically for homeless and other individuals found panhandling at 12 of Springfield’s major intersections identified by the Springfield Police Department as consistently frequented by panhandlers. The goal is to help address the barriers they have in getting into gainful employment and sustain stability. This is not an easy thing to do, but Springfield has a full complement of social service agencies, faith-based institutions and passionate advocacy groups willing to work with local government to try new things in an ongoing effort to get people employed and off the streets.

We believe from our initial research that the marked increase in panhandling activity in Springfield is due to four reasons: increasing levels of poverty, the recent federal court rulings, milder-than-normal weather across all seasons and the “giving” nature of Springfieldians.

Here is where we need your help. As much as you may feel like you are helping by handing cash out the window of your car, we are asking you to stop doing that. While you may believe that you are helping, you are actually making the situation worse.

Instead of handing cash out the window, we are asking that you send that same “donation” to the organizations that provide real assistance to individuals in need, and do so in a caring and compassionate way. Signage at the intersections, public service announcements and other media support help us carry this message. But, spreading the message is also difficult. It’s an emotional issue for people on all sides of the issue.

We acknowledge that Wheels to Work has been marginally successful to this point. We need more volunteer drivers and outreach team volunteers for the buses so we can send the buses out to intersections more often. And we have yet to place one panhandler into employment, but we are working with 15% of the 207 we have encountered so far. It is our hope that we can keep them on the pathway to self sustainment.

We encourage you to donate by calling United Way of the Ozarks at 211 or text the word WHEELS to 40403. Your money will support the local agencies helping those who are willing to accept help. If panhandling concerns you, we invite you to be part of the solution.

We will continue to approach this issue with compassion and grace.

Preliminary Statistics for Wheels to Work:

• Total engagements: 170 panhandlers, 15% of whom got on the bus and took advantage of services.

• About 70% are homeless.

• About 80% have some form of mental or physical disability.

• Almost all lacked reliable transportation.

Sincerely,

Greg Burris, Springfield City Manager, Cora Scott, Springfield Director of Public Information & Civic Engagement, Mark Struckhoff, Executive Director, Council of Churches of the Ozarks / Crosslines, Paul Thomlinson, Interim CEO, Burrell Behavioral Health, David Myers, Director of Education & Ministry, Springfield Victory Mission, Janet Dankert, Executive Director, Community Partnership of the Ozarks, Jennifer Cannon, Gathering Friends for the Homeless, Debi Meeds, President/CEO, United Way of the Ozarks

