In the wake of a Multnomah County court decision declaring Portland’s “sit-lie” law unconstitutional last year, the city is attempting to come up with new ideas to handle sidewalk management. Their latest step looks to be as inept as its sit-lie cousin.
The city recently revealed a new plan that calls for the introduction of “high pedestrian traffic areas.” Within these areas, which extend from storefronts in areas like downtown Portland, people must be ready to move out of the way for others. The idea here is to keep people from either blocking pedestrian traffic when they sit down to panhandle, or just to sit. The plan also attempts to address aggressive panhandlers by instituting a stiff $250 fine for what the city calls “belligerent” panhandling.
Trying to address the impacts of the homeless population on urban streets is a worthy goal to be sure. However, the most recent plan for doing so is not only inane, it also carries with it too many assumptions about the people it affects. We saw how that worked out when the city tried to keep people from sitting on the sidewalk and the sit-lie law was deemed an infringement upon constitutional liberties.
This “high pedestrian traffic area” plan is really just a dressed-up version of the sit-lie law, except that it carries with it no real mode of enforcement and no incentive to comply. The idea of designating a special zone for special people on city sidewalks is simply inane. All these provisions are really saying is that homeless people should be ready to jump out of the way of consumers and shoppers, and not bother them with generally polite requests for spare change, for which a simple “no” or even an avoidance of eye contact will suffice.
The sidewalk management plan goes to considerable lengths to tell us what we may or may not do on a public sidewalk if we happen to be in one of the high traffic areas. Under one of the “improper use of sidewalk in a high pedestrian traffic area” specifications in the city’s draft for the plan, they specify that a leashed dog’s neck “must be within two lateral feet of a pedestrian handler’s knee.” I would hate to be the city official responsible for patrolling sidewalks with my two-foot ruler, should someone with a dog happen to wander into the new zones.
The question of enforcement on this issue is going mostly unanswered. The general wording of the documentation thus far is that certain actions are prohibited. The police cannot really do anything useful unless a law is being broken and, as has already been established, sitting and lying on the sidewalk is not illegal. This means that the only thing the police can do, assuming they’re around to witness an infraction, is give a stern “Move along,” and hope that does the trick.
In the case of aggressive panhandling, however, police may cite rogue citizens with a $250 fine. Defining what exactly constitutes aggressive panhandling is not so easy—the FAQ released by the mayor’s office specifies only “panhandling that employs criminal acts.” One must also consider whether or not a fine is actually going to have any kind of deterrent effect on individuals with no money, unless they happen to have an emergency fund set aside for just such an occasion.
This proposed plan is, quite simply, stupid, silly and ineffective. The designation is arbitrary, the enforcement potential is nearly nonexistent, and the prohibitions are strict. Prohibitions such as these serve only to further paint the homeless as second-class citizens barely worthy of sidewalk space.
Addressing the core problem of homelessness is the only real way to mitigate its effect on city sidewalks. Sam Adams’ 2009–10 Basic Services Budget includes increased funds for housing assistance, homeless programs and human services, according to OPB News. This is the right way to go and we’re already going there. There is no need to waste time, effort and money on a sidewalk designation that does very little and does even less to address the real problems and roots of homelessness in Portland.