Panhandling Case Study

1870 Words8 Pages

It is snowing and freezing cold. The streets have been the home to a twenty year old man named Frank. He has been making it through with the money that he has received through panhandling. Frank moves around from time to time but has no official place where he sleeps. Sometimes it is under a roof and there are other times where that is highly not likely. The help he receives from other people walking around the city is not enough. Instead of receiving more help Frank is shown toward the opposite route and has police becoming involved with him. The police have cited him many times for loitering or panhandling. Stricter laws towards him and other homeless people make it extremely hard for Frank. While trying to apply for jobs throughout the city, he has to go in with those citations on his record and see what the company says. More often than not, he is not accepted for any job. When he is on those streets the laws against what he is doing are providing no benefit for him or the economy. Frank is being denied some of the essential rights of being a human being. He is not generating any source of money because he is being denied from jobs and when he does generate it, it is a small amount. Frank is unhappy with the …show more content…

Another reason to not criminalize the homeless is all of the costs associated with criminalizing them. Many do not stop and think of all of the costs that come along with laws against the homeless. Not to mention the costs when the laws become stricter and are enforced more heavily. According to Scott Keyes, a writer for thinkprocess.org, “When you consider all the associated costs of criminalizing homelessness — court fees, judges’ time, officers’ time, money spent jailing people, not to mention all the associated medical costs of keeping people on the streets — it makes little financial sense for cities to continue passing these types of ordinances”(Keyes). This quote is just an outline of what the costs are, it does not actually tell you how