Atlanta sets out to curb begging
ATLANTA (AP) — A day after a 5-foot-tall yellow contraption appeared on the immaculately kept sidewalk outside the Hilton hotel, doorman Howard Golden walked circles around it, eyeing it suspiciously.
Then he pronounced his verdict on Atlanta’s latest jab at its runaway panhandling problem: donation meters.
“This is one of the dumbest things I’ve seen in my life,” said the New York City transplant. The way he figures it, nothing will stop a determined panhandler from making a day’s pay. Certainly not a meter.
“I’m just waiting for someone to steal it,” he said.
Panhandling is the No. 2 complaint about the city, behind traffic. Atlanta leaders have spent years battling an ever expanding and contracting swarm of beggars, credited with frightening tourists, driving away downtown business and being a general pain.
Now the city is asking victims — from conventioneers to everyday pedestrians passing a buck to keep the peace — to stop the problem themselves by cutting off panhandlers’ income at the source.
Spare change plopped into meters instead of panhandlers’ palms will be collected and distributed to social service groups, a new approach in a city that’s tried everything from bans to police stings to curb some of the nation’s most aggressive begging.
But with victims as weary of gimmicks as they are of panhandlers, success may be slow in coming.
Research in some cities shows panhandlers earn as much as $50,000 a year.
Parking-meterlike donation stations designed to redirect some of that money began popping up downtown Sept. 11. Twenty-four hours later, few around the city seemed to consider them worth their dime.
“This will be a great way to do some good,” said Jeff McCord, a state worker who nonetheless breezed by the meter installed at City Hall. No change, he said.
He was like many pedestrians who bypassed the meters, their annoyance with panhandlers overshadowed by their indifference to any attempts to make them go away.
Marie Brewer glanced at the one outside City Hall, but shook her head when asked if she’d donate. She questioned how her change would be used.
“They take it ... you don’t know where it will end up,” Brewer said.
Officials have placed five meters at prominent spots in the tourist heavy business corridor, where “spangers” — slang for spare change beggars — typically lurk.
Posters around the city encourage tourists and pedestrians to feed the meters instead of panhandlers.