In Maine, Portland Tries a New Tactic With Panhandlers: Hiring Them

[demmiblue]

Source: NYT

...

So starting in April, Portland plans to try a new tactic. The city will hire a few panhandlers a day, pay them $10.68 an hour, the city’s minimum wage, and assign them to clean parks and public spaces.

The Portland city manager, Jon Jennings, said it was time to think of another solution and believes this one will help everyone. He hopes to eventually be able to convert some of the jobs into full-time work with the city, he said, and Portland’s parks will be more beautiful.

“It’s so they don’t feel the need to stand on a corner and ask for money, and they can move on to a life of productivity,” Mr. Jennings, who joined the city in 2015, said in an interview. “We are a city that really embraces people who, of no fault of their own, fall on hard times.”

The plan is more than a just stark reversal for Portland, the harbor city of 66,000 people about 100 miles north of Boston that is Maine’s economic hub. It is a small but significant shift from the disciplinary approach used by cities nationwide in dealing with panhandlers and homeless people.

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/21/us/portland-maine-panhanders-jobs.html?smid=tw-nytimes&smtyp=cur

[HoneyBadger]

1. Awesome

The easiest time to get a job is when you have a job. The first step is the hardest. Literally every employer in America should do this. Starting with local government jobs.

[meow2u3]

2. This should go nationwide

Instead of treating homeless people like lepers, treat them like the human beings they are who happen to be down on their luck.

My mom used to say, "You catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar" and employing panhandlers instead of criminalizing them has a very good chance of working. It stands a good chance of eliminating homelessness because it eliminates its cause.