Maine's largest city considers giving jobs to panhandlers

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press

Maine's largest city considers giving jobs to panhandlers
Updated 12:38 pm, Sunday, March 5, 2017



PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — Officials in Maine's largest city are considering offering panhandlers work to keep them off the streets.

The Portland Press Herald reports (http://bit.ly/2lLk1JE) the city is working on a 36-week pilot program that would offer panhandlers an opportunity to work for $10.68 an hour cleaning up parks and other light labor jobs, and connect them with social services.

City officials say the proposal is similar to a program in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

The newspaper says panhandling has become a growing concern in cities around the country, where business owners fear it hampers tourism, and residents and visitors complain about panhandlers asking for money on sidewalks and at stoplights.

Read more: http://www.chron.com/news/us/article/Maine-s-largest-city-considers-giving-jobs-to-10978615.php

[Doreen]

1. It took this long for them to figure this out?

Unfortunately there are going to be a whole shit load more panhandlers after the dictator starts doing what he wants. To little to late.

[iluvtennis]

3. Truth and Truth!

[TexasBushwhacker]

2. I'm glad connecting them with social services is part of the plan

The reasons people have turned to panhandling and/or become homeless are often complex.

[disalitervisum]

4. Just Google "Reagan releases mental patients" if you want

some insight into the root causes of increasing crime, violence, and homelessness over the last forty years. There are many excellent articles from which to choose, but the best by far is this one:

"Ronald Reagan and the Commitment of the Mentally Ill: Capital, Interest Groups, and the Eclipse of Social Policy."

www.sociology.org/content/vol003.004/thomas.html|

[rgbecker]

5. Funny, just telling my daughter about the number of panhandlers that showed

up on the streets when Reagan was in the White House. Forgot the reason was his move on the programs that served the Mentally Ill.

Pathetic that our society is set up so that people in need have to resort to panhandling on the streets to get by. Hoping for a return to the ideals of the "Great Society" after we throw the Republicans out.