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Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION

No more change for the poor?

BIZ seeks donations to groups, instead

By: Bartley Kives

Posted: 05/22/2009 1:00 AM | Comments: 0 (including replies)

As he holds his hat out for loose change, panhandler Bill Stefanyshyn says some people would starve without money they get from passersby. (WAYNE.GLOWACKI@FREEPRESS.MB.CA )

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DOWNTOWN businesses have launched a campaign to convince Winnipeggers to stop handing pocket change to panhandlers, in favour of donating to a trio of faith-based groups that offer work-experience programs to the homeless.

Over the next four business days, pedestrians who visit Downtown Winnipeg BIZ sidewalk kiosks over the lunch hour will be handed a granola bar to give to panhandlers if they donate cash bound for training programs run by Siloam Mission, the Salvation Army and Holy Trinity Anglican Church.

"If you give to panhandlers, you can't be sure how the money will be spent," BIZ director Stefano Grande said Thursday morning. His organization hopes to raise at least $20,000 at the temporary kiosks, as well as 80 permanent donation boxes scattered throughout downtown.

The bulk of the money will support a Siloam program that has trained 50 homeless or unemployed adults since 2006. Eleven alumni are now employed as construction workers, in trades or by the BIZ itself, said Dan Ingalls, a Siloam director.

Brian Tait, a former panhandler who spent four months in Siloam's program and now cleans streets for the BIZ, said the training allowed him to find a decent place to live. "If people don't know how to help out panhandlers, I can tell you (this works)," he said.

Winnipeggers must not turn a blind eye to poverty and ignore either homeless people or panhandlers, said Mayor Sam Katz, who believes the heroics displayed by Faron Hall, the homeless man who rescued a teen from the Red River earlier this month, may help change perceptions about disadvantaged people. All three levels of government, the private sector, faith-based groups and ordinary people must work together to combat poverty, said the mayor shortly before the province announced a wide-ranging anti-poverty program.

But a lawyer representing an Ottawa-based anti-poverty group questioned Katz's commitment in light of a two-year-old constitutional challenge of a portion of Winnipeg's anti-panhandling bylaw.

In May 2007, the National Anti-Poverty Organization sued the city to strike down the "captive audience" portion of Winnipeg's Obstructive Solicitation Bylaw, which prohibits panhandling at bus stops, banks, credit unions, ATMs, parking lots and outside vehicles.

Preventing panhandlers from asking for help violates freedom of speech, liberty and equality provisions of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, said Winnipeg lawyer Josh Weinstein.

But Canada's charter of rights can be a shield as well as a sword, as many court decisions have already established, countered Saul Simmonds, the lawyer representing the city in this lawsuit. Other North American jurisdictions have legislation similar to Winnipeg's anti-panhandling rules, he said.

"It isn't fair," said Joseph Nicholas, holding an empty Tim Hortons cup a block away from the press conference. Nicholas and fellow panhandler Bill Stefanyshyn said they don't think much of the renewed campaign to stop giving money directly to panhandlers.

"Some panhandlers need money for food and clothing," Stefanyshyn said. "Without it, we'd starve."

bartley.kives@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition May 22, 2009 A3

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