Toronto poised to help panhandlers
Study shows average daily haul less than $25 a day
Toronto is poised to spend an additional $5 million a year to help panhandlers get off the street and into homes, after the release of a study looking at the needs and issues of panhandlers in the downtown core.
The plan is going to the May meeting of Toronto's executive committee, and stems from issues raised by Ward 29 (Toronto Danforth) Councillor Case Ootes last year about aggressive panhandling in the city's downtown tourist areas.
Last spring, the city's Executive Committee set shelter and housing staff to work on a report, surveying the needs of people involved in panhandling. In early May, the Executive Committee will consider the results of that survey.
According to Phil Brown, General Manager of Toronto's Shelter, Support and Housing Administration, that survey shows, perhaps unsurprisingly, that people involved in panhandling are dealing with severe poverty issues. More surprising to Brown, was the fact that about three-quarters of those people are in fact homeless.
"We expected that more panhandlers would be housed," said Brown. "In fact it turned out that most of them were homeless. Most of them absolutely detested asking people for money. And the majority were male, and had been panhandling for 14 years or more; 11 per cent of them had been panhandling for 20 years or more."
Brown said the survey, which spoke to just over 400 people panhandling, also debunked the theory advanced by some that panhandlers did financially well asking for money. The study found that on average, panhandlers got between $20 and $25 a day, panhandling seven days a week.
Why do they do it?
"One big reason was the very human need for social contact," said Brown at the Friday afternoon press briefing.
To deal with the situation, Brown's department is recommending a potential tripling of the amount of money the city spends on its Streets To Homes program, adding $4.9 million annually to the budget and adding 48.1 full-time equivalent employees to the roster. Brown said the city should attempt to secure federal and provincial funding to bring that number down, but if it doesn't arrive, $4.9 million would have to come from city taxpayers.
The Streets to Home program has been in place since 2004 in the city and has focussed on helping homeless people find permanent housing - finding homes for 1.700 so far. This enhancement would focus on homeless people engaged in panhandling, mostly in the downtown core of the city.
The program would also seek the cooperation of local business improvement areas - many of whom complained about the prevalence of panhandlers when the matter came to committee last year. Brown said that many local businesses expressed a willingness to help provide employment.
"There's obviously a lot of frustration with this issue, but there was great support for a social service intervention," said Brown. "In terms of the employment side - it was they who came forward and said if we can help generate employment opportunities for those folks we'd be happy to try. They'll need a bit of help to manage, but there's a lot of jobs that would present a win-win situation."
The program would see several service enhancements. The program would deal with anyone who resorts to panhandling - including those that are housed. It would provide service from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. It would serve the entire city, with enhanced service in the downtown as bounded by Bathurst Street and Parliament Street, and Yorkville south to the lake. And it would provide a central phone number where anyone seeing a panhandler in distress would be able to report in, and the city would send someone to deal with it.
Brown said that pending council approval, he hoped to be able to implement the program as early as this summer. If that happened, it would likely cost $2.8 million this year.
