In The Herald’s view, as your editorial of Oct. 30, “Use panhandling law to help,” indicates, the new Everett aggressive panhandling law is acceptable. I wish I could say your opinion is.
One thing is clear: That is, there are aggressive panhandlers. I heard this from those who testified for this ordinance.
As I talked with some of them after the Everett City Council’s first two readings (an embarrassing display of wholly failing public notice, as was the second reading), it is clear that some clearly non-homeless persons, call them street thugs, are terrifying too many on Everett’s streets.
No new ordinance is needed to arrest such behavior. Everett police have had all the law they need, including the teeth in the existing begging ordinance. Moreover, the shift making this principally about the homeless is wrongheaded. One Everett councilmember foolishly said this ordinance is not about homelessness, and he must be the only one who thinks thus. Myths about the homeless abound.
In this opinion, The Herald did the public no favors quoting sources nearly five years old. Data about homeless alcohol and drug problems can approach two-thirds only among chronic homeless, who themselves make up less than 20 percent of those homeless. In less dense urban areas like Everett, it is a lower percent than that. So, your numbers terribly mislead everyone.
Further, the punishment in this new ordinance is not as you report. The bar is not lowered. In fact, it is potentially escalated to as much as a fine of $5,000 and a year in jail (Everett Municipal Code 10.04.080). You’d do well to do better research, both with statistics about who is homeless and about Everett’s code, literally at your fingertips.
Finally, who is homeless? At the supposed first reading of this ordinance by the Everett Council on Oct. 14, when there was no version of this ordinance submitted (it was withdrawn by the city attorney), a man who is homeless was allowed to testify first because he had four children with him. Two of his children appeared to be under 8, smiling, glad to be with each other. Two others were older than 8, both in mechanized wheelchairs, and also in good spirits. It seemed the household lived in a vehicle or at an unauthorized outdoor site. An entire family standing before the council revealed what more than 80 percent of Everett’s and Snohomish County’s homeless look like.
Sure, some on Everett’s Smith Avenue, and some not homeless but aggressive and terrifying, are easy to see and be declared what everyone homeless looks like. But it is not true. And your editorial must of necessity be true. Do your homework before you write your opinion.
The Rev. Bill Kirlin-Hackett is a Lynnwood resident and is director of the Interfaith Task Force on Homelessness.
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