For downtown denizens, it’s practically an urban survival technique, the way we’ve learned to stride down Denver’s 16th Street Mall. Walk with purpose. Keep your eyes locked straight ahead, yet with sort of a faraway look to them. That way, no one can mistake you for someone who’s actually paying attention.
And that way you don’t see, nor do you make eye contact with, the beggar perched on the street corner.
The mall is downtown’s backbone and a top tourist attraction, but for years strolling it was often a hassle.
Aggressive panhandlers would get in your face, shaking you down for cash to feed a booze habit or an empty stomach. The passive panhandlers, those who simply held a sign to tell their tale of woe, weren’t much of a problem, but the guilt of passing them by could be taxing.
And even though social workers tell you never to give them a dime, I’ll confess to digging into my pocket on a few occasions – either to make them go away or to make the pangs of guilt ebb.
But it’s different this summer.
I hadn’t actually realized it – remember, I was trying not to look in the first place – until Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper mentioned it in his inaugural address last week.
“In just two years, the number of chronically homeless individuals in Denver decreased by 36 percent,” the mayor said, “and panhandling on the 16th Street Mall decreased by 92 percent.”
Say what? It’s a rub-your-eyes-and- look-again number if you’ve ever walked the mall. Ninety-two percent?
His numbers come from the Downtown Denver Business Improvement District, which began counting actual panhandlers in 2002. The 92 percent figure is much less of a jaw-dropper when you see the raw numbers, but it’s important nonetheless.
In the summer of 2005, panhandling hit its peak with more than 24 adult and 15 young adult panhandlers along the 13-block area. That’s at least 39 panhandlers – three for every block. By the spring 2007 survey, however, only three adult panhandlers could be found.
And city staff and outreach workers know each of them by name.
The numbers are hard to believe, but stroll the mall yourself for anecdotal evidence. The only hassles I came upon last week were from those blue-shirted “Do you have time for the environment?” guys .
Panhandlers could be considered simply part of the colorful fabric of a city’s tapestry. But when it becomes frightening or intimidating for tourists, convention-goers and other visitors, panhandling can threaten a downtown’s vitality. With 35,000 people storming the city next year for the Democratic National Convention, city officials want to put on a pretty face.
So what changed?
As part of Hickenlooper’s 10-year plan to end homelessness, the city approved tougher laws that prohibit beggars from sitting or lying down on downtown streets, stepping out into traffic or approaching diners at outdoor cafés. The plan isn’t just to shoo people off the mall, but to offer them “services” at the same time, such as telling them where to go for a meal, job training, alcohol rehab or mental health evaluations.
It’s estimated that kind souls dole out $4.5 million a year to panhandlers. Denver, through BID, is trying to dry up that money source, and thus reduce panhandling, by asking people instead to give to charities that serve the homeless.
Is the mayor’s plan on panhandlers working? Sure seems like it. (At least on the 16th Street Mall.) Can it end homelessness? Of course not.
But can his plan reduce the number of homeless and those families teetering on the edge without making Denver a magnet for more homeless? We can only hope.
Cities, like people, can be judged by their compassion.
Dan Haley (dhaley@denverpost.com) is The Denver Post’s editorial page editor.
