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Viewpoint Column
By RICH SHUMATE
Creative Loafing Atlanta/September 2003

We should all be stunned, chagrined and downright mortified by Atlanta City Councilman H. Lamar Willis’ proposal to ban begging downtown.

Not because of what Willis has set out to do. That’s way overdue and just plain common sense (which is, I’ll admit, a description one rarely gets to use in referring to the Atlanta City Council). Rather, what should shock and trouble us is that his proposal has ignited such controversy.

We’ve come a long way, baby — down a very wrong road of misguided and misdirected compassion. Why in the world would anybody with a lick of common sense object to this proposal? Why would anyone who cares about the quality of life in Atlanta, or the city’s economic future, think it is desirable to have unkempt vagrants panhandling on street corners?

Rather than answering such questions, critics of Willis’ approach instead change the subject. They warn, in ominous tones, that the ban could be challenged in court on free speech grounds.

Since when has the city of Atlanta been shy about plunging into quixotic legal adventures in pursuit of social policy? Granted, many of those fights have not been worth fighting. This one is. I say we give William Rehnquist and today’s Supremes the opportunity to weigh in on the constitutional right to beg and see if they come down on the side of common sense.

And while we’re at it, let’s cut through the politically correct crap we’ve used to cocoon the issue of “homelessness.” First of all, we ought to dispense with the word “homeless,” which is meant to convey the image of people who, all of a sudden and through no fault of their own, find themselves out on the streets. They must not be stigmatized, lest their self-esteem suffer.

Hogwash. Many, if not most, of these people are out on the streets because of their own bad life choices, primarily drug and alcohol abuse, and they are making a conscious decision to remain dazed and destitute. Yes, people are born into poverty or have it thrust upon them by misfortune. But staying there is a choice — one we should neither enable nor encourage by mollycoddling them.

A more appropriate term for these folks is “vagrant,” defined as an idle person without visible means of support. Yes, this carries a stigma. But some stigma might be a welcome tonic to motivate change.

OK, OK, I can already hear some of you out there picking up poison pens to inform me that a substantial portion of those living on the streets are not drunks or addicts but mentally ill people who can’t, or won’t, take care of themselves.

True enough. But these people are out on the streets today (rather than in institutions where they wouldn’t be a danger to themselves or a nuisance to the public) thanks to legal challenges brought by the same merry band of liberal do-gooders who now want to enshrine “homelessness” as a right.

If somebody is too mentally ill to take care of himself, what truly helps them more: confining them to a mental institution, where they’re at least warm, fed and medicated, or letting them roam free to eat out of Dumpsters, sleep on park benches and scream at pedestrians? The first choice is compassion; the second, merely a mirage.

It is absurd is that people who live, work or visit downtown must put up with the unpleasantries of rampant vagrancy because of someone else’s misguided political agenda. Here’s an idea — let the chickens go home to roost and turn every ACLU office in the country into a homeless shelter.

If Willis’ proposal passes, Atlanta is likely to rise higher on a list of the 20 “meanest” cities recently put out by the National Coalition for the Homeless. (We’re fifth, with a bullet.) The group’s criteria for “mean” includes not only restrictions on begging, but also laws banning defecation in public and bathing in public waters.

Funny, my copy of the Constitution seems to be missing the section where pooping on a city street is enshrined as a right. If this is “mean,” let us have more of it. And don’t dare suggest that we’re somehow lacking in compassion if we insist on basic rules of civilized behavior.

Our compassion should rest with the downtown resident who has scrimped and saved to buy a nice home — but is now afraid to invite guests over at night because of the gauntlet of derelicts outside, whacked out on God knows what.

Our compassion should rest with the struggling business owner putting in long hours and trying to build a future — who sees his customers intimidated and chased away by vagrants demanding money. Our compassion should rest with the conventioneer who comes to Atlanta to enjoy himself — and vows never to return after being accosted by a wild-eyed, un-medicated schizophrenic.

But compassion should not be used as an excuse to help people maintain a pathological lifestyle eating at the fabric of our city. That’s not compassion; it’s delusion. Banning panhandling would help all of us — including the homeless — by discouraging the pathology.