“Change the Way You Give”: The Story Behind Lexington’s Anti-Panhandling Ordinance
Not too long ago, a series of signs began popping up at major intersections throughout Lexington, Kentucky. While the message of these signs may be commendable, encouraging Lexingtonians to donate to help the less fortunate in new and arguably safer ways, the story behind these signs reveals an interesting story about Lexington’s attitude towards panhandlers.
Our story starts back in 2007, when the the Lexington-Fayette County government was very worried about panhandling. Panhandling, or the practice of soliciting money on street corners, was seen as a danger to the city in many ways. City government claimed concerns of the safety of the panhandlers who were placing themselves in a very vulnerable position. More pragmatically, the city was concerned with potential disruptions to the flow of traffic.
There are more insidious motivations behind the effort of many cities to eliminate panhandling. In cultivating an image of a successful city to encourage development, homeless people look bad. Panhandlers remind citizens that not everyone in the city is living a comfortable life. They are often the most visible faces of poverty, and it is in a city’s superficial interest to make sure those faces aren’t seen.
And so Lexington banned panhandling. The ordinance passed in 2007 reads as follows:
(1) No person shall beg or solicit upon the public streets or at the intersection of said public streets within the urban county area.
(2) Any person who violates any provision of this section shall be fined not less than one hundred dollars ($100.00) or be imprisoned not less than ten (10) days nor more than thirty (30) days or both for each offense.
(Lexington-Fayette County Ordinance 14–5)
Several things may stand out to the reader. Firstly, the definition of panhandling seems quite broad. This ordinance isn’t focusing on the more “dangerous” or “aggressive” forms of panhandling, but rather begging or soliciting in any way. And secondly, the punishment for this offense is rather large: up to 30 days in jail for panhandling? And a 100 dollar fine is rather steep for someone who, by virtue of the offense itself, doesn’t have the money.
But fining people without money is nothing new to the criminal justice system of Kentucky (or most other states, for that matter). Petty misdemeanors are regularly punished with fines ranging from 50–250 dollars, quantities that may seem burdensome but manageable to a middle-class offender, but can trap indigent defendants in a cycle of debt and unpaid fines.
Many offenses in Kentucky carry a license suspension as an element of the punishment. After you pay your fine, you can apply for a reinstatement of your license. If you can pay your fine up front, you’re in the clear. But those who can’t pay the fine face a difficult dilemma: if they need to drive in order to go to work in order to make money to pay their fine, they will be driving on a suspended license (punishable by up to 90 days in jail and up to $250 in additional fines). But if they lose their job since they can’t drive to work, they now lack the means to pay the fine, and can expect a bench warrant issued for their arrest due to failure to pay.
Back to our panhandlers, if someone is lucky enough to avoid jail time and get merely the minimum fine in Lexington for panhandling, $100, what can the individual do? Presumably, they were panhandling because they lacked a steady source of income. If they return to the streets (ironically, panhandling to pay off their panhandling fine), they are at risk of getting picked up a second time, where they will face a judge far less forgiving on the second offense.
Enter Dennis Champion, a homeless man with more than 125 arrests in Fayette County between 2007 and 2017, almost exclusively for violations of Ordinance 14–5. If the ordinance was supposed to act as a deterrent, it surely was not working for Champion, who was stuck in a constant cycle of living either in the jail or on the streets.
The night of December 8, 2014 was not an unusual night for Mr. Champion. He stood on the corner of New Circle and Georgetown roads in Lexington, holding his cardboard sign asking for alms. Like so many other nights, he was approached by police officers and cited for his violation of Ordinance 14–5. He was given his court date, one which he did not appear for. So the judge issued a warrant for his arrest. Shortly thereafter, Champion was arrested and arraigned for his violation of the ordinance as well as failure to appear. He entered a conditional guilty plea for a three day jail sentence, which the judge granted. So far, nothing out of the ordinary for Mr. Champion. Just another sentence for the crime of asking for money. However, this would turn out to be anything but “just another sentence” for Champion when he and his public defender decided to appeal the case. The winds of change were blowing for Mr. Champion and panhandlers around the country.
Mr. Champion’s case was one of many cases nationwide challenging anti-panhandling ordinances to come to the surface at this time, for a rather unexpected reason. To get this part of the story, we turn our focus, oddly enough, to the small town of Gilbert, Arizona and the Good News Community Church.
The Good News Community Church of Gilbert, AZ did not, in fact, have a church building. Instead, they held their services in the basement of an elementary school in Gilbert. Lacking a permanent space, Good News would place signs around the town, directing community members to their services. Gilbert, however, had a strict “sign code” that gave rigid conditions on where signs could be placed and what the signs could contain. Clyde Reed, pastor of Good News, was cited for violating this sign code, and decided to sue the town of Gilbert. They claimed a violation of the 1st and 14th amendments, and appealed their case all the way to the United States Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court, in a decision that few would have connected to panhandlers, unanimously sided with Reed, ruling that a law which imposes a “content-based” factor in deciding if something constitutes free speech or not is unconstitutional. Essentially, while some regulations on free speech are seen as necessary, the process of determining what is protected or not must be “content-neutral”.
It is this precedent that armed lawyers across the nation in their defense of people like Dennis Champion. Ordinance 14–5, Champion’s lawyers would argue, is a “content-based” law. Salespeople or street musicians, individuals who could equally cause traffic problems and were in equally unsafe conditions, were not punished by the ordinance. Thus, Ordinance 14–5 was using the content of speech (whether their sign was asking for assistance or advertising a mattress sale) to determine if the speech was punishable.
The Kentucky Supreme Court unanimously decided in Mr. Champion’s favor. As they saw it, the law, which may claim to defend the vulnerable, was disproportionately punishing those vulnerable people and restricting their speech. Ordinance 14–5 was deemed unconstitutional. Importantly, however, the court was only concerned in a free-speech interpretation of the case. They found no issue in the principle of punishing the poor with fines. While Champion v. Commonwealth of Kentucky is most certainly a victory for the poor, homeless, and their advocates, it is not the end of the fight. However, in the wake of this decision, Lexington has given some cause for hope.
After their loss in the Kentucky Supreme Court, Lexington realized they needed to change their tactic in combating homelessness and panhandling in particular. Now, instead of fining and jailing panhandlers in an attempt to silence them and hide them from the public eye, the city has begun a program to help their condition. Inspired by the novel approach that Albuquerque, New Mexico took to help panhandlers, the city now sends out a van to locations frequented by panhandlers and offers them an alternative to panhandling: paid employment. These individuals are taken to locations where they can do work for the city and are paid 9 dollars an hour for their work, which is more than many can hope to make in a day of panhandling.
While this solution does little to solve the root problems of homelessness and poverty and it fails to address the homeless who have conditions preventing them from being able to do physical labor, it represents a significant shift in attitude towards panhandlers. Now, instead of punishing them for trying to make a living, the city is giving them a meaningful alternative while also getting important work done in the city. The case of Dennis Champion represents a battle won in the long fight for economic justice.