Real Solutions for Safer Streets

A petition to create safer streets in Seattle while meeting basic human needs and protecting free speech.

Asking for help is not an act of aggression.  Under existing law, aggressive begging is already illegal and is prosecuted by the City of Seattle.  The proposed new aggressive solicitation ordinance unduly interferes with free speech by making a civil infraction, punishable by a $50 fine, of any act of solicitation performed within 15 feet of those engaged in parking or ATM transactions.  Real Change vendors and other nonprofit solicitors, political canvassers, street musicians, small entrepreneurs, and peaceful panhandlers will all be subject to citation under this law anytime the moving "safety bubble" that encloses a protected transaction crosses their path.  This law will effectively transform our areas of commerce into constantly shifting no-go zones for all solicitors, regardless of their demeanor.  This is an extreme solution to a poorly documented problem.  Seattle has one of the lowest crime rates of any major American city and prosecutes fewer than a dozen aggressive panhandling cases annually.

The visible poverty that creates fear and discomfort for some cannot be legislated away with laws that punish the poor and undermine free speech.  Real solutions to desperate poverty include adequate mental health services for the poor and unemployed, treatment on demand and harm reduction measures for drug and alcohol addiction, and a place to go for those who lack adequate shelter.  So long as the basic human needs of the very poor remain unmet, those who need help, at the very least, deserve the right to ask without fear of legal retribution.