I know I've it before, but I'll say it again, the only way to stop panhandling is to go after the supply side of the equation. Make it illegal for anyone to give money to panhandlers at the roadside. It's already illegal to panhandle at the roadside and at other locations under the SSA, so all you need to do is make it illegal to be an accessory to the SSA violations. I don't know about you, but it drives me crazy when I see a driver in front of me giving money to a roadside panhandler, since that only reinforces the panhandling. Trust me, if for four months straight Torontonians gave nothing to panhandlers, we'd quickly get a nation-wide reputation amongst such folk, and they'd move on.
Somehow most of us understand not to feed birds in the park, bears in the woods, etc., since we would be encouraging negative behaviour, but when it comes to people begging, we seem to lose our commonsense park/forest instinct.
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