Most panhandling tickets are never paid, and 1 person was ticketed more than 30 times

With Windsor council set to consider a bylaw for "aggressive" panhandling, new data from police in Windsor-Essex shows that the vast majority of panhandling are never paid, and many of the people fined are homeless. 

New data gathered by Windsor police and Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) detachments in Windsor-Essex shows199 panhandling charges have been laid since 2019.

Of those, 77 per cent were issued to repeat offenders, including one person cited 30 times.

But of those 199 fines, 95 per cent haven't been paid.

Matthew Tully was out at Ouellette Avenue and Tecumseh Road asking for change when CBC spoke to him Thursday.

He said he wasn't surprised that many of the fines go unpaid.

"They're not necessarily homeless, but I don't think they have other resources to collect money, to earn money. So this is their only way," he said, adding he's been warned by police but never given a ticket.

"For some people that look different, for some people that don't have no life skills, no job skills in certain areas, this is the only thing they do know."

Christine Wilson-Furlonger, administrator with Street Help, said she agrees with Tully's opinion and knows people who have been fined but just couldn't pay.

One man, who has since died, told her he thought the fines would prevent him from getting into a better position in his life.

"He would laugh — but not a happy laugh — sarcastically about it and say, 'These thousands and thousands of dollars that they say I owe them, I'll never be able to pay. They keep slapping them on me. It's ridiculous. I won't even be able to get a job.'"

Wilson-Furlonger — who panhandled herself as a teen — said she understands the need to eliminate aggressive panhandling.

"I'm not saying don't try to stop it because there could be that really that one very aggressive person that needs to be stopped," she said.

But she also said most panhandlers aren't aggressive and the bylaw isn't a solution to the problem of people begging for money.

"After a certain amount of tickets, maybe it's more realistic to dispose of the tickets and put the person into a mental health program. I think that's the route to go," she said.

"To go forward with just ticketing and these are unpaid amounts — they never will be paid. I don't see any great value in this whole program being put in place."

Draft bylaw

Mayor Drew Dilkens and some other councillors want to implement a bylaw that would make "aggressive" panhandling against the law.

According to the draft, panhandling would be considered aggressive when it involves: 

• Soliciting involving threats or physical harm, by word, gesture, or other means.
• Soliciting involving abusive or intimidating language.
• Soliciting while intoxicated by alcohol or drugs.
• Soliciting in a persistent or continuous manner, or proceeding behind, alongside or ahead of the person solicited.

Panhandling that causes an obstruction would also be outlawed, and that would include:

• Sit, stand or lie on a street in a manner which obstructs or impedes the convenient passage of any pedestrian traffic in a street, in the course of solicitation.
• Physically approach and solicit from a pedestrian as a member of a group of three or more persons.
• Solicit within 10 metres of an entrance to a financial institution, an automated teller machine, a taxi stand or public transit stop or a public toilet facility.
• Solicit a person who is in or on a public transit vehicle.
• Solicit a person who is in the process of getting in, out of, on or off a motor vehicle or who is in a parking lot.
• Solicit while on a street, solicit a person who is in or on a stopped, standing or parked vehicle, including while the motor vehicle is stopped at a traffic control signal.

Earlier this month, Windsor police and Family Services Windsor-Essex worked together in an effort to address panhandling.

Chief Jason Bellaire said just because there are repeat offenders doesn't mean the law shouldn't be enforced.

"A lot of the people we arrest in the crime spectrum of what the police do is recidivism; the same people over again," he said.

"That's not the simple answer to it. Windsor police will always do what we can to work with our partners."

Bellaire said he applauded council for flagging the issue of aggressive panhandling.

Council's standing committee on environment, transportation and public safety will discuss the draft bylaw and that data when they meet Wednesday.