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The Debate Over Panhandling And The Criminalization Of Poverty

WUNC News | By Frank Stasio,
Amanda Magnus
Published September 11, 2018 at 1:00 PM EDT
Panhandling has been a hot political topic in the city of Greensboro this year.
Hanily Sam
/
Flickr Creative Commons
Panhandling has been a hot political topic in the city of Greensboro this year.

Panhandling has been a hot political topic in the city of Greensboro this year. 

Host Frank Stasio talks to Greensboro Mayor Nancy Vaughan, Marcus Hyde, an organizer with the Homeless Union of Greensboro, and Sara Sternberg Greene, associate professor of law at Duke University, about the debate over panhandling and the criminalization of poverty.

In April, the Greensboro City Council got rid of a controversial ordinance passed years ago that required panhandlers to get background checks and to have a license before they could ask people for money in the city. There is an ongoing lawsuit over a panhandling ordinance passed in July – that ordinance has since been repealed. The city council passed a new solicitation ordinance in August which states that panhandlers cannot block the sidewalk, solicit in certain marked public parking areas, or repeatedly ask a person for money.

Host Frank Stasio talks to Greensboro Mayor Nancy Vaughan about panhandling in Greensboro and why she stands behind the new ordinance. Marcus Hyde, an organizer with the Homeless Union of Greensboro, joins the conversation to share his perspective on how the ordinance negatively impacts the homeless community. Stasio also includes legal scholar Sara Sternberg Greene in the conversation to review the legal theory often used to strike down local panhandling ordinances. Greene is an associate professor of law at Duke University.

Copyright 2018 North Carolina Public Radio
Frank Stasio
Longtime NPR correspondent Frank Stasio was named permanent host of The State of Things in June 2006. A native of Buffalo, Frank has been in radio since the age of 19. He began his public radio career at WOI in Ames, Iowa, where he was a magazine show anchor and the station's News Director.
See stories by Frank Stasio
Amanda Magnus
Amanda Magnus grew up in Maryland and went to high school in Baltimore. She became interested in radio after an elective course in the NYU journalism department. She got her start at Sirius XM Satellite Radio, but she knew public radio was for her when she interned at WNYC. She later moved to Madison, where she worked at Wisconsin Public Radio for six years. In her time there, she helped create an afternoon drive news magazine show, called Central Time. She also produced several series, including one on Native American life in Wisconsin. She spends her free time running, hiking, and roller skating. She also loves scary movies.
See stories by Amanda Magnus