Yesterday Seattle City Councilmember and ex-cop Tim Burgess appeared on KUOW's Conversation with Ross Reynolds to float some new ideas for cracking down on what many, including several of his fellow councilmembers, view as a rise in aggressive panhandling. The Seattle Times also ran a supportive editorial last week on the subject. Burgess said that his office regularly fields calls from concerned citizens who have been accosted by individuals asking for money and during the show even took a few calls from Seattle residents who complained of feeling threatened while walking in downtown and other urban neighborhoods. One woman even said she'd been blocked from exiting her vehicle after parking in a restaurant lot on Capitol Hill. Business owners, too, complained of lost revenue because of blocked entrances and other panhandling related problems.

Burgess pointed out to those who might think a ban on certain forms of panhandling, including restrictions around ATMs and at intersections, might be excessive or that panhandling is not really a problem, that seemingly minor problems like panhandling or petty crimes like graffiti often indicate to more hardcore criminals that the neighborhood is, in essence, open for business.

But perhaps his most telling point of all is that, according to many of the social service organizations in Seattle that Burgess has spoken with, the majority of these panhandlers are not homeless. This recent, rather heartwarming story about a woman in Redmond certainly speaks to that view as does this one about more stereotypical panhandlers, some of whom live in government housing and can collect as much as $25 per hour, according to the article.

One question does remain, with Seattle's police force already strained, will this legislation, as one man comments on Conversation's facebook page, be "punitive without any real substance or manpower to back it up?" A spokesman for Burgess told me that their would be measures in the legislation that would make it more than simple window dressing but details hadn't been worked out.

Regardless of what you may think of panhandling in general or whether enforcement of these proposed laws is feasible with current law enforcement numbers, Burgess deserves our encouragement and thanks for proposing what even Executive Director of the homeless newspaper Real Change, Tim Harris, stated are some restrictions that are "pretty hard to argue with."

Interestingly enough, Burgess's legislation seems to be part of a wave of similar acts sweeping the nation as referenced in this recent USA Today article.