Can the Homeless and the Business Community Coexist?

An update on some of the latest efforts

California conjures images of endless summers filled with surf, sun and sand, but increasingly, those beach bum images of the past are being replaced by those of an entirely differently type of bum: aggressive panhandlers. After all, if you had to spend the winter on the streets, wouldn’t you rather be in San Diego than Detroit? While the attractiveness of the state’s mild weather is understandable, it comes at a high cost. Panhandling can have significant negative economic impacts on the surrounding businesses. Here’s a brief look at what some communities are doing to combat the problem.

Many cities are using legislation to crack down on homeless persons living in public spaces. According to the latest U.S. Conference of Mayors Hunger and Homelessness report, despite an overall increase in unmet needs for emergency shelter, there has been an increase in criminalization of the homeless between an initial survey in 2002 and a 2005 survey of 224 American cities. For example, the survey found a 12 percent increase in laws prohibiting begging in certain public places and an 18 percent increase in laws that prohibit aggressive panhandling–bringing the total number of cities prohibiting aggressive panhandling to 45 percent, while 21 percent have prohibitions on begging of any kind.

There was also a 14 percent increase in laws prohibiting sitting or lying in certain public spaces and a 3 percent increase in laws prohibiting loitering, loafing, or vagrancy–bringing the total number of cities prohibiting camping in particular public places to 28 percent, with 39 percent prohibiting loitering in particular public areas.

In addition to legal efforts, business organizations are working to educate the public about how to handle panhandling. For example, the downtown Chico Business Association is actively encouraging business owners, employees, residents and visitors “to redirect their generosity to the institutions best suited to helping the homeless and struggling citizens.” The organization provides a list of such institutions and encourages people to donate to them, rather than directly rewarding those people who beg on the street. Similar efforts are also underway in Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo and Santa Maria.

Most effective are a combination of two very different strategies, according to strategic planning firm Civic Strategies, Inc. One is a carrot-and-stick approach, which works best for the “temporarily homeless” that are down on their luck. In this instance, cities crack down on aggressive panhandling and other quality of life violations while offering easily accessible alternatives, such as 24-hour gateway centers that direct homeless people to shelters, job training and drug treatment.

The other strategy is aimed at the “chronically homeless,” people with serious mental illnesses, physical ailments, drug addictions or all three. The strategy that works for these people, who are the most disruptive groups of homeless people and most expensive (because they are frequently arrested and often end up in emergency rooms) is to give them access to decent housing, intensive health care and drug treatment facilities and accept that they’ll be long-term wards of the city.

Other constructive alternatives to criminalization include coordinated outreach efforts, where police and social workers or volunteers work together to place people in shelters and provide mental and physical health assistance, as well as job advice and training. The Pasadena Police Department and the Los Angeles Department of Health have partnered to form the Homeless Outreach Psychiatric Evaluation (HOPE) Team to work in this way.

There’s also another strategy that’s just taking shape: an end to “dumping.” In Los Angeles, officials discovered that police from other jurisdictions were driving homeless people from their jails to downtown L.A. and letting them out there because downtown had the services, and the suburbs didn’t. This has led to a demand that suburban areas take care of their own homeless problems, backed by a recent survey in the L.A. area that found there were as many people living on the streets and in the parks of the San Fernando and San Gabriel valleys as in the central city.

In Northern California, officials are also realizing that the homeless are not just an urban phenomenon. The Association of Bay Area Governments is working to attack the problem regionally, by tracking the homeless across the region to see how they move through institutions (soup kitchens, work programs, jails, hospitals, shelters, etc.) and among localities, with an aim to better understand the problem and design programs that work.

“If you want people to shop in your community, to come to your community, you have to address this problem so the homeless are not a barrier,” Berkeley’s Mayor Tom Bates said. “We can’t do this alone. We have to do it together.”

Originally published in California Centers Magazine on July 1, 2006.

Courting Families

Dubai Mall by Nishat Khan, courtesy Flickr https://www.flickr.com/photos/nishatkhan/12033808253

Dubai Mall by Nishat Khan, courtesy Flickr https://www.flickr.com/photos/nishatkhan/12033808253

Special Events Attract the Family Market

Parents hunting for great places to go hang out with friends, grab a bite, shop a bit, or entertain their kids for a few hours, need look no further than their local shopping center. While malls are usually thought to be family friendly, some centers are pulling out all the stops to foster that image.

“In general, the entire industry recognizes the value of being family friendly,” says Alice Love, Senior Manager, Marketing for Pacific View Mall in Ventura and La Cumbre Plaza in Santa Barbara. But her centers, both owned by the Macerich Company, go the extra mile to court the family market.

For example, La Cumbre Plaza’s weekly Certified Farmers Market — which already drew hundreds of visitors in search of fresh organic produce, flowers and other gourmet goods– recently ran a promotion inviting children to experience the farmers market by offering them a special tour each week.

“They would stop at the different vendors and learn how that particular fruit or vegetable is grown,” says Love.

Upon completing the tour, they were taken into a store that happened to specialize in children’s furniture, where they got to do an art project. They created their own placemat, which was then laminated so they could take it home to use. Each child was also given a token to purchase something from the farmers market.

San Luis Obispo, has taken the farmers market concept a step further, regularly drawing crowds of 10,000 downtown during the summertime, and about half that during the winter. People of all ages flock to the downtown shopping area where the streets are blocked off every Thursday night for barbecued ribs, fresh strawberries, local wines, and of course, kid-friendly entertainment like puppet shows, balloon animals and live music.

Some very lively music, the clanging of budding young percussionists and drummers, can be heard at Ventura’s Pacific View Mall’s “Kids View” gathering. Children and their parents gather at the food court each week for what Love calls, “educational entertainment.”

The playbill varies. “One week it might be entertainment with marionettes, then we may have someone that comes in with musical instruments and all the kids get to play with them, which is quite a racket,” she says.

While programs like “Kids View” cater to the preschool crowd, who need parental supervision, other centers are finding that drop-off educational programs like SCORE!, Sylvan Learning Center, Kumon Math & Reading Center, and California Learning Center offer the perfect opportunity for kids to work their brains while mom gets her shopping done, unencumbered.

Working with nonprofit community groups is also a great way to bring families to a center, and engender goodwill for your business. La Cumbre Plaza recently drew large crowds when it hosted the local Girl Scouts’ Amazing Cookie Kick-Off event. In addition to cookie relays and games, there was a cookie rally where some of Santa Barbara’s top restaurants and chefs showcased creative desserts made with Girl Scout cookies that were then judged by a panel of local celebrities. The winning recipes were showcased at the restaurant, on television, and in the local newspaper, thus supplying loads of free publicity for both the Girl Scouts and the mall.

Signature family events can help create new community traditions, like Pacific View Mall’s annual Lemon Fest, held the weekend after Labor Day. Tying into the center’s heritage as a lemon grove in the 1920s, the festival features live entertainment, a kids play area, arts and crafts booths, and food booths.

“There’s something for everybody in the family to do,” says Love, whose team has been successfully running the Lemon Fest for the past five years.

Also drawing on their agricultural heritage for festival inspiration — and additional retail traffic — are downtown Watsonville, with its Main Street Watsonville Annual Strawberry Festival, and Carpinteria’s annual Avocado Festival.

Finally, there’s nothing like annual holiday events to bring out the kids and their parents. La Cumbre Plaza, Pacific View Mall, Main Street in Huntington Beach, and the Pismo Beach Pier are among the many shopping areas that feature in-store trick or treating. And it would be a challenge to find a mall that doesn’t have a photo-friendly Santa available the day after Thanksgiving.

While family friendly holiday activities abound in December, Pacific View Mall offers something unique, at least in California. The first Saturday in December brings “Holiday Traditions, Ventura Style” to the region, trucking in 30 tons of snow for the annual celebration, which concludes with fireworks, and Santa lighting the community Christmas tree.

It’s wet, it’s messy, and it’s incredibly fun, says one regular attendee.

Sounds a lot like parenting, doesn’t it.

Originally published in California Centers Magazine on June 1, 2006.