In Portland (Maine), panhandlers hired for public work
By Brian MacQuarrie GLOBE STAFF SEPTEMBER 07, 2018
PORTLAND, Maine — Seven men, stooped and sweating, tear fistfuls of crabgrass and milkweed from a tangle of overgrowth in a large public garden. It’s dirty work for $10.90 an hour, the minimum wage in Maine’s largest city, but there’s not a complaint to be heard.
“People are always coming by and telling us, ‘Thanks for helping — it’s looking good,’ ” says Jeff Vane, 49, standing knee-deep in urban brush. “It makes our city look better.”
It’s also a dramatic change from how these men usually spent their days — standing in median strips, holding a panhandler’s sign, begging from motorists who are just as apt to curse as hand over a dollar. But now, Portland officials are inviting panhandlers to put away their signs and put on a pair of work gloves. They clean parks, beautify public gardens, and even place flags at the graves of veterans in exchange for a small paycheck and a possible path to better, lasting employment.
“It makes you feel good about yourself, makes you feel that you’ve still got it,” Frank Mello, 49, says of the job. “It shows I’m not the homeless bum that people think I am.”
Portland’s program, nearing the end of its second year, is not intended to erase panhandling, city officials say. Some men and women who “fly their signs” at Portland intersections, most of them homeless and desperate for money, will never be persuaded to put them away.
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https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2018/09/07/portland-panhandlers-hired-for-public-work/ZG3b0wjbdwpAA1ZyvmPhLN/story.html
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