Las Vegas rolls out meters to help homeless people

LAS VEGAS (AP) - Over the years, Sin City has tried a lot of ways to curb panhandling and homelessness - including squatter camp sweeps, park closures, bans on public food handouts.

Now, it's trying something different - using seven lime green parking meters labeled "Donation Station" to gauge the public appetite for donating nickels, dimes and quarters to fund homeless services.

"What a great idea to give the community a way to give to a worthy cause versus not knowing how that money will be used," Las Vegas Councilman Ricki Barlow said.

So far, the community's been slow to respond. The take in the first five days was a modest $127.70 , program director Tyrone Thompson said. That's pennies compared with a city homeless services budget of more than $2 million a year.

Three more meters are planned in high-traffic areas downtown, Thompson said. None will be near the tourist-rich Las Vegas Strip, which is outside city limits in Clark County.

The move still pits Las Vegas against panhandlers, but not with ticket books, tin cups or outstretched hands. And officials believe there's panhandling money to be had.

Barlow cited a homeless committee estimate that people hand over $1 million a year in change. Corporate or individual sponsors also could put up $1,000 to "adopt" a meter, Barlow said.

Other cities have similar programs. The logo of Baltimore's "Panhandling-Make a Change" puts a meter at the corner of Despair and Hope. In Cleveland, a program that began in 2008 is anchored by a group called Generocity Cleveland.

In Chattanooga, Tenn., thieves stole two meters just days after they were installed. Atlanta officials reported collecting just $500 in six months.

Barlow figures many more than half the region's estimated 13,000 homeless people live in the downtown area he represents - mostly clustered near a "homeless corridor" of charity food, job search and shelter facilities.

Barlow calls it "the corridor of hope" and cites the proverb that it is better to teach a man to fish than to give him a fish. A city-sponsored "one stop shop" allows the homeless to seek transitional housing, mental illness help, transportation, identification and employment services.

Las Vegas has not always been so accommodating.

The City Council once criminalized food handouts to people in public, and marshals ticketed journalists covering a resulting protest. A historic park was renovated, then closed when homeless people began congregating in it.

Mayor Oscar Goodman apologized in 2001 for accusing Salt Lake City officials of giving their homeless bus tickets to Las Vegas, but also once suggested rounding up Las Vegas homeless and busing them to an abandoned prison 30 miles away.

Chuck N. Baker, a Las Vegas veterans activist and newsletter editor, began prodding city officials to try something new after he noticed converted parking meters labeled "Denver's Road Home" in that city during the 2008 Democratic National Convention.

"One of the ideas is to put panhandlers out of business," Baker said.

"Sometimes when you give money to someone on the street, they use it to buy lunch, or beer, or drugs," he said. "I think people will take to this once they learn about it."

Carlos Arias figures he was one of the first to drop a quarter into a meter in downtown Las Vegas. "I think it's a good idea, if the money is going to a good cause," the 54-year-old Arias said.

Anthony Mastrangelo, 54, disagreed, calling it "a scam."

"The federal government gives the state money for indigent people," Mastrangelo said. "This is just to show the federal government that they're doing something."

In downtown Las Vegas, a white-bearded and stooped 63-year-old homeless man who would only give his name as Ron said he wasn't sure any money from any meter would ever reach people like him.

"An old man like me, sometimes people give me food," he said. "I really don't care about money. A lot of people that need services don't take advantage of them."