Chicago offers to settle panhandling lawsuit
CHICAGO — People arrested or ticketed in Chicago for panhandling might be in line for some money from the city.
Under a tentative settlement of a class-action lawsuit filed on behalf of people arrested or ticketed over the past four years for panhandling, the city would pay nearly $500,000. About $99,000 will go to the people arrested or ticketed and $375,000 to their attorneys.
Those arrested for panhandling can file a claim for $400, while people who were ticketed can receive $50. In all, about 5,000 people could receive money from the pool of $99,000, but it is not clear how many will submit claims, said Mark Weinberg, an attorney who represented the plaintiffs.
The preliminary settlement signed Oct. 22 is part of a constitutional battle and debate over the city’s panhandling ordinance that was enacted in 1991. Weinberg filed a lawsuit in 2001 on behalf of three clients and later certified it as a class action. The next year, the ordinance was repealed.
“Currently you can’t have a blanket ban on panhandling like that,” said Jennifer Hoyle, spokeswoman for the city’s law department. “It’s considered a limit on commercial speech.”
Weinberg said the settlement’s significance goes beyond getting the plaintiffs money.
“What’s more important is ending what I think is a cruel practice by the city of Chicago,” he said, pointing out that “tens of thousands of people have been arrested over the past 10 years” for panhandling in Chicago.
Because of the statute of limitations of two years on civil cases, only those arrested or ticketed since Sept. 6, 1999, are eligible to receive money. People who qualify can comment on the tentative agreement at a hearing in the Dirksen Federal Building on Dec. 19.
Once the deal is finalized, people will have three months to file a claim, and checks will be cut in April, Weinberg said.
John Hall, a panhandler, said he would take the check because he’s “in desperate need of money.”
Tags: Illinois, panhandling
2 Responses to “Chicago offers to settle panhandling lawsuit”
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If people are panhandling in a passive manner just peacefully asking for money and a wealthy or priviledged person is willing to give it to them, then what they have is a business. When and if i am able to give and help someone directly like that i feel good that person is going to eat for the day. The ticketing is a form of taxation and rather than endless ticketing why not just make it a matter of the people have to tally up their donations at the end of the day and pay a percentage in taxes to the city. The real issue is that it is tax free income they dont have to pay taxes and that is unfair to people who do. Arresting them is at the expense of the city nothing to be gained there.
I think that it sounds like the police were just doing routine police work in ticketing and arresting the panhandlers but no efforts were being made to understand these people and their personal struggles. If they made progress and money by simply asking for it in a wealthy area, that is business success. How are they any different than any other business where you pay and get something in return. The people who gladly gave cash got to know the feeling of helping out someone else maybe that made their day on the way to work and or a wealthy friends home. Maybe they dont like to see people panhandling so they give and then at the end of the day these people will go somewhere to spend the money like a restaurant and then they will be less visible. The difference is that they dont have to pay taxes on the money they made and they should be taxed not ticketed. Rather than threatening and intimidating them, work with them. If they get arrested and jailed then let back out a short time later they are going right back to the panhandling because it proved to be profitable. Plus, if any of the people have disabilities of any kind they are being treated aggressively and that is morally wrong.