Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos says a county ordinance to ban panhandling on medians isn’t about sending people to jail—it’s about public safety concerns.

During a meeting in northwest Tucson on April 25, residents demanded Nanos to rid the area of panhandlers and homeless camps. People said they were fed up with excessive trash, crime, and so on.

That night, “[Supervisor Ally Miller] asked if I would stand up and support her in front of the board for her panhandling ordinance, I told her I cannot do that, sheriffs shouldn’t be involved in politics,” Nanos told the Weekly. “You are politicizing a homeless issue that should be handled by politicians. They should come together for those type of issues, don’t put the sheriff in a political situation like that.” Miller has tried twice before to pass a similar ordinance but didn’t get much support.

Still, from a public safety standpoint, Nanos says he is supporting the ordinance, because “people don’t need to be on medians. It is not a safe environment. People are driving 40, 45 miles an hour. I will give into this band-aid, and let’s handle it as a civil violation.”

Last Tuesday, Pima County Sheriff deputies began to patrol more than a dozen intersections in northwest Tucson to inform homeless men and women panhandling on medians that they have to move or later on face a citation (and maybe even arrest, if it gets bad enough) for trespassing. If it passes, the ordinance would prohibit people from sitting or standing on medians for long periods of time. Anyone in violation would get something similar to a traffic ticket, according to Nanos. 

Tucson homeless advocate Roy Trout wasn’t at the meeting, but he says this is a classic move to continue the criminalization of poverty and homelessness. “Many people who can’t work depend on that money, because they have no other source,” Trout says. “I have been out there for 22 years, I have a good idea of what it’s like to be on the streets.”

For years, Trout sold newspapers on medians—until the City of Tucson banned it back in 2001 amid reports of injuries including two deaths. “We have society telling us, ‘go get a job.’ Well, I had a job. I was selling newspapers…that was my job and you all took that job from me. I don’t qualify for much else. I have been on the streets since I was 15.”

Nanos agrees that this ordinance doesn’t address homelessness and its root causes. His job is to ensure all county residents are safe, but he says we ought to invest in housing people, job training programs, as well as mental health and substance abuse services. 

“Have some humanity, and let’s find them a home,” Nanos says.

Until an ordinance passes, sheriff’s deputies will only issue warnings.

The Pima County Board of Supervisors will take a look at a draft of the ordinance on May 17.

This article appears in Apr 28 – May 4, 2016.

I was born and raised in Guatemala City, Guatemala. I moved to Tucson about 10 years ago. Since I was old enough to enjoy reading, I developed an interest in writing, and telling stories through different...

10 replies on “Pima County Sheriff: Panhandling on Medians Ban Good for Public Safety, Still Does Not Address Homelessness”

  1. Don’t make the assumption that all median vendors are homeless. They interviewed one on Channel 9 that made $75,000 last year. Tax free.

  2. Being the 5th poorest city in the country and the capital of White Guilt in America, our liberal leaders have been quite proud of the homeless for decades, almost as treasured as the illegal alien.

  3. Oh yeah, What, Again…our evil liberal leaders have been quite proud of the homeless and the illegal aliens for decades now. Their White Guilt is obviously off the chart.

    Go take your meds. After that, please move away and post your TIRED rhetoric on a website in a city somewhere that is several thousand miles away. It’s time for you to post something new and (for a change) possibly something intelligent if you wish to gain any credibility on this site.

    Just go away if you’re gonna continue to copy and paste the same uninformative crap which has become your pathetic calling card. PLEASE!

  4. People need to be forced into mainstream jobs instead of begging. Anyone actually crippled or disabled gets SSD. Other people can go work fast food or day labor.

  5. Hey AZ/DC, – guess you’ve never been downtown entering from I-10, channeled through downtown and the very lush Veinte de Augosto park, celebrating the marauding rapist and killer Pancho Villa and closed as a memorial and “hats off” to Occupy Tucson, the proud, the worthless, the ‘homeless’.

  7. @Mike Sternberg, what you are saying is ludicrous. First of all mainstream employment doesn’t work for me, and it doesn’t work for some of the retired people who choose to sell newspapers. Have you ever tried to live on social security? It’s not easy. There has to be a way to control who goes out on the medians.

  8. I don’t qualify for much else. I have been on the streets since I was 15.” – So, you chose to drop out of high school and missed out on learning some basic skills that could have helped you get a job. So flash forward 15-20 years and it’s OUR fault? How does that work? Mental illness plays a role for sure, but when I see an able bodied person half my age whining that pan handling is the ONLY way they can support themselves…that’s just BS.

  9. WTF? Does this mean I will not be able to buy my newspaper at Ina and La Cholla?

  10. Still, from a public safety standpoint, Nanos says he is supporting the ordinance, because “people don’t need to be on medians. It is not a safe environment. People are driving 40, 45 miles an hour. I will give into this band-aid, and let’s handle it as a civil violation.”

    —————————————————————————————————–
    It’s a shame the first time he was confronted with supporting it that he saw supporting a County Supe as a “political position,” but then had no problem as a public safety issue.

    Public safety still appears to be secondary with this bad actor. Put your big boy pants on Sheriff.

    Public safety officials don’t worry about politics. yet you are. Why?

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