Things are dire enough down Brattleboro way that someone named “Buck Russell” has launched a petition drive to prohibit panhandling. Gee, what do you know, you take a historic housing shortage, add a mass unhousing by state policymakers, toss in an opioid crisis we have yet to address, and hey presto, you get desperate people begging for money. Our unspoken pleas for the unhoused to simply, conveniently disappear seem to be falling on deaf ears.

The petition seeks to drive Brattleboro down a dead-end road. In 2018, the Vermont ACLU convinced six communities to deep-six their anti-panhandling ordinances. The nonprofit pointed to clear and consistent court rulings against such laws.

The 2015 Supreme Court case Reed v. Town of Gilbert made clear that it is unconstitutional for municipal ordinances to regulate only certain types of speech, including panhandling. Similarly, of the more than 25 laws attempting to ban panhandling reviewed by courts across the nation, all have been found unconstitutional.

I suppose that memories fade when communities are under stress. I doubt that the town Selectboard will give much credence to the petition, considering that Brattleboro was itself one of those communities that killed its anti-panhandling ordinance in 2018.

The petition itself is sort of a work of art in its own dystopian way. Russell does his level best to hide the wolf of contempt in the sheep’s clothing of compassion. He claims, in fact, that enacting a ban would actually be “encouraging [the unhoused] towards more sustainable solutions,” as if the unhoused could build housing and create a social safety net by themselves.

But if the petition tries to come across as Sincerely Having the Best Interests of Our Unfortunate Neighbors In Mind, the commenters employ no such restraints. Nay, rather, they are absolutely unhinged.

The comments reveal a toxic blend of rage and fear and a refusal to see unhoused people as, well, people. The unhoused are all substance users, and any money you give them goes straight to the gangs. They’re “‘begging’ as a fulltime job.” They drive to a lucrative streetcorner, put in their shift, and then drive off. Heck, they’re actually working “on a rotating schedule” with someone or some group coordinating schedules and arranging transportation.

There are the less fanciful stereotypes as well. Panhandlers are “mean and unsafe” and likely to stab a passer-by, so much so that Brattleboro is “turning into a scary and dangerous place where you can get a glimpse of what a zombie apocalypse would look like.”

But hey, never fear. Sandra Pinger, a bookkeeper by trade, offers a sure solution based on her professional expertise.

I work hard and pay my taxes. These people don’t seem to work and get tax free money that goes unreported to any tax agency. How is that fair? Maybe they can hand out their social security number and address and we can submit Form 1099s to them, then they’ll have to pay tax too.

There you go! Solve the homelessness crisis by… taxing the homeless? Mmmmmmkay.

Russell’s petition actually cites as precedent the adoption of anti-panhandling ordinances in other Vermont communities. He fails to mention that those communities reversed course after being reminded by the ACLU of past court decisions.

I understand it doesn’t take much to make Vermonters uncomfortable because they are accustomed to high levels of comfort. And it’s true that our communities are under high levels of stress these days, thanks to the housing and opioid crises. But a punitive approach, even if it was constitutional, isn’t going to solve anything. At most, it will squeeze out the people we see as undesirable.

But I guess that’s the point, isn’t it? We don’t care where they go or what they do, as long as it isn’t here and we can’t see it.