Colorado town claims it has slashed panhandling and homelessness by erecting sign with blunt three-word message
A Colorado county is trying to tackle homelessness and street begging by placing clear signs on streets and streets that used to be frequented by panhandlers.
“Handouts Don’t Help” read signs intended to prohibit people from giving money directly to the homeless in Douglas County.
A link on the 70 signs in the area encourages people to make donations to the Douglas County Community Foundation website, which connects people in need with helpful resources.
Douglas County Republican Commissioner Abe Laydon said Fox News: ‘When you see someone who seems to be struggling, it feels bad to drive past them and do nothing. But the other side of it is that we all know stories of people who maybe didn’t use all the money they were given in the most appropriate way.
“It might go to food, it might go to drugs – you don’t know where the money is going.”
About 70 flyers in Douglas County encourage residents to donate to the Douglas County Community Foundation instead of giving money to panhandlers
In Colorado County, the homeless population has decreased significantly in the two years since the program began
Laydon, who founded the initiative in 2022, said the more people give money to beggars on certain roads or corners, the more crowded those areas become.
Thanks to these signs, which were also placed in newspapers and online, the sites have now been largely cleared, Laydon says.
According to Statistics Netherlands (CBS), the number of people living on the streets has increased from 43 to six from 2022 to 2024. Douglas County Website.
The total number of people sleeping outside or in cars has decreased by 50 percent since the summer of 2023.
Republican Douglas County Commissioner Abe Laydon didn’t want the county to end up like Denver, which is struggling with a serious homeless crisis
The initiative was started after Laydon saw a homeless camp “littered with liquor bottles and drug paraphernalia.”
“It was like that everywhere, but never as bad as downtown Denver. We started in a good place.
‘[Our smaller homeless population] “It gave us a chance to nip this problem in the bud before it became really widespread,” he told Fox News.
Douglas County is located south of Denver, a city where the homeless population has been rising for years.
In 2022, Denver had 6,884 homeless people. The following year, that number rose to 9,065.
The overcrowding in Denver’s camps is the result of an influx of migrants, which has caused the shelters to become overcrowded.
Denver’s migrant crisis has left streets lined with tents as politicians struggle to find a solution.
The reception centres reached maximum capacity earlier this year, when 40,000 migrants visited the city.
In May, people living in these camps drew up a list of requirements the refuge had to meet before they would consider moving.