Louie Bova turned 80 on Monday. You may not know Louie, but there’s a good chance you’ve seen him. He’s been panhandling in the area since at least the mid-1980s. Nowadays Bova’s just one of many who solicit strangers for spare change. In the first nine months of 2007, Oak Park police responded to 284 calls related to panhandlers and wrote 32 local ordinance violation tickets. In addition, they wrote four tickets for soliciting on the roadway. West of Harlem Avenue, River Forest police dealt with nearly 70 calls related to panhandling and solicitation over the same period.
The Downtown Oak Park area is by far the most popular area for panhandling, with 54 police calls and 11 tickets written. In River Forest, the highest concentration of incidents occurred around the River Forest Town Center and near the intersection of Harlem and North avenues.
Most panhandlers are seeking cash to obtain alcohol and drugs, not food or rent, police say. While many are harmless, a significant minority are chronic troublemakers.
In the wake of growing concerns over the effect of panhandling on Oak Park’s business districts, a group of officials representing the business community, social-service providers, and the police have begun meeting regularly to identify specific problems and work to develop effective strategies for dealing with them. Included in that group is Dan Haley, publisher of Wednesday Journal.
“We’ve been meeting with a representative from the Oak Park police, The Avenue district, and reps from various social service agencies and faith-based organizations,” said Pat Zubak, executive director of Downtown Oak Park.
“We’re at the beginning stages of our study,” said Zubak, who doubted any final decision would be made until sometime next year. “We’re planning on meeting well into next year,” she said. “It may even be a year.”
The answer to effectively controlling panhandling, Zubak said, appears to be a combination of law enforcement and public education.
“There’s a reason there’s panhandling in Oak Park,” said Pat Zubak. Among them, she said, is the village’s proximity to public transportation, and the village’s reputation as a wealthy, generous community.
“It’s a great set-up for somebody who panhandles.”
But while the impulse to give is a good thing, Zubak said people who donate to panhandlers misunderstand the reality.
“A lot of people don’t understand the difference between panhandling and homelessness,” she said. “A lot of people asking for money on the corner aren’t there [looking for assistance].” She said there’s no shortage of services available for those who really want them. However, not everyone on the street wants social services.
Lynda Schueler, executive director of the West Suburban PADS program, which houses the homeless in Oak Park, is a member of the panhandler study group. She’s both sympathetic and realistic regarding the plight of the homeless and the motivations of those who panhandle.
“We want to make sure the public is aware that people doing panhandling are not necessarily the people coming to homeless shelters,” said Schueler. “Honestly, a lot of these people we’ve never seen before.”
That view is supported by a white paper on panhandling produced by the U.S. Department of Justice as part of its Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) program.
“Many studies have found that only a small percentage of homeless people panhandle, and only a small percentage of panhandlers are homeless,” the report states.
Schueler points to Louie Bova as an example.
“I don’t know much about him,” she acknowledged. “I know he won’t take help. I’ve encouraged him to come to our shelter. He says, ‘I’ve been there, I don’t want to come back.'”
The COPS report also supports Zubak’s suggestion that people who panhandle do so with a clear design and motive.
“Most studies conclude that panhandlers make rational economic choices-that is, they look to make money in the most efficient way possible,” the report states. “Panhandlers need to go where the money is … they need to panhandle in communities and specific locations where the opportunities to collect money are best.”
While the COPS report noted that police need to be a key part of any approach to regulating panhandling, it also makes clear that any ordinance regulating panhandling must pass constitutional muster.
“Laws that prohibit aggressive panhandling or panhandling in specified areas are more likely to survive legal challenge than those that prohibit all panhandling,” the report contends.
“Enforcing other laws panhandlers commonly violate-those regarding drinking in public, trespassing, disorderly conduct, etc.-can help control some aspects of the panhandling problem.”
It is the aggressive panhandlers, Zubak stressed, that concern most merchants and the average pedestrian. Passive panhandling may be annoying or offensive, but aggressive begging is often perceived as a threat.
“We’ve had reports of some panhandlers following people into stores,” said Zubak. There have also been groups of panhandlers working high traffic areas throughout the village. In particular, Zubak points to the Harlem and Lake area, with its stores and rapid transit stations, and at Unity Temple.
Schueler agrees, saying, “There’s a clear call from the businesses that there’s an issue here.”
Non-aggressive
Outside of the fact that Bova often obstructs traffic while begging for change, he’s not considered aggressive. He’s been arrested between 65 and 70 times going back 22 years, according to records in the Cook County Clerk’s office, in a dozen towns, including Oak Park, River Forest and Forest Park. A few are minor theft and trespass charges, many of which were dismissed. He’s been arrested numerous times for soliciting on a roadway and improper walking on a roadway, most recently this past spring. He’s served many hours of community service, and even spent the occasional day or two in jail. But nothing stops him. Not the cops, not freezing weather, and certainly not heavy traffic.
On cool and sunny late October afternoon recently, Bova was back in traffic on North Avenue. When this reporter called him over from the North Avenue median strip just east of Harlem and asked to speak with him for a few minutes over coffee, he refused.
“Naw, I gotta get back to my work,” he replied. Bova said he “works” until around 4:30 or so. After he was through, he said, he’d talk.
For the next half hour, in two-minute cycles, he walked slowly east on the white lines between two lanes of westbound traffic, holding his large white paper cup out. Mostly, though, he shakes a paper coffee cup at people in traffic, trying to make eye contact, hoping for that one out of 20 or 30 or 40 motorists who will drop some change.
His beard-actually a large goatee-is nearly all gray now. Yet he sports a newer blue ski cap, brown nylon windbreaker, old olive green pants folded at the ankles and brown tennis shoes and shuffled along with an energy that belies his age. It’s a bit like watching a small bear patiently slapping his paw repeatedly into the river in search of salmon. Except Bova does it in all seasons.
When a photographer arrived to snap photos of Bova in action, it proved to be the only thing that intimidated him. After spying the camera from some 40 yards away, he made a beeline, head down, for the large black plastic garbage bag containing his belongings, grabbed it and walked quickly north to the other side of North Avenue, then across to the Walgreens, and over to a bank entrance. After hiding inside for a moment or two, he scurried across Harlem, possibly boarding a waiting bus, or entering Sears, gone like a raccoon under a fence.
Aggressive
While Bova is harmless, others are not so benign. Artis R. Liddell, 30, of 108 S. Austin Blvd., is just one of a list of troublemakers police say have been repeatedly warned not to return to area businesses but who return anyway, often aggressively.
Liddell has a criminal history going back 10 years that includes burglary, assault, drug possession, battery of a policeman, and criminal trespass to property. In April, 2005, Lidell was allegedly observed by police walking out of a known drug house in the 100 block of South Austin Boulevard “with a closed fist.” When confronted by police, he reportedly struck one cop in the chest, then resisted arrest and bit an officer on the hand. Police say he was holding a container of white powder in his hand that tested positive for narcotics.
This past April, police say they found a crack pipe in Liddell’s possession after he was stopped for panhandling in the 300 block of Madison Street. He was arrested twice more in June for criminal trespass to property and again for being in possession of drug paraphernalia while panhandling.
Liddell is currently being held in Cook County Jail without bond following his latest arrest on Oct. 10. He allegedly demanded food while inside a store on the 300 block of Madison, then refused to leave when asked, leading to his latest criminal trespass charge.
Dealing with disruptive and potentially dangerous individuals like Liddell is a major concern for Zubak and her colleagues.
“We feel it is a law enforcement issue,” said Zubak, “but another part is educating the public.” Village leaders, said Zubak, must make “smart choices” in dealing with the problem.
“We need public education on the issue, and perhaps look at toughening up the ordinance to give police some leverage,” she said.
Like Zubak, Schueler discourages others from giving money directly to panhandlers. But a balance must be struck, she said, “between compassion and enforcement.”
“I don’t have a problem with the village doing what they need to do to control this,” said Schueler. “As long as it doesn’t criminalize homelessness.”
CONTACT: bdwyer@wjinc.com