Speaker 1: We'll talk about the homeless situation on the West Coast
Speaker 1: a lot because well, it's because it's it's incredible. I
Speaker 1: mean it's it's awful. It shocks the conscience and the nose,
Speaker 1: scares people. It's I'm safe, it's disgusting. A lot of
Speaker 1: us have had incredibly frightening situations like my family had.
Speaker 1: It's you deal with it. Depending on where you live,
Speaker 1: you deal with it every day. Every day I come
Speaker 1: into work or walk out of a building pretty much. Um,
Speaker 1: we got this text. My family and I live in
Speaker 1: Monterey County, and as a twenty nine year old, I've
Speaker 1: personally watched our town be ravaged by homelessness, illegals, gangs,
Speaker 1: and overcrowding. That's what I said in the city council meeting.
Speaker 1: I said, it didn't used to be this way twenty
Speaker 1: years ago when I was here. Does anybody think this
Speaker 1: is better? Does anybody like the direction it's going? Well,
Speaker 1: then we got to do something different. Sometimes it's on
Speaker 1: your way to work that you're beset by various characters,
Speaker 1: and the question of panhandling on public transit is front
Speaker 1: and center at the Bay Area Rapid Transit District. Deborah
Speaker 1: Allen is a director Park District. Once she's been on
Speaker 1: the Armstrong and Getty Show before, and she is trying
Speaker 1: to rain in that sort of behavior. Debora joins us, Now,
Speaker 1: how are you good morning? I am doing great. How
Speaker 1: are you excellent? We're fine and dandy. We're glad you're
Speaker 1: trying to get something done. Um. Now, listen, there are
Speaker 1: varying ways to approach this around the country. I know
Speaker 1: some places will let somebody strum a guitar and take
Speaker 1: tips in in a designated area. Um, what's the problem?
Speaker 1: What are you trying to get done? Well? So? Um?
Speaker 1: That is true. Five Transits, the five of the ten
Speaker 1: largest transit systems in the United States, actually have panhandling
Speaker 1: ordinances that prohibit the panhandling inside of their system. Uh
Speaker 1: for example, once you go through the fairgate. But they
Speaker 1: do provide areas outside of the faregates and plazas and
Speaker 1: designated areas for artistic oppression of various sorts. At BART, UM,
Speaker 1: we don't have an ordinance. And for the last almost
Speaker 1: three years I've been a BART director and people complain
Speaker 1: a lot about a lot of things on BART, but
Speaker 1: panhandling is one of you know those items that the
Speaker 1: average writer going to work every morning and coming home
Speaker 1: each night, they just are tired of it. So, which
Speaker 1: is for folks not familiar. Are people allowed to hit
Speaker 1: me up for money in the cars as I ride
Speaker 1: to work at home? Yes, there is a penal code
Speaker 1: section that prohibits aggressive panhandling, and so you can imagine
Speaker 1: how hard it is to draw that line. But essentially,
Speaker 1: even though that penal code section is in place, our
Speaker 1: own Bart police department was handed a policy a couple
Speaker 1: of years ago that further defined when they could actually
Speaker 1: act up on a complaint of aggressive panhandling, and essentially
Speaker 1: it's never. Well that that's pretty interesting. I mean when
Speaker 1: San Francisco's own mayor, former Mayor Gavin Newsom, you know,
Speaker 1: he had his big uh, he had his big push
Speaker 1: for a while for not given change to beggars. But
Speaker 1: it's allowed on the Bart. And part of the reasoning
Speaker 1: was the there there's their programs out there for people
Speaker 1: who are actually down and out for food and beds
Speaker 1: and all that sort of stuff. These people are begging
Speaker 1: for booze and drug addicts, so it's allowed for drugs.
Speaker 1: So people on Bart are allowed to walk around and
Speaker 1: gather money for more booze or drugs. That's what's going on, yeah,
Speaker 1: or or actually, in a lot of cases it's it's
Speaker 1: a different scenario. It's actually people who have learned to
Speaker 1: do this every day, and it's it's sort of like
Speaker 1: they're living, actually making an income on it. And professional
Speaker 1: beggars yeah, fantastic. Yeah. And we have three main categories
Speaker 1: of the most common people who ask for money. One
Speaker 1: is the dancers, the performers, the singers. Um. They come
Speaker 1: onto the trains regularly, almost every day and they do
Speaker 1: a short performance in between stations, and then they go
Speaker 1: around and pass the hat. The second one is there
Speaker 1: there is a group of women who carry around uh,
Speaker 1: infants to two year olds, and they're always sleeping. For
Speaker 1: some reason. People notice that children are and they walk
Speaker 1: to sign ask for money. Um. And then the third
Speaker 1: one is we have what we call the tissue people
Speaker 1: who walk around in hand each writer a little package
Speaker 1: of tissues with a note that tells their sad story
Speaker 1: and ask them for money. Well, that that's interesting that
Speaker 1: you've broken it down to those three categories. I've always
Speaker 1: kind of enjoyed the performers, but um, you know, I
Speaker 1: suppose you start codifying this stuff and it gets difficult. Well,
Speaker 1: has anybody isn't there a mandatory wellness check on all
Speaker 1: the as kids to figure out what's going on there? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's within the transit system. Well there, I would think
Speaker 1: there'd be enough men. Men. What do you call mandated reporter?
Speaker 1: If you're a therapist of any kind of if you're
Speaker 1: a doctor, if you're in any kind of law enforcement.
Speaker 1: I think teachers, all kinds of people are mandated reporters.
Speaker 1: I think there'd be wellness checks on these children just
Speaker 1: walking around with always sleeping babies or toddlers. I wouldn't think.
Speaker 1: But anyway, Yeah, there are actually local reporters that have
Speaker 1: um done investigative work on this, and they've followed these
Speaker 1: people out to their Mercedes and outies in the parking
Speaker 1: lot um. And then even one reporter followed the people
Speaker 1: who were doing this regularly out to their luxury condos
Speaker 1: in the Bay Area, so they're not so you know,
Speaker 1: this is sort of the conversation is around, well are
Speaker 1: these poor people or are these just people who have
Speaker 1: learned how to make a decent living off of this
Speaker 1: type of activity. Listen, Devor Deborah Allen is a barrier,
Speaker 1: rapid transit director from District one. You know, you probably
Speaker 1: know this from us. But the the super compassionate crowd
Speaker 1: lets their own desire to be enlightened blind them to
Speaker 1: the simplest bits of logic and the idea that you
Speaker 1: can abandon all order in the name of compassion have
Speaker 1: a society is It's just well, it's it's unrealistic. And
Speaker 1: the simple reality of it is, if I'm sitting and
Speaker 1: particularly if I'm a woman or a slightly built guy
Speaker 1: or whatever, I'm sitting there in my personal space, they're
Speaker 1: looking at me and they're asking for money. With your kids,
Speaker 1: all right, you have tremendous vulnerability. There is an element
Speaker 1: of vulnerability there, and I better comply um that people
Speaker 1: should not be subject to every single day as they
Speaker 1: ride to and fro work. It's just not right. I
Speaker 1: don't mind if you have got some guitar, strum and
Speaker 1: zonn er, somebody can do their dance or whatever in
Speaker 1: the station or what have you. I'm okay with that.
Speaker 1: I've wanted to take my kids on bart I haven't
Speaker 1: for these very reasons. How likely would I encounter some
Speaker 1: of these situations you just described If I ride Bart
Speaker 1: with my kids. If you ride on the weekends, very likely.
Speaker 1: If you ride in the afternoons in the core between
Speaker 1: San Francisco and um, you know they out of parts
Speaker 1: of Oakland, very likely. They tend to not do it
Speaker 1: on the really super crowded trains, uh, during the commute
Speaker 1: hours as much in the in the heaviest part of
Speaker 1: the community. Yeah, there's no room for my cello. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're packed in there, you know, and there's really not
Speaker 1: much room to jump to move. All right, Well, Devorah,
Speaker 1: keep fighting the fight for decent, hardworking, tax paying people
Speaker 1: who just don't want to be bothered by professional beggars.
Speaker 1: We're with you. Thanks for the time. Well thanks, I
Speaker 1: hope that if any of that your listeners are from
Speaker 1: the Bay Area. There. This is coming to our board
Speaker 1: meeting at nine am on the day. If you can
Speaker 1: be there, be there. It makes a difference. Do go there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Bart dot gov. All right, Debra Allen, thanks a million.
Speaker 1: Good to talk to you and to be a b
Speaker 1: a RT dot gov. So Gavin at least his theory
Speaker 1: back in the day. I don't know what the current stances,
Speaker 1: but when switch away the wind blows. When he was
Speaker 1: mayor of San Francisco. He said, look, this is how
Speaker 1: many gazillion dollars we're spending on beds and food and
Speaker 1: water and medical care. So don't give money to beggars.
Speaker 1: So her categories of I don't know if they're poor
Speaker 1: or just professional beggars, doesn't matter. There's money for them
Speaker 1: somewhere else. They don't need to get it there. There's
Speaker 1: no excuse for allowing it, right, they're just beggars. Hey, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I live in Crazy Hill without going
Speaker 1: crazy myself. How does the society end up like this
Speaker 1: and put up putting up with this? I'd like my
Speaker 1: kids to ride the bart and get the cool experience
Speaker 1: of you know, mass transit and just the views and
Speaker 1: it's kind of fun, but not not with that crowd
Speaker 1: loves no freaking way