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Harry Cohen is a guy not shy about getting his feet wet.
Months into his new gig on the Tampa City Council, he is deep into the issue of panhandling — not that his is the only city struggling with how to deal with homeless people who seem to be on every corner.
In Pinellas, neighbors of a nearby shelter that recently opened to reduce the number of chronically homeless arrested on minor charges say it has shoved problems like public urination onto their streets.
And down in Sarasota this week, a talk-radio host bused dozens of homeless people to the vice mayor's high-end neighborhood to hang out near his home, according to local reports.
Cohen and I are talking about the debate similarly raging in Tampa when I mention volunteering at Trinity Cafe, where they serve hot, sit-down lunches to the hungry.
"I'll go," he says, not missing a beat.
So there was the new council member from South Tampa in T-shirt and shorts listening to the day's menu (tomato basil soup, quiche), filling his apron with sugar packets the homeless can't get enough of and learning how one volunteer "hosts" each table by sitting and chatting with people as they eat. Doors opened and they poured in, Tom Petty singing Even the Losers from the speakers overhead.
And from his seat at Table 1, Cohen got an earful.
Some ate quietly, grabbed backpacks and were gone. But more of them seemed glad for someone to listen. They talked debt ceiling, loss of high-speed rail jobs, infrastructure for Afghanistan but not here, and the price of a bus pass.
A man who clearly had not slept under a roof in a while said every street he walks seems to have empty houses on it. Another described a man knifed over a beer — alcohol, drugs and mental illness being a running theme. A woman told him how a car accident was enough to send her into a financial spiral that landed her here.
Cohen talked about the city's struggles. "We're all like a family that can't make its bills," he said.
Over and over, he heard how there is nowhere they can afford to live and no way to get a job if you can't shower and how a bad act from years ago stays on your record and holds you down.
Some were working, it just wasn't enough. One guy startled Cohen by asking about a certain high-ranking city official by name, having apparently worked for him through a contractor. No children came in for a hot meal that day, though they do, sometimes with parents who look like they are barely hanging on.
Half of the people who sat at Table 1 said they were veterans.
After he turned in his apron, Cohen had the inward look of someone sorting through a whole lot of information. "Everybody's story was different," he said.
And panhandling? People he talked to were a lot more interested in somewhere to live than the right to beg. Panhandling should be dealt with, but it's a symptom, he said. "We're trying to figure out how to attack the underlying problem itself … poverty and chronic unemployment."
The city council is considering allowing street solicitation only on Sundays or only for newspaper vendors. They'll talk about it at Aug. 4th meeting.
But before you try to fix a problem, it's not a bad idea to try to see what it really looks like.
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