Working Downtown, I have seen the many anti-panhandling ads posted on the buses and inside public buildings. The ads urge people not to give to panhandlers, but rather, to give donations to soup kitchens, such as to one of the ad sponsors itself, the Downtown Ministerium Walk-in Ministry. "Give me spare change and I may never get off these streets," the poster declares, displaying a partial view of a beggar's face. "Give to organizations that could really help me and you could save my life."

		Daniel Kovalik, a labor and human rights lawyer, lives in Highland Park (dkovalik@steelworker-usw.org).

While the campaign asserts that it has the best interest of the panhandlers in mind, its obvious intent is to dry up the panhandlers' support so that they will be forced off the street -- and out of public view. The chief concern of the ads is the public who must witness the presence of panhandlers every day as well as Downtown businesses that are worried about the effect of panhandlers on their business. Indeed, one of the chief sponsors of the ads, the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership, admitted as much to this newspaper when its spokesman stated in a May 26 article that the impetus for the campaign came from "Downtown property owners [who] had noted an increase in panhandling activities, and were sharing concerns about how it's negatively affecting business."

While it is certainly true, as the ad claims, that giving to panhandlers will not alleviate their poverty, it is also true that giving to soup kitchens and flop houses, which the ad does encourage, also will not alleviate their poverty. Indeed, if giving to panhandlers is simply a Band-aid approach to poverty, the proposed solution endorsed by the ad is simply another bandage.

But again, since the point of the ad is not really to help the panhandlers, but rather, to spare us all the unpleasantness of having to walk by panhandlers, it should not be surprising that no real alternative is offered to truly help the poor we see everyday Downtown. As long as the panhandlers get out of our way and lurk back into the darkness, the ads will have accomplished their goal even if the panhandlers remain poor.

As someone who himself often gives to panhandlers and who will in fact keep doing so notwithstanding the self-serving ad campaign, I would submit that people should try to help the poor and homeless in whatever way they feel comfortable, either by giving them change or supporting local food pantries (such as the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank, which I highly endorse) or by supporting groups working for policy changes to help the poor and hungry (such as Just Harvest).

In the end, doing something is better than nothing. But what we cannot and should not do is simply try to avoid the problem by putting it out of our sight -- sadly, the chief goal of these ads.

The fact is that the panhandlers are a reminder of the society and country we are, and it is not a pretty picture. A society should be judged by how it treats its poor -- and we are not doing such a great job. While we are the richest country in the world, we have one of the worst poverty rates in the industrial world, with 35.9 million Americans (or 12.5 percent of the population) living under the poverty line and with 15.3 million Americans living in "severe poverty." Incredibly, 34.2 percent of all people in the United States are classified as living in poverty at least two months out of the year. Equally shocking is that two-thirds of all poor families with children included individuals who worked a combined 46 weeks per year.

It is these facts, and not the mere presence of panhandlers Downtown, which are shocking and disconcerting.

The sad truth is that our country has decided not to give a fair share of its wealth to help the poor and to provide jobs with living wages to its citizenry. Rather, it has prioritized military expenditures and welfare to corporations involved in the military research and production of war armaments over such real assistance to the poor. It is this which we should be horrified by and which we should put our efforts into changing.

We should view the panhandlers Downtown as the proverbial canaries in the coal mines. They should be seen as reminders of the moral imperative for real change in this country and our lives. Don't regard them as unwanted blemishes we must pass by on our way to lunch or to the symphony, as the present ad campaign is telling us.