The city’s anti-panhandling signs aren’t deterring panhandling but may be affecting giving.
STORY AND PHOTOS BY MARK HENRICKS
Alex, a lean, curly haired, and tattooed 38-year-old, has a bead of sweat dripping off his sunburned nose as he stands in front of a traffic sign that says, “It’s OK to say no to panhandlers.” In his hand, he waves his own sign, this one soliciting donations from motorists stopping at the light at Bryant Irvin Road and the eastbound 820 service road.
Asked why he’s panhandling in front of a sign that discourages donations, Alex, who declined to give his last name, responded, “It’s not illegal.”
Indeed, there is no ordinance broadly prohibiting panhandling, although city laws forbid it in some cases. The sign Alex is standing in front of is one of 54 installed by the city since April as part of a new anti-panhandling initiative. The idea behind the project is to reduce the inducement to panhandle by making it less likely that people will give money.
Is it working? It is, according to Alex, who’s been working this corner for a year. “It’s effective,” he said decisively. “It’s cut the amount I get way back.”
Fort Worth’s sign program was initiated by the city council.
“The goal is to inform residents that it’s OK to say no to panhandlers and that there are better ways to give,” said District 4 Councilmember Charlie Lauersdorf, who was going to use district funds to install 10 signs at intersections identified in the
METROPOLIS
The idea behind the road signs is to reduce the inducement to panhandle by making it less likely that people will give money.
MyFW app as having the most panhandling reports. He said the mayor proposed expanding it citywide.
“Right now,” he added, “we don’t know how the signs are performing since they’re still new, but after a year, we will compare reporting to see what, if any, impact they’ve had. What we do know is that the ‘no solicitation’ signs aren’t deterring the panhandlers, so we have to do something different, and that is deter those giving to panhandlers.”
The city has at least a couple of reasons to discourage panhandling, according to Bethany K. Warner, intergovernmental relations manager for the city manager. First, she said, the city would prefer donations go elsewhere. To that end, the signs include the URL FortWorthTexas.gov/change Motorists who visit the site see a list of homeless support organizations. City policy is that giving to
Good Trouble
Lives On
Another national pro-democracy, anti-fascism rally is planned. In Fort Worth, it will be 6-8pm Thu at Burk Burnett Park downtown (501 W 7th St). Taking place on the 5-year anniversary of the death of legendary Civil Rights warrior and U.S. Congressmember John Lewis, and named after his famous mantra, Good Trouble Lives On will not be a protest per se. It’s said to be more of a rally for democracy and anti-authoritarianism.
Indivisible Texas-12, Indivisible Fort Worth, Tarrant County Young Democrats, Tarrant County AFL-CIO, LULAC, Funkytown Fridge, Cowtown Democrats, and many more progressive groups are slated to participate. Since good trouble is great and impactful action is even better, Good Trouble Lives On will also offer ways to “advocate for policies that protect our communities,” say organizers. Since most of the left’s rage is directed toward the current occupant of the White House, maybe MAGA will join in the march. They appear to be just as pissed as progressives over the disappearance of the Epstein files. Republican legislators just voted unanimously to keep the files secret while every Dem pol voted for them to become public. MAGA thinks Epstein’s list is going to implicate every famous, powerful liberal, from Bill Clinton to Tom Hanks, while progressives know better. They know the Epstein files could quite possibly include the name of the infamous New
these groups provides a more sustainable solution than giving directly to an individual.
“Additionally,” she said, “the effort also seeks to help avoid unsafe roadside interactions that panhandling creates, which puts both the individual and drivers at risk.”
Standing in the roadway to solicit donations is already illegal in Fort Worth, as is panhandling near automated teller machines (ATMs), transit stations, and on private property. The same ordinance prohibits aggressive solicitation, such as threatening or intimidating behavior, continuing to solicit after a refusal, and blocking pedestrians or vehicles.
Fort Worth follows a number of cities in taking this approach. Arlington, for instance, installed similar signs in 2023 as part of a multi-pronged effort to reduce panhandling. Arlington Deputy City Manager Jennifer Wichmann said the city has considered or partially implemented public education efforts, traffic camera monitoring by police, and infrastructure redesign, such as changing street medians so they are difficult to stand on.
“There’s not a single solution to this,” Wichmann said. “It’s not something that’s going to be solved with one strategy.”
Still, the signs seem to work. Arlington’s initial pilot program in 2023 set up three sets of signs.
“We came back to council six months later and were able to tell them at those three locations, we’ve only had one panhandling call,” Wichmann said.
Based on that, they added seven locations this year.
Not everybody likes the idea. Elsewhere, signs have been defaced, covered up, and even torn down. Homeless advocates say the signs insult and demean panhandlers while highlighting government’s failure to provide other solutions, such as affordable housing.
In Arlington, Wichmann points out that the message applies to anyone soliciting donations, including members of sports teams and other non-homeless people. Evidence suggests, however,
York real estate mogul who flew on the financier’s plane seven times and called him a great pal.
Whatever you do Thursday evening at Burnett Park, do not engage the counterprotesting fascists or any fascist cops. Chaos is what they want. Chaos will allow the orange guy who lusts after his own daughter and was found liable of sexual abuse to declare martial law and suspend the midterms. Always keep that in mind. — Anthony Mariani
A version of this story originally appeared in last week’s issue.
This column reflects the opinions of the editorial board and not the Fort Worth Weekly. To submit a column, please email Editor Anthony Mariani at Anthony@FWWeekly.com. He will gently edit it for clarity and concision.
Arlington City Hall: “There’s not a single solution to this. It’s not something that’s going to be solved with one strategy.”
that homelessness drives most panhandling. For instance, a research study published in 2024 found about half of panhandlers in one European city were homeless, with many others marginally housed.
So far, Fort Worth’s Transportation & Public Works Department has installed signs at 14 of 27 intersections identified as panhandling hot spots. Once all signs are up, Warner said, they’ll monitor visits to the featured website, as well as panhandling complaints at these locations.
“Outcomes of this pilot effort will be assessed to determine next steps,” Warner said.
Meanwhile, Alex, who is homeless, works the corner at Bryant Irvin and 820 because it’s a good place to collect donations.
“Most places, you just get ignored,” he said. “Here, there’s a lot of traffic.”
Alex plans to keep it up, road sign or not. “I figure if it’s OK to say ‘no,’ it’s OK to say ‘yes.’ ” l
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When disaster strikes, words fail even us preachers. What can be said in the face of such suffering? Yet we are supposed to speak something into the face of the dark abyss.
Sadly, too often what is said is not good. People are told that their suffering is God’s will, or God’s plan, and that they are not to question.
Heaven and Earth Accountable
Death, especially of the innocent, is never “God’s will.”
BY REV. RYON PRICE
We’re all heartbroken over the horrific flooding and deaths in Central Texas on July 4. As the magnitude of the loss of life slowly became clear last Friday, I kept thinking of the agonized words that radio reporter Herbert Morrison uttered as he witnessed the Hindenburg disaster in 1937: “Oh, the humanity.”
And as news of the deaths of the 20-plus girls at Camp Mystic made its way out of Kerrville, a sad and sick feeling set into my stomach. Suddenly and inexplicably, I thought also of the somber and solemn lines of “Away in a Manger”:
“Be near me, Lord Jesus / I ask thee to stay / Close by me forever and love me, I pray / Bless all the dear children in thy tender care / And take us to heaven to live with thee there.”
It was such a sad day for so many. My heart truly goes out to all.
But I shall never forget what my boyhood pastor and Broadway predecessor, John Claypool, said helped him most after his young daughter Laura Lue died of Leukemia in 1970. It was a letter from pastor Carlyle Marney written to John and Laura Lue’s mother, Lue Ann. It said succinctly, “Dearest Lue Ann and John, I have no word for the suffering of the innocent. I never have had. I fall back on the notion that God has a lot to give an account for.”
John said that letter gave him permission to name, question, and grieve the “absurdity” and “ambiguity” of belief in a benevolent God in the face of the loss of such a beloved child.
I forget not either the words of pastor William Sloane Coffin, who, in the wake of the loss of his son in a car accident, preached a wellknown sermon titled “Alex’s Death” in which he said, “For some reason, nothing so infuriates me as the incapacity of seemingly intelligent people to get it through their heads that God doesn’t go around this world with his finger on triggers, his fist around knives, his hands on steering wheels. … The one thing that should never be said when someone dies is, ‘It is the will of God.’ Never do we know enough to say that. My own consolation lies in knowing that it was not the will of God that Alex die, that when the waves closed over the sinking car, God’s heart was the first of all our hearts to break.”
That is some consolation to me also, and it has seemed a consolation for others with whom I’ve shared the sentiment and conviction in times of their own sorrow and anguish.
Last Wednesday before the flood, I had coffee with Broadway member and friend Dr. Dan Stiver, who is my spiritual director and president of Fletcher Seminary in San Antonio, where he teaches a class called Providence, Evil, and Suffering. In our discussion, Dan happened to describe tragedy as the event of something “being worse than it could have been.”
By all accounts, what we witnessed last week in the Hill Country was tragic. The loss of innocent human and animal life was tragic. The destruction of property was tragic. Now, the politicization of the event is tragic.
Surely, we are learning that the event was worse than it could have been. A confluence of things — a lack of a sound warning system, cabins erected in a flood plain, meteorological institutions short-staffed because of government cuts, exacerbating weather patterns, and a storm that struck in the middle of the night — all came together to cause much more loss of life than would have been the case under different circumstances.
that has been taken with school shootings.
As someone who has his spent his whole life going and taking children and youth to camp, I know how much care and concern for safety is considered while still trying to create an exciting and unique experience in nature. I dare not, therefore, join the fracas making uninformed judgments and casting premature blame from afar.
At the same time, accountability is necessary as we must learn from what has happened, lest tragedy strike again and things be worse than they could or should be once more.
continued on page 7
Certainly, as increasing climate change impacts the size and potential destructive force of various storms, we must not take the same approach with weather events that has been taken with school shootings, refusing to acknowledge the root of the problem and offering “thoughts and prayers” rather than real, protective solutions through responsible public policy.
We are the ones responsible. And we must act responsibly.
In addition to the gutsy pastoral words Carlyle Marney wrote John Claypool on the occasion of Lara Lue’s death, Marney elsewhere cut to the prophetic bone when he said he would no longer pray for God to do anything that he
of a madman. Good, God-loving people were being killed. And nothing was going to change through prayer or worship. What was needed was some kind of deeper change on earth, not in heaven.
Thoughts and prayers will not save us or our children from calamity, callousness, or cruelty. For it is not the will of God that any innocent people should die! And it is not from God that innocent people need to be protected!
Insurance policies used to, and sometimes still do, call storms, floods, and other calamitous events “acts of God.” No! God’s heart is always the first to break!
And it must break God’s heart to have us think of God in this way!
God is tender. God is caring. God is careful. God is responsible.
God calls us also to be responsible — with our words and also with our actions.
We pray for so many who’ve lost so much. Oh, the humanity! It breaks our hearts. It breaks
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CLASSIFIEDS
WEEKLY LISTINGS
Free Will Astrology
By Rob Brezsny
ARIES (Mar 21-Apr 19)
The element of fire holds profound cultural significance and serves as a purifying and renewing force, helping people reconnect with their purpose, heal relationships, and catalyze positive change within the community. What are you ready to ignite for the sake of nurturing and care? What truths need light and heat?
TAURUS (Apr 20-May 20)
Any discomfort you feel during states of creative change is not a sign of failure, but a harbinger of the wisdom and power that will come by molting the identity you have outgrown.You are not lost; you are mid-ritual.
GEMINI (May 21-Jun 20)
Some useful influence or presence you have absorbed from another is integrating into your deeper systems. You’re making it your own now. This isn’t theft, but creative borrowing. You’re not copying; you’re synthesizing and synergizing.
CANCERIAN (Jun 21-Jul 22)
Like bees, who adapt well to their unusual homes, your sweetness and bounty may also thrive in unlikely structures. Don’t wait for the perfect container before beginning your work. Make honey in the best available setting.
LEO (Jul 23-Aug 22)
Trade in your dried-up old obsessions in favor of a sweet, fresh, productive passion—and outgrow all the fruitless nuisances.
VIRGO (Aug 23-Sep 22)
You are undergoing change, and the messages and expressions that are forming within you are meant to last. They will be crucial to both your own future and the destinies of those you care for. Be bold, decisive, and precise as you choose your words.
LIBRA (Sep 23-Oct 22)
Are you still a casual dabbler in a field where you could ultimately become masterful? If you answered yes, now is a perfect moment to kick yourself in the butt and leap to the next level. Waiting around for fate to kick your butt would be a mistake.
SCORPIO (Oct 23-Nov 21)
Resist pressure for immediate results. Trust in the slow, steady refinement process.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov 22-Dec 21)
You will wrangle at least one amazing victory over hardship. Your chances of a semi-miraculous visitation by a benevolent intervention are as high as they have ever been.
CAPRICORN (Dec 22-Jan 19)
Your natural inclination is to be practical, take action, and get things done. But for now, your main superpower will be listening to everything. Let your attention be so complete that the world softens and speaks to you about what you really need to know.
AQUARIUS (Jan 20- Feb 18)
If you would like to glide into rapt alignment with astrological rhythms, give gifts to your two closest allies. These offerings should inspire their ambitions, not satisfy their cravings for comfort. Show them you love both the person they are now and the person they are becoming.
PISCES (Feb 19-Mar 20)
In the coming months, you may encounter a turning point—a magical interlude awakening you to a marvel that will become an enduring presence in your life. Be alert for it. Better yet, declare your intention to shape events to ensure they happen and you’re ready for them.
EXPANDED HOROSCOPES
For unabridged versions of the horoscopes above by Rob Brezsny, go to FreeWillAstrology.com.
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What truths need light and heat, Aries?
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