Cape & Islands News

Barnstable may target panhandling, loitering by street people

Business official will request ordinances against panhandling, loitering
Frustration grows over behavior of some street people in Hyannis

Homeless and non-homeless residents joined merchants, town officials and social service agency workers Tuesday night at the Federated Church in Hyannis to discuss street people in the village.

By James Kinsella

In the wake of a contentious meeting Tuesday night about the behavior of some street people in Hyannis, a business group official will ask the Barnstable Town Council to pass ordinances against panhandling and loitering.

Cynthia Cole, executive director of the Hyannis Main Street Business Improvement District, said she will ask town councilor James M. Tinsley Jr., who represents Precinct 9 in Hyannis, to bring the ordinances before the council.

Town councilor Janice Barton also represents In From the Street, a group that seeks to help chronically homeless.

Moving in the same direction, town councilor J. Gregory Milne, who represents Precinct 13, said the time may have come to enforce the $300 fine against camping in town conservation areas. The target here would be the homeless camps in the conservation area south of the former National Guard armory on South Street.

Cole also wants to halt grant funding for social services that are based in Hyannis. She said the services should be spread across Cape Cod, with its population of 250,000, rather than concentrated in the village of Hyannis, with its population of about 15,000.

As it is, Cole said, the presence of extensive social services is a magnet that draws homeless people not only from the rest of the Cape, but from elsewhere in Massachusetts.

Patience with the behavior of a number of street people has come to an end for Cole, as well as for a number of Main Street merchants and some residents of nearby neighborhoods.

Patience with the behavior of a some Hyannis street people has come to an end for a number of Main Street merchants and some residents of nearby neighborhoods.

Recurring complaints include public urination and defecation, shouted obscenities and public intoxication.

Barnstable Police Chief Paul MacDonald said a small number of street people are the source of most of the problems. Chief MacDonald said only a small minority of the homeless people in Hyannis cause trouble over and over. Estimates range as low as a dozen people.

But those small numbers cause a lot of trouble for merchants who are trying to compete with businesses in other Cape towns for the retail dollar, as well as for nearby residents who would rather not have people camping behind their backyards or breaking into their homes.

Frustration on the part of a number of merchants and residents, and anger on the part of a number of homeless people, were major themes at Tuesday's meeting, billed as an informational forum on street people.

Held at the Federated Church, the forum drew more than 150 people from a wide cross-section of the Barnstable community. The Hyannis Civic Association, the Hyannis Chamber of Commerce and the Hyannis Main Street district sponsored the meeting. Prominent Barnstable attorney Patrick Butler served as moderator.

While Cole and others sounded the mantra of decentralization, a number of social service providers questioned the pragmatism of that goal, given Hyannis's status as the Cape's transportation hub and the difficulty of getting elsewhere on the Cape for people who can't afford a car.
Cole also acknowledged that discouraging panhandling and loitering might run into constitutional issues.

Deborah Converse, chief executive officer of Hyannis Chamber of Commerce, shares concerns of business community.

The forum, which lasted more than two and one-half hours, was steeped in the complexity of the homeless issue. Tales of homeless people who, with the help of service providers, turned their lives around were mixed in with reports by merchants and residents of obnoxious and sometimes frightening behavior.

A chicken-and-egg controversy also arose as to whether the growth of human services in Hyannis was a response to an expanding problem, or an industry that has flourished as it has attracted more and more clients to the village. Homeless people also differed on the relative helpfulness of those agencies.

"I didn't ask for social services, I didn't receive social services, I don't want any social services, because they really aren't there."
        - Homeless Hyannis man

One homeless man said he hadn't forfeited his status of an American citizen to live where he pleased, including the streets of Hyannis.

"We're real Americans," he said. "I'm an American. I didn't ask for social services, I didn't receive social services, I don't want any social services, because they really aren't there."

Meanwhile, the non-homeless began to speak of pinpointing the most troublesome street people and getting the court system to take action against them.

Cole is disinclined to sit through more meetings to discuss the issue. "I've been working on this for 20 years," she said.

Larry Brown, a teacher at Cape Cod Academy in Osterville, said he heard anger Tuesday night on both sides of the homeless issue.