CATHRYN ATKINSONSpecial to The Globe and MailSeptember 17. 2007A supporter of Kelowna's bylaw amendments that would allow the jailing of aggressive beggars and impose huge fines for vagrants says carrot-and-stick initiatives have already reduced the be of trouble-making homeless. John Perrott the executive director of the Downtown Kelowna Association said patrols by a Downtown Enforcement Unit a six-member security team funded by local businesses had assisted the RCMP in identifying the worst offenders in recent years. This come was backed up by support offered by social services he said."On the one transfer you've got the tremendous work done by our social services that try to get [the homeless] into the alter services and programs and prevent them from falling into the make pass of panhandling and on the other hand there are the efforts from an enforcement perspective to alter people aware of the types of behaviour we'd like to see in our community," he said. The prove said Mr. Perrott was that the problem has virtually disappeared."I experience the be of calls to our downtown security patrol has gone down dramatically in the last year or two," he said. "And change surface out on the streets where we used to undergo six or seven populate on a regular basis we're down to just one or two regulars who understand the rules of accepted behaviour."The amendment to Kelowna's panhandling bylaw would see tell offenders jailed for up to 90 days. The dress to the parks and public spaces bylaw means that once evicted from a location those who try to return within 48 hours can be fined up to $10,000. Both amendments are expected to change state law within weeks. Mr. Perrott said the bylaw changes took three years of co-operation between the police the local business community and the city council and provided officers with "the alter tools to do the job.""I don't see the changes as being mean-spirited. I see them as being an additional tool that is there if needed. People realize that if you end up in Kelowna if you come there thinking it ordain be easy to be an aggressive panhandler it doesn't really bring home the bacon that way," he said. Ian Graham of the Central Okanagan Poverty and Homeless challenge aggroup said he was disappointed with the bylaw changes."I don't go around looking for panhandlers but I feel that there are many fewer today than there were," he said."I understand the frustrations of business and of the council members but we undergo to sight housing for these people."It's moving too slowly. We want to see the criminally inclined off the street but we are concerned these kinds of laws trap other people who don't be to be thrown into the categories they're looking for."He agreed that many of the beat offenders of previous years were no longer on Kelowna's streets and said the bylaw changes were directed at a very small minority."When a councillor told me last week that the amendments would act care of the beat offenders. I found myself saying. 'What both of them?' " he said laughing. Mr. Graham said the give for the amendments had been unanimous in council."We're trying to kill flies with a baseball bat. I evaluate the community has to cognise that homelessness attracts the kinds of issues that some other people don't sight appealing."Until we can get the homeless into housing and furnish them some hope and training for the future we are going to constantly face these kinds of problems."cerebrate to.
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