Sioux City police say the number of calls about panhandlers have been increasing. Sergeant Tom Gill says these type of calls always increase in the summer and this year it seems to be worse.
“The transient issue continues to be a concern, especially in the downtown area of Sioux City we’ll see more panhandlers holding up signs begging for money. We’ll also see it now on the outskirts,” Gill says. He says they had nine calls Monday from the downtown area. “People will come to work and they’ll have someone that’s either sleeping in their in their entryway or in the alley behind the business,” he says. “And usually an officer will go there and either wake the person up or ask them to leave and they usually leave without any problems if they refuse to leave then they’ll be arrested for trespassing.”
Gill says if the person is sometimes drunk and arrested for public intoxication. He says some of the transients use restrooms in businesses and even try to bathe there. “Here at the police station, for example, we were having that problem, as a result of that we lock our restrooms in the lobby,” Gill says. “So if someone comes in to make a police report, they can absolutely use the restroom if they need to, but they’re going to have to come to our records clerk and get a key. Some of the businesses and organizations downtown are going to start doing the same thing.”
He says you should never give money to panhandlers, as many of them are trying to scam you to get easy money. Gill says they’ve also had problems with people trying to sleep overnight in city parks, and vandalism to those parks.
(By Woody Gottburg, KSCJ, Sioux City)