I saw this poster when I was going out to dinner with some friends at a pizza parlor. Surprisingly, this was the first anti-panhandling poster I have ever seen, or at least can remember seeing. I found this poster to be very abrasive and very political. The bold title of the poster really conveys the message that panhandling will only lead to more problems and increase the number of homeless, or so one would think.
At the bottom of the poster, it tells the viewer to instead make a donation to a charitable organization, not necessarily hinting at a particular one. It instead directs the viewer to a website. What is disturbing to me is that the words telling the viewer to not promote panhandling are surprisingly larger and more “in your face” than the small text saying to give to a charitable organization. To me, this poster was made only fore the pizza business, and did not have the intention o having people donate to charitable organizations. The business likely had panhandlers outside of the store, perhaps deterring business.
Another thing that bothered me is that this poster compares donating to a charitable organization to giving spare change to a panhandler. Giving spare change to a panhandler is almost always a much smaller amount than in a donation to an organization.
What do you think the main intention of this poster is? Have you all seen any posters similar to this around Redlands?
This is a large initiative on behalf of the Redlands Charitable Resource Coalition to urge the community to inform panhandlers about resources that are available to them if they are in need. There are pamphlets you can obtain from the Redlands Charitable Resource Coalition with information and location of aid. These pamphlets are meant to be given to the panhandlers instead of money or food. While this does encourage those in need to go to organizations equipped to help them, it does also serve a dull purpose to get the panhandlers, and those who need of extra cash, out of Redlands. I positive we will be seeing more of these posters around Redlands with the recent criminalization of panhandlers.