Protesters urge people not to give money to homeless

Three protesters gathered in the Cambridge Delta area on Thursday, to urge people not to give their money to the homeless.

They are asking the public to give their cash to local charities and support services instead.

Ryan Coles is one of the protesters. 

He says the focus is to save lives.

“Some of these people will use the money for drugs and it's all about harm reduction. We don't want to see people having overdosed. So we feel this is really going to make people listen.”

The three protesters began holding their signs at around 4pm on Thursday, but they left after approximately 45 minutes.

Coles says the protest wrapped up early because of the backlash they received online.

“It's not what we want to be about. We just wanted to bring about positive awareness. So I basically decided to stick to doing the picketing today and this is definitely going to be the last time.”

Coles said it felt good to toss his sign into a nearby dumpster at the end of the protest.

“I think everyone in the group is uncomfortable doing this… it's not something we want to be doing. So, we think we got the message across.”

The protest was organized on the Facebook group page “A Clean Cambridge” 

The event page says that panhandling has the potential to turn into a drug overdose. 

Many people support the the intentions behind the protest but the methods are being called into question by community members.

Lynn Perry is the Executive Director of The Cambridge Shelter Corporation, she says the public targeting of homeless people in Cambridge needs to stop.

“We have to understand that the words we are using in a discriminatory way against other people actually have a way to come back on us… because human rights are for everyone,” she says.

Perry says judging someone based only on what you see is unfair to people who are struggling.

“It's kind of like backing people into a corner. If the people are truly down and they truly need some money, and someone gets in their face with a camera, with signs, then that is already wrong.”

Paul Tavares is an advocate for the homeless in Cambridge. 

Paul has experienced living on the streets and he has lived 90 days in the cold to raise money and awareness for homeless in the winter of 2017. 

Tavares says he agrees that people should not give money to pan handlers but says confronting people and publicly shaming them is nt the answer,  

“The concern is to help people sooner rather than later. The more you attack somebody when their down, the less likely that they are going to receive the help that they need.”