Henrico County Board of Supervisors unanimously votes to practically outlaw panhandling

On Tuesday, the Henrico County Board of Supervisors changed the county’s ordinance for panhandling, making it next to impossible to solicit from the medians of Henrico County roads.


Prior to the change, the county’s ordinance prohibited panhandlers from standing in the medians while they offered to sell merchandise or solicited money. In response, panhandlers began sitting down.

The unanimous vote on Tuesday by the five-member board removed “standing” from the county’s ordinance, making it illegal for panhandlers to sit, squat, or occupy any space in the median. Additionally, the ordinance makes it illegal to sell services in addition to merchandise on Henrico County highways.

In response to the changed ordinance, one panhandler, Veronica Holder, said, “I’ll go to Richmond. In the city you can stand and walk with your sign.”

Veronica Holder, who lives in Richmond, pointed out that she is not homeless but “receives $850 a month in federal disability aid for a psychological condition related to stress that developed when her husband died and she battled breast cancer.”

Henrico’s amended ordinance thus brings up a number of important questions that Virginia needs to bring further into the public sphere for debate.

First, should panhandling be illegal or allowed at reasonable volumes? While many Virginians may be quick to blame these individuals for their apparent misfortunes, as Veronica Holder’s case demonstrates, these circumstances can arise from a number of complex and unfortunate causes that are sometimes outside of the individuals control.

As Veronica Holder also pointed out, the amended ordinance may achieve its goal of removing panhandlers from Henrico County, but the problem of panhandling will only be moved to a different location. The problem of panhandling itself, that is, remains unresolved.

While this might not be a tremendous problem for residents of Henrico County, it is a symptom of a larger problem we have in Virginia and the rest of our country: kicking the proverbial can down the road, allowing systemic problems to persist instead of taking the harder road and attempting to solve them now.

As usual, this issue will creep up again in Henrico County, as elsewhere in Virginia. Who’s to say whether the issue of panhandling can even be “solved,” but it doesn’t seem that anyone has ever made an honest attempt to do so and find out.

Ultimately, what you put in or leave out comes back around in the end.

References   http://www2.timesdispatch.com/news/news/2012/oct/23/1/henrico-bars-panhandling-on-county-medians-ar-2306601/

http://www2.timesdispatch.com/news/news/2012/oct/23/1/henrico-bars-panhandling-on-county-medians-ar-2306601/