By Gabrielle Porter, The Santa Fe New Mexican

Lori Sena stood in the median of Paseo de Peralta late Thursday morning, holding out a cardboard sign that read, “Help us, please.”

She occasionally stepped toward drivers who stopped at the light on St. Francis Drive and held money out their windows for her. Sena was hoping to get enough money to buy food for herself, her husband and her dog, Reina.

Typically, they can get by on $20 to $50 per day, according to the 40-year-old, who grew up just around the corner on Alto Street.

If she gets a little extra, Sena said, they sometimes stay in a motel.

“It’s been harder and harder,” she said. “… People can be very mean.” 

Sena is one of many New Mexicans who would be affected by a statewide crackdown on panhandling Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham proposed and urged lawmakers to consider earlier this week during her annual State of the State address. The governor referred to panhandling as a safety risk. 

“We have one of the highest pedestrian fatality rates in the entire country and a situation where drivers and their children as passengers are at increased risk,” Lujan Grisham said in her speech Tuesday at the Roundhouse. “It’s not tenable, and we can do something about it.”

While advocates say they agree panhandlers being in the roadway or on a narrow median can become a safety issue, several said they have concerns about the details of a statewide measure, especially when it comes to the ways people might be punished for continuing to panhandle.

“Generally, we’re all pretty concerned that the end goal here is to incarcerate people who are unhoused,” said Nayomi Valdez, director of public policy for the American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico. The statewide organization and local chapters have successfully challenged a number of municipal panhandling statutes in court.

“That’s not a solution,” Valdez said of the proposed ban, “and in fact, that will cause deeper harm and long-term harm.”

‘Free speech and peaceful protest’

Efforts to ban or limit panhandling are nothing new in New Mexico or around the country. The ACLU has argued, however, against those they say violate First Amendment rights.

“People have a constitutional right to stand in public spaces and to solicit donations … regardless of whether they’re looking for money to buy their next meal or … firefighters out trying to fill the boot,” Valdez said. 

Sean Baity, who was soliciting donations Thursday from the median of St. Francis Drive near Cerrillos Road, said he views panhandling as a protest of sorts.

“It’s a matter of free speech and peaceful protest,” said the 45-year-old, California-born painter, who has been in New Mexico about a year. “All you’re doing is protesting that you don’t have a home and money.”

Local leaders in recent years have cast the issue primarily as a safety risk, especially against the backdrop of New Mexico’s dismal pedestrian fatality rate — the highest in the nation in 2022, according to a Governors Highway Safety Association study, with 4.4 deaths per 100,000 people. 

Albuquerque city leaders went through several rounds of revisions and court battles in recent years before ultimately landing on the city’s current iteration of a panhandling ordinance: a measure that, among other things, prohibits people from occupying medians less than 4 feet wide on roads with a speed limit of 30 mph or faster. 

A statute now on the books in Española takes a similar approach, restricting solicitors from standing on medians that are narrower than 3 feet wide. And Santa Fe forbids panhandling “in an aggressive manner” or in certain locations, including on private property.

While no bill for a statewide measure has been introduced following Lujan Grisham’s speech, a Governor’s Office spokeswoman said the proposal would be modeled after Española’s, noting it “did withstand judicial scrutiny.” 

“Panhandling on our streets, especially in narrow medians at busy intersections, creates a dangerous situation for both panhandlers and drivers,” spokeswoman Maddy Hayden wrote in an email Thursday. “… In addition to protecting New Mexicans, a statewide law would provide a clear standard of safety for law enforcement who have jurisdiction in multiple municipalities, counties or statewide.”

‘Putting themselves at risk’

Korina Lopez, executive director of the Interfaith Community Shelter at Pete’s Place in Santa Fe, said she “absolutely” understands the physical dangers panhandling presents. 

“Sometimes it’s scary if people aren’t paying attention and they’re in a really narrow median,” she said, adding she often hears of people getting hit by cars while in the median, though she said she doesn’t know if those people are panhandling at the time. “… Even if they’re collecting money, they’re kind of putting themselves at risk with the traffic.”

Nechay Gustobov, who has lived without a permanent house for decades in the Santa Fe area and is a member of the city’s Lived Experience Advisory Board, said panhandling isn’t just a risk because of cars.

“Traffic does become a major issue for safety, but it’s also the weather,” Gustobov said. “It’s a good chance of them getting hypothermia. … In summer, you can be standing there and be dehydrated.”

Valdez said she agrees the trend of rising pedestrian deaths is concerning.

But, she added, “I don’t think it’s completely fair or accurate to attribute that to panhandling per se. We have a distracted driver problem in this country. … People are driving really fast. They’re on their phone.”

Lopez, Gustobov and Valdez all said despite those risks, they’re worried a crackdown on panhandling could mean driving already vulnerable people into the criminal justice system. That could include fines and jail time as a punishment or for missing court dates. 

“If you get a fine, typically people are panhandling because they don’t have regular income,” Lopez said. “It’s kind of like a Catch-22, where they’re panhandling to make money, and then you get the fine, so you’re going to have to earn the money to pay the fine; if not you’ll end up with a warrant. … It becomes this weird cycle.”

Gustobov noted some people panhandle because they think it’s easier than finding a job, but many do it because they are not capable, physically or mentally, of working.

He doesn’t think a crackdown on panhandling will change behavior.

“They can go to jail, they can get out of jail. They can get a fine,” he said. “The attitude is: ‘Big deal. So it’s against the law to panhandle. I’m going to do it anyway.’ … Punishing people because they’re panhandling is not a long-term solution.”

Valdez said she believes trying to push through a statewide statute on panhandling could be a waste of taxpayer funds if it ends up posing a constitutional threat that’s later challenged. She pointed to cities like Albuquerque that spent considerable time and money fighting challenges in court.

“That money could be going toward housing people … toward building a behavioral health pipeline,” Valdez said. “That money could be going toward a whole number of things that actually get at the root cause of homelessness.”

‘Like dominoes’

Panhandling wasn’t Sena’s plan for her life. She hoped at one point to go to college, to learn automotive repair. She had a job she enjoyed for years as a cashier at a carwash. Then her mom died, and Sena took over raising her siblings. Later, she said, she got ovarian cancer and couldn’t work anymore. 

“It just [was] like dominoes,” said Sena, adding that, all told, she’s been homeless for about 10 years. “It went from losing my apartment to my savings to losing my car. … This is where we got stuck at.” 

Sena said she would like to go back to work. She’s applied to jobs, but her lack of an address has been an issue for employers. She said she’s on good terms with her old boss at the carwash, and she might try to go back to work there.

But, Sena said, it’s also hard to go to work every day when she doesn’t have somewhere to live and to shower — and housing is more expensive than ever. 

“With the rent going up to, geez louise, $2,000 for a one-bedroom, two-bedroom house?” Sena said. “It’s ridiculous.” 

Sena said she and her husband put their names down on a list for one of the Pallet shelters the city is installing, but they haven’t heard back. 

If she’s restricted from panhandling, she said, it will be difficult to get enough money to eat. She also thinks cities will see other problems start to increase as people get more desperate. 

“Guaranteed, the crime is going to go up. People are going to start getting into cars more and breaking into houses and robbing people,” Sena said. “It’s not all of us. … [But] it’s going to get bad. It’s going to get worse than it already is.”

She said leaders considering a crackdown on panhandling should consider her experiences of becoming homeless and trying to survive.

“Walk a mile in my shoes, and let’s see if you can do it,” Sena said. “I give you guys three days.”