Change. A lot of citizens and students in the city of Madison all desire it, whether it be political reform or better weather. However, once you cross State Street, it seems as if everyone wants some change, only it’s a different kind of change — the kind that jingles. Panhandling, another way of referring to begging and loitering, has increasingly become a problem in downtown Madison, particularly on State Street.

“They’re always there. I can count on specific people to be there everyday,” said Erin Butters, a freshman at University of Wisconsin.

Many in Madison share Butters’ sentiment, but officials in local government believe they have found a solution that could eventually lessen the number of panhandlers on State Street.

Ald. Todd Jarrell, District 8, reintroduced the idea of a community-outreach worker to the City Council.

“The worker would go downtown and make contact with people with a lot of problems and homeless people in the downtown and in the university area and talk to individuals before they get in trouble,” Jarrell said.

The position would be created for the purpose of developing a personal relationship between a city worker and the homeless or otherwise troubled people that are scattered along State Street.

Although there was money put aside in the budget for such a job last year, the position was never created because of the budget freezes put into effect by Mayor Sue Bauman. This year, however, the money is available and at least a part-time position will be formed by early 2003.

“The total cost for a full-time position would be $38,000, and we already have a lot of it, but not all of it,” Jarrell said.

According to Jarrell, the city will begin looking at several agencies, including Transition Housing and Tellurian, as early as next week. A committee will field several proposals from different agencies.

“Whoever comes back with the best proposal — the best ideas of what kind of outreach to do, how many hours to commit, and the cost — is probably who we’ll go with,” Jarrell said.

Jarrell and Verveer feel that potential directions for the outreach worker range from assistance with alcohol and drug addiction of the panhandlers to the assignment of housing shelters to get the homeless in from the cold. Other possible issues to be dealt with are the treatment of mental illness and dealing with crime among the panhandlers.

This will not be the first time the city of Madison has had a community-outreach worker.

“It was ’96 or ’97 the last time we had this position … it was the same one we are trying to recreate,” said Verveer. However, the community-outreach-worker idea failed the first time around because the job became ineffective. What was created in order to help the homeless in the downtown area eventually spilled over into public parks and not the city.

Jarrell expects the new outreach-worker idea will be different this year because there is a more specific agenda, and there will be more focus behind it.

“I just think it’s something we really need,” he said. “There is definitely evidence that outreach workers can reach people. It won’t solve everything, but this will definitely help people.”