Colorado town claims it has slashed panhandling and homelessness by erecting sign with blunt three-word message

A Colorado county has attempted to tackle homelessness and street-begging by placing signs with a blunt message on the corners and roads that were once flooded with panhandlers. 

'Handouts don't help' reads the signs meant to stop people from giving money directly to homeless people in Douglas County.

A link on the 70 signs throughout the area prompts people to make donations on the Douglas County Community Foundation website. This foundation helps connect people in need with helpful resources. 

Republican Douglas County Commissioner Abe Laydon told Fox News: 'If you see someone who appears to be down on their luck, it feels bad when you drive by and don't do something – but the flip side is we all know the stories of those who maybe did not use all the funds they received in the most appropriate way. 

'Maybe it's going to food, maybe it's going to drugs – you don't know where the money is going.'

Laydon, who founded the initiative in 2022, said that the more people give out money to panhandlers on certain roads or corners, the more congested those areas would become. 

Thanks to these signs, which were also posted in newspapers and online, Laydon says those places are now mostly cleared. 

The number of people living on the streets went from 43 individuals to six from 2022 to 2024, according to the Douglas County website. 

The total number of people sleeping outside or in their cars has been reduced by 50 percent since the summer of 2023.  

The initiative began after Laydon noticed a homeless encampment 'littered with liquor bottles and drug paraphernalia.'

'It was kind of everywhere, but never as bad as downtown Denver – we started at a good place.

'[Our smaller homeless population] gave us the opportunity to nip this problem in the bud before it became really pervasive,' he told Fox News.

Douglas County is located to the south of Denver, a city where homelessness has been on the rise for years.

In 2022, Denver's homeless population was 6,884. The following year, that population rose to 9,065.

Denver's migrant crisis had resulted in streets cluttered with tents as politicians struggle to find a solution.

Shelters reached maximum capacity as 40,000 migrants came to the city at the beginning of the year.  

In May, the people living in these encampments issued a list of demands they had for the sanctuary city to fulfill before they would consider moving.