Evanston’s panhandling repeal is back. Records show who helped shape it.
The City has legitimate First Amendment reasons to rewrite its panhandling law. FOIA records also show that organizations advocating complete repeal reviewed draft language, proposed legislative findings and helped staff prepare responses to anticipated objections before the proposal reached public review.
Six months after the Human Services Committee unanimously approved Evanston’s proposed repeal of its panhandling ordinance, the measure returned to the City Council on Aug. 24.
Ordinance 10-O-26 was placed before the Council for introduction. The proposal would completely repeal Title 9, Chapter 5, Section 25 — Evanston’s existing “Panhandling and Soliciting” ordinance — while also making changes to a separate chapter regulating peddlers and solicitors.
The renewed proposal includes an important addition: City staff has now produced a detailed chart explaining how other existing ordinances could be used to address conduct associated with aggressive panhandling, including obstruction, trespassing, assault, battery and certain forms of disorderly conduct. That information matters to residents and businesses concerned about what enforcement tools would remain after repeal. It also raises a broader question reflected throughout records obtained under the Illinois Freedom of Information Act: Who helped Evanston decide what should replace the existing law?
The records show extensive involvement by the ACLU of Illinois, the Chicago Coalition to End Homelessness and the People’s Law Office months before Ordinance 10-O-26 reached a public committee meeting.
On the City side, the correspondence repeatedly identifies Liza Roberson-Young, Evanston’s Chief Legislative Policy Advisor, and Alison Leipsiger, the City’s Policy and Intergovernmental Affairs Manager. Corporation Counsel Alexandra “Alex” Ruggie was also listed among the staff working on the proposal. On the advocacy side, the records identify Khadine Bennett, Director of Advocacy and Intergovernmental Affairs for the ACLU of Illinois; Rebecca Glenberg, the ACLU of Illinois’ Chief Supervising Litigation Counsel for First Amendment matters; Patricia Nix-Hodes, Director of the Law Project at the Chicago Coalition to End Homelessness; Niya Kelly, the coalition’s Director of State Legislative Policy, Equity, and Transformation; Kyle Voils, a Senior Attorney with the coalition’s Law Project; and People’s Law Office attorneys Brad Thomson and Tayleece Paul.
They were also policy advocates, not merely outside legal reviewers. Their written advocacy approached the issue from a broadly similar direction: reducing the use of criminal or punitive enforcement to address panhandling, homelessness and related public-space concerns while favoring housing first, outreach, public benefits and service-based responses.
Their expertise was relevant, and consulting them was not inherently inappropriate. The extent of that participation, however, raises important questions about how Evanston developed the proposal.
The records show Roberson-Young and Leipsiger communicating directly with Bennett and representatives of all three organizations about whether repeal could be accomplished and what would be needed to accomplish it. At staff’s request, the advocates later reviewed draft ordinance language, proposed legislative findings, supplied alternatives staff could use to answer anticipated objections and discussed participation at the public meetings where the repeal would be considered.
The City has since told Evanston Action Coalition that businesses, residents and other affected parties were also consulted. However, when EAC specifically asked whether downtown businesses, residents, police representatives, social-service providers or other affected parties had been consulted, the City’s answer was simply, “Yes.” The City did not identify those parties or say when they were consulted, what materials they were shown, what concerns they raised or what changes resulted from their participation.
The contrast in the disclosed record is significant. The repeal advocates’ participation is documented in emails, draft exchanges and meeting materials; comparable formative-stage involvement by businesses, residents or police is not. That does not prove those groups were excluded. It does raise a legitimate question about whether constituencies concerned with public order, aggressive solicitation and day-to-day conditions in commercial and residential areas received a similar opportunity to shape the City’s approach.
A genuine constitutional problem
Any fair examination of Evanston’s process should begin with an important point: The City had strong reasons to reconsider its existing ordinance. Section 9-5-25 regulates requests for money and certain forms of solicitation in ways that depend upon the content of the speaker’s request. Following the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2015 decision in Reed v. Town of Gilbert, the Seventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals — which governs federal cases in Illinois — reconsidered Springfield’s panhandling ordinance in Norton v. City of Springfield and concluded that its restriction on oral requests for immediate donations was content-based. A federal judge in the Northern District of Illinois later applied Reed and Norton in Dumiak v. Village of Downers Grove to solicitation restrictions that drew content- and speaker-based distinctions. Evanston’s Aug. 24 staff memorandum cites Reed, Norton and Dumiak. That does not establish that every provision of Section 9-5-25 is unconstitutional, but it gives the City substantial reason to remove or rewrite content-based provisions.
On Oct. 21, 2025, Chicago Coalition to End Homelessness Senior Attorney Kyle Voils sent City Manager Luke Stowe the coalition’s formal demand letter on behalf of the Chicago Coalition to End Homelessness, the ACLU of Illinois and the People’s Law Office. Voils’ email copied Brad Thomson and Tayleece Paul of the People’s Law Office; ACLU attorneys Rebecca Glenberg and Khadine Bennett; Chicago Coalition to End Homelessness colleagues Patricia Nix-Hodes and Niya Kelly; and, on the City side, Roberson-Young, Leipsiger, Corporation Counsel Alexandra “Alex” Ruggie and Mayor Daniel Biss. The letter called Evanston’s ordinance unconstitutional and asked the City to immediately stop enforcement, dismiss pending charges and “swiftly repeal” the ordinance.
The letter warned that keeping the ordinance in effect exposed Evanston to “significant legal liability.” Those statements represented the position of potential legal challengers, not a judicial determination that Evanston had violated the Constitution. Nevertheless, the underlying First Amendment problem was substantial and warranted City action. The remaining policy question is whether complete repeal of Section 9-5-25 was the best response and whether repeal should be paired with narrower, content-neutral rules addressing aggressive or disruptive conduct.
Initial legal pressure came from a business
The first documented legal pressure in 2025 came from a commercial solicitor, not a homelessness or civil-liberties organization.
In May 2025, lawyers representing Moxie Services, a pest-control company that relies heavily on door-to-door sales, sent Evanston Corporation Counsel Alexandra Ruggie a legal demand challenging portions of both the City’s peddling regulations and its panhandling and solicitation ordinance.
Moxie alleged the City Code was unconstitutional “in at least five respects,” challenging licensing fees, distinctions among different types of sellers, solicitation hours, restrictions near schools and portions of Evanston’s broader solicitation rules. Its demand concerned commercial solicitation, not homelessness policy.
That separate dispute helps explain one unusual feature of Ordinance 10-O-26: the City eventually combined a complete repeal of its panhandling ordinance with broader revisions to regulations governing commercial peddlers and solicitors.
When EAC later asked why City staff had begun working on the ordinance before the homelessness organizations sent their October demand letter, the City pointed directly to the Moxie dispute, saying staff began discussing amendments in May 2025 after receiving the company’s threatened litigation. The later advocacy coalition therefore did not initiate Evanston’s 2025 legal review. Its role nevertheless became considerably more involved than simply informing the City that it believed the existing ordinance was unconstitutional.
Before the formal demand letter
The City’s own account says the ACLU and other organizations asked for a meeting in fall 2025 to flag constitutional concerns and alert staff that a formal demand letter would follow. The contemporaneous emails show who was involved. On Sept. 9, Chief Legislative Policy Advisor Liza Roberson-Young wrote to ACLU of Illinois Director of Advocacy and Intergovernmental Affairs Khadine Bennett proposing a meeting with Bennett, the Chicago Coalition to End Homelessness, Roberson-Young and Policy and Intergovernmental Affairs Manager Alison Leipsiger. “We can bring the Mayor in later as needed,” Roberson-Young added. She also asked Bennett and the coalition to share “any draft language or analysis” in advance.
The records do not establish that City staff instructed the organizations to send that demand letter. They do establish that City staff and the advocates were discussing repeal before the letter arrived.
On Oct. 2, Bennett sent Roberson-Young and Leipsiger the advocates’ analysis and proposed agenda, copying Chicago Coalition to End Homelessness representatives Niya Kelly, Kyle Voils and Patricia Nix-Hodes; ACLU of Illinois attorney Rebecca Glenberg; and People’s Law Office attorney Brad Thomson. The calendar invitation listed Roberson-Young as organizer and included Leipsiger and representatives of all three advocacy organizations. The records establish the meeting was scheduled and that participants exchanged materials; they do not independently establish the attendance of every person listed on the invitation.
The proposed agenda asked what “success” would look like and, more pointedly, “Is repeal possible: Evanston.” It identified “process, timeframe,” “obstacles,” “needs” and “next steps” as subjects for discussion. The meeting was therefore not limited to a technical legal analysis of whether a sentence in the municipal code complied with First Amendment precedent; it concerned whether repeal could be accomplished and what would be required to get there. The formal Oct. 21 demand letter followed. By January, the relationship had progressed further.
From legal review to a public case for repeal
By December 2025, the collaboration had moved beyond identifying potentially unconstitutional language. City staff was also asking the advocates to help build the legislative and public case for repeal.
On Dec. 17, Roberson-Young sent Bennett a draft that would repeal Section 9-5-25 while also changing the City’s peddling rules. She invited “drafting suggestions, particularly in the ‘whereas’ clauses” that would become the Council’s proposed legislative findings. She also asked for concrete alternatives to panhandling enforcement, explaining that it would be helpful to provide them “so that people can’t argue we’re taking away one solution and not providing others.”
Roberson-Young separately asked for examples of the federal government “weaponizing panhandling ordinances specifically.” Voils responded on Jan. 21 with a broader national political rationale. He pointed to Trump administration actions in Washington, D.C., including the use of the National Guard and federal law-enforcement authority, and argued that the administration was “targeting politically oppositional cities, such as Chicago and Evanston” over alleged failures to enforce local laws. He also cited the presence of Customs and Border Protection and ICE agents in the Chicago area and Mayor Daniel Biss’ confrontation with Border Patrol official Greg Bovino in Evanston.
Voils acknowledged that Washington’s legal circumstances and its encampment issues differed from Evanston’s panhandling ordinance. Nevertheless, he argued that eliminating such laws could help “insulate” Evanston from federal “militarization tactics.” The exchange shows that the developing case for repeal had moved beyond First Amendment doctrine and into a broader argument about the Trump administration and federal intervention in politically opposed cities.
Looking ahead to the public process, Roberson-Young also told Bennett it would be “great to have at least one coalition member present in person” for the Human Services Committee and City Council meetings.
On Jan. 21, Kyle Voils, Senior Attorney with the Law Project of the Chicago Coalition to End Homelessness, thanked Roberson-Young and Leipsiger for sharing draft ordinance language and “your questions.” Voils copied Law Project Director Patricia Nix-Hodes, State Legislative Policy Director Niya Kelly, ACLU of Illinois Director of Advocacy and Intergovernmental Affairs Khadine Bennett, ACLU First Amendment litigation counsel Rebecca Glenberg, and People’s Law Office attorneys Brad Thomson and Tayleece Paul.
“We think it is fantastic that you all are working to pass a complete repeal of the panhandling ordinance,” Voils wrote, adding that the organizations were “very happy to be able to work together to do so.”
Voils’ reply supplied exactly that kind of material. He proposed additional legislative findings, including a “whereas” clause describing Evanston’s commitment to preventing and ending homelessness and arguing that laws criminalizing panhandling disproportionately affect people experiencing homelessness. He said the organizations hoped the language would help explain repeal “to those who may be concerned about limiting Evanston’s tools to reduce the presence of street homelessness.”
The response also proposed alternatives that Evanston could consider “sharing with potential doubters.” Among them was a workgroup bringing together businesses in areas where people panhandle, people with lived experience of homelessness, civic leaders and advocates. Voils wrote that beginning such a group could help “wary community members feel they have a voice.” Taken together, the correspondence documents collaboration over legal drafting, legislative findings, anticipated objections and public persuasion — not simply whether the ordinance could survive First Amendment review.
The organizations also suggested language linking homelessness to racial disparities and anti-racism and recommended housing, daytime shelter, public-benefit outreach, street outreach and low-barrier employment programs as alternatives to criminal enforcement.
Several of those themes subsequently appeared in the ordinance presented by City staff. The proposed legislative findings state that criminalization of panhandling disproportionately punishes people experiencing homelessness; that people of color disproportionately experience homelessness because of historic and ongoing systemic racism; that Evanston is committed to anti-racism and racial equity; and that the federal government has used the existence and alleged under-enforcement of such laws “as a justification for militarization of American communities, including deployment of federal agents in our community.” Those provisions go well beyond the narrow proposition that Evanston should not enforce a content-based restriction on protected speech. They represent a broader policy position about homelessness, law enforcement and the appropriate role of municipal government.
The organizations shared a policy direction
The identity and policy orientation of the City’s outside collaborators are therefore relevant. The ACLU of Illinois, Chicago Coalition to End Homelessness and People’s Law Office were not approaching the issue from competing perspectives; their written advocacy consistently favored reducing the use of enforcement to address panhandling and visible homelessness.
The same individuals also put their names behind the coalition’s public case for repeal. Written comment submitted for the Feb. 2 Human Services Committee meeting was signed by Kyle Voils, Patricia Nix-Hodes and Niya Kelly for the Chicago Coalition to End Homelessness; Rebecca Glenberg and Khadine Bennett for the ACLU of Illinois; and Brad Thomson and Tayleece Paul for the People’s Law Office. The organizations characterized panhandling restrictions as “criminalization” and argued that such approaches were ineffective and counterproductive.
They instead advocated housing, permanent supportive housing, resource access, day-labor programs, outreach and other social-service responses. That is a legitimate policy position. Residents, merchants and property owners can simultaneously agree that peaceful requests for money are protected speech and favor content-neutral rules addressing conduct that interferes with public or private space. Opposition to criminalizing poverty is compatible with retaining clear authority to address intimidation, repeated harassment, obstruction, trespassing, unwanted touching or persistent conduct that interferes with access to businesses or public space.
The concern raised by the records is therefore not that civil-liberties and homelessness organizations were consulted. It is that the most extensively documented outside participants entered the process from substantially the same policy direction — one favoring repeal and reduced reliance on police or enforcement — while the disclosed record does not show an equivalent early role for constituencies likely to favor retaining strong, constitutionally permissible tools against disruptive conduct.
Who did the City call a stakeholder?
The Jan. 23 City Council referral is especially revealing.
The referral was submitted by City Manager Luke Stowe, with Mayor Daniel Biss and Third Ward Councilmember Shawn Iles identified as co-referrers. It separately identified Chief Legislative Policy Advisor Liza Roberson-Young, Policy and Intergovernmental Affairs Manager Alison Leipsiger and Corporation Counsel Alexandra “Alex” Ruggie as the City staff working on the proposal.
The form asked, “Who are the relevant stakeholders and how have they been involved so far?” The answer identified the ACLU of Illinois, the Chicago Coalition to End Homelessness and the People’s Law Office. The same referral stated that the proposal had not yet been discussed at a public meeting.
The City later told EAC that the stakeholder list was “nonexhaustive.” That may be correct. Nevertheless, the referral documents who City government itself identified as the relevant stakeholders already involved when the proposal entered the formal legislative process.
It did not list downtown businesses, homeowners or neighborhood organizations, police representatives, local merchants, or people who might support removing unconstitutional language while retaining more targeted enforcement against aggressive conduct.
Those constituencies could have brought materially different questions to the drafting process: Would a general disorderly-conduct ordinance give police enough clarity to intervene before a situation escalates? Should repeated solicitation after a person has clearly refused be addressed through a content-neutral harassment rule? Should blocking entrances or following pedestrians be regulated expressly without reference to whether the speaker is asking for money? Could the City preserve geographic protections around particularly sensitive locations without singling out panhandling? Would business owners feel comfortable calling police under the replacement framework? Those are not arguments for preserving unconstitutional restrictions; they are the kinds of questions that should accompany an effort to replace them.
The City says businesses and residents were consulted
In an Aug. 7 written response to EAC, Cynthia Vargas, the City’s Communications and Community Engagement Manager, was asked directly whether downtown businesses, residents, police representatives, local social-service providers or other affected parties had been consulted while the ordinance was being developed. Her answer on behalf of the City was one word: “Yes.” EAC therefore does not conclude that those groups were never consulted.
Third Ward Councilmember Shawn Iles provided somewhat more detail in a separate Aug. 5 response to EAC. Iles said he had been in a meeting “with staff and the entities you listed,” although he could not recall the date and said he believed it was after the Human Services introduction. He said he participated “representing Main Dempster Mile business owners” after receiving “a few emails from business owners concerned with the elimination of the aggressive panhandler ordinance.”
Iles, who also serves as Overnight Shelter Director for Interfaith Action of Evanston, said staff planned to identify other City Code provisions covering the same behaviors. The shelter program he directs receives City funding: on Feb. 23, the City Council approved a $100,000 FY2026 allocation for Interfaith Action’s Cold Weather Shelter, up from $52,500 in FY2025 and equal to about 43% of the program’s stated budget. Iles abstained from that vote. He described the goal as “the construction of a public relations campaign” pointing out that “while we are losing the ordinance, the code still covers the negative behaviors we don’t want.” His description echoes the earlier correspondence, in which staff and advocates had already been working through how to explain repeal to skeptical residents and how to answer concerns about losing enforcement tools.
Iles’ account provides evidence that business-owner concerns were carried into at least one later meeting. It still does not document direct merchant participation in the earlier September-through-January process in which the repeal strategy, draft language and legislative findings were being developed.
However, the City did not identify who participated or describe the nature of those consultations. The response did not say whether any business owner reviewed draft language, whether police evaluated proposed replacement enforcement mechanisms, whether residents proposed changes or whether feedback from those constituencies altered the ordinance.
By contrast, the FOIA record documents the advocacy organizations’ meeting agendas, legal analyses, detailed emails, review of draft legislation, proposed legislative findings and recommendations for responding to political objections.
The records do not establish that other groups were excluded. They do document the advocacy organizations’ participation in detail, while the City’s assertion of broader consultation remains difficult to evaluate.
The advocates themselves recognized that business participation would be useful. In his January correspondence, Voils suggested a working group bringing together “businesses that are in areas where people panhandle,” people with lived experience of homelessness, civic leaders and advocates. The disclosed records do not show that broader model being used before the ordinance itself was developed.
Why the issue matters to homeowners and businesses
For many Evanstonians, this is not an abstract debate about speech doctrine. For years, residents, businesses and City agencies have documented concerns involving street homelessness, panhandling and related quality-of-life issues in and around commercial districts. The issue has surfaced repeatedly in business-district campaigns, police outreach, City planning documents and calls for service.
The history predates the current repeal effort by years. In 2016, NPR Illinois reported that Downtown Evanston Executive Director Annie Coakley was hearing from business owners who watched shoppers cross the street to avoid panhandlers. Evanston resident and Downtown Evanston board member Hank Goldman told the outlet that some panhandlers harassed residents and harmed downtown retail sales. Four years later, an Evanston Police Department public-information bulletin said concerns about panhandling continued to “linger, especially in downtown Evanston,” and noted that police had met with downtown stakeholders about the issue.
The concern has persisted into the City’s more recent planning work. Preliminary findings prepared for Envision Evanston 2045 said some residents were dissatisfied with downtown conditions and specifically identified “the presence of crime and panhandling” among their concerns. Materials connected to the Margarita Inn shelter likewise described efforts to help business owners respond to “the visible poverty on the streets of Evanston, including panhandling.”
The City’s own response data provide another measure of how often the issue reaches local government. During the first year of Evanston’s C.A.R.E. alternative-response program, the team handled 1,966 calls for service, including 98 categorized as panhandling-related concerns, alongside hundreds of well-being and mental-health calls.
None of those figures establishes that every person asking for money is threatening, or that homelessness itself is misconduct. They do establish why the subject carries a different practical weight in Evanston than a purely hypothetical First Amendment exercise. Residents, merchants and City institutions have repeatedly documented street-level concerns relevant to downtown commerce, neighborhood quality of life and public confidence in the City’s management of shared spaces.
The stakes also extend beyond individual encounters. Evanston’s own economic-development work treats “Quality of Place,” “Business District Vitality” and “Business Attraction & Retention” as strategic priorities. A 2026 community/business SWOT survey prepared for the Economic Development Committee work plan summarized concerns about high retail and storefront vacancies, foot traffic, perceived safety and vagrancy, and competition from neighboring communities. Those responses placed downtown vacancies and panhandling or vagrancy in the same broader discussion of Evanston’s business climate and competitive position.
That does not establish that panhandling causes vacancies or determines residential property values. It supports a narrower point: perceived conditions in commercial public spaces are relevant to Evanston’s quality-of-place strategy, business attraction and retention, and the community’s broader desirability. For homeowners, those conditions may be relevant to the environment that supports property values, but the records reviewed do not establish that panhandling itself has measurably affected sale prices.
That context also matters to the process question. If the City treats business attraction, retention and public perception as municipal priorities, merchants, property owners and residents had a legitimate interest in the formative stages of a policy affecting conduct in commercial public spaces.
The central policy question after repeal is not whether the City can prohibit someone from peacefully asking another person for money; it generally cannot do so merely because of the content of that request. The difficult question is what happens when conduct accompanying the request becomes aggressive, intimidating or disruptive.
Evanston’s existing aggravated-panhandling provisions attempt to address conduct including solicitation near ATMs, repeated requests following a refusal, unwanted touching, blocking a path or entrance, following another person, abusive language and behavior causing a reasonable person to feel harassed or intimidated.
Those provisions are vulnerable because they are embedded within a law specifically regulating panhandling and solicitation. In Evanston, the underlying behaviors are not an abstraction; they are precisely the types of situations that matter to someone operating a storefront, walking to a parked vehicle, waiting at a bus stop, using an ATM or entering a residence.
For homeowners and business operators, the question is therefore not whether poverty should be criminalized or whether peaceful solicitation can simply be prohibited because it is unwelcome. It is whether Evanston will retain clear and enforceable authority to address genuinely disruptive conduct regardless of who commits it or what that person is saying.
The City’s new August materials provide a more serious answer to that question. Staff now point to existing laws governing obstruction and harassment on public rights-of-way, trespassing, assault and battery, and disorderly conduct.
For example, the City’s ordinance on public rights-of-way prohibits assembling in a manner that obstructs passage or harasses or intimidates another person using the public way. Trespass remains available when someone refuses to leave private property after being directed to do so; assault and battery remain available for prohibited physical conduct; and disorderly conduct can apply in circumstances involving a breach of the peace or imminent threat of violence. The crosswalk does not make following someone or repeating a request automatically illegal; each alternative provision applies only when its independent elements are satisfied.
That practical analysis should accompany repeal because it moves the discussion beyond a false choice between maintaining a constitutionally vulnerable panhandling law and leaving residents or businesses entirely unprotected.
A broader ordinance than panhandling alone
Another unresolved concern is that Ordinance 10-O-26 does more than repeal Evanston’s panhandling restrictions; it also changes the City’s peddling regulations.
That became a point of concern for First Ward Councilmember Clare Kelly shortly after the Human Services Committee approved the ordinance. In a Feb. 12 email to Councilmember Parielle Davis, Kelly said she fully supported complete repeal of the panhandling provision but questioned the separate peddling changes, particularly the proposal to eliminate the rule barring food-product peddling from vehicles before 8 a.m. or after 9 p.m. Kelly wrote that she had “a very hard time believing” such hours regulation was unconstitutional. “I think these items need to be decoupled,” she wrote. “2 ordinances, separate issues.”
EAC asked Kelly on Aug. 5 whether her concerns contributed to the ordinance’s delay, whether staff ever provided the promised constitutional explanation for eliminating the peddling-hours restriction, and whether she still favored separating the panhandling repeal from the broader peddling changes. Kelly acknowledged the request that morning and said, “I’ll respond in writing this week,” adding that she would also be glad to talk. As of Aug. 31, Kelly had not provided the promised written response or spoken with EAC.
The Aug. 24 ordinance attachment still strikes Section 3-11-10 in its entirety, including the 8 a.m.-to-9 p.m. rule Kelly questioned. The strongest constitutional argument for repealing a law specifically targeting requests for money does not automatically establish that every rule governing commercial peddling should also change. The City has explained that it combined the provisions because it was responding to multiple threatened constitutional claims, including those raised by Moxie. That explains why the subjects were considered simultaneously; it does not by itself establish why the Council must vote on them as a single package.
A six-month pause
The Human Services Committee unanimously approved Ordinance 10-O-26 in February, but the measure did not proceed immediately to the full City Council.
When EAC asked why, Communications and Community Engagement Manager Cynthia Vargas said the pause allowed time for “feedback from businesses or other interested stakeholders,” for councilmembers to speak with residents, and for general agenda management and legislative flow.
The City says the six-month pause allowed broader feedback. The records available to EAC do not identify most of those participants or show what changed as a result. One change is visible: the August materials now give residents and elected officials a much clearer explanation of what enforcement authority remains if the panhandling ordinance is repealed. That is a substantive improvement.
What the records establish
The record is clear on several points. Evanston had legitimate constitutional reasons to reconsider its panhandling ordinance, and the first documented legal pressure in 2025 came from a commercial door-to-door company. The ACLU of Illinois, Chicago Coalition to End Homelessness and People’s Law Office subsequently became substantially involved in the repeal effort: they participated in discussions about whether repeal was possible and what would be required to accomplish it, reviewed draft legislation, proposed legislative findings, supplied alternatives staff could use to answer anticipated objections and helped develop arguments for presenting repeal to residents concerned about losing enforcement tools. Staff also sought coalition participation when the proposal reached public committee and Council consideration. The organizations’ broader policy position favored reducing enforcement-based responses to panhandling and homelessness and replacing them with housing first, outreach, benefits and other resource-oriented programs.
The City’s January referral identified those organizations as the relevant stakeholders involved to that point. The City says businesses, residents and other affected parties were also consulted, and the currently available records do not disprove that assertion. They also do not document comparable participation by those constituencies during the formative stages of the ordinance. A balanced municipal process did not require excluding the ACLU or homelessness advocates; it did require meaningful opportunities for constituencies with different practical concerns to help shape the response.
For residents and businesses, the relevant question is not whether Evanston should preserve a constitutionally vulnerable law. It is whether the City seriously evaluated narrower, content-neutral alternatives with the people who would live with the consequences. Police could have helped test whether replacement language would be practical to enforce, merchants could have identified recurring conduct affecting customers and employees, and residents could have distinguished disliked speech from conduct posing legitimate safety or access concerns. The records show homelessness and civil-liberties advocates had a documented formative role; they do not show comparable early participation by those other constituencies. That is an issue the Council can still examine before final action.
The Aug. 24 return to Council
In an Aug. 24 memorandum to Mayor Daniel Biss and the City Council, Chief Legislative Policy Advisor Liza Roberson-Young again recommended approval of Ordinance 10-O-26.
It was presented for introduction, not final adoption, and the latest version still proposes complete repeal of Evanston’s panhandling ordinance alongside related changes to its peddling regulations. Before final action, the City should identify the businesses, residents and other stakeholders it says were consulted; explain whether police evaluated the replacement enforcement framework; and describe what changes resulted from feedback during the six-month pause. The Council can also ask why the panhandling repeal remains packaged with separate commercial peddling changes and what narrower, content-neutral alternatives were evaluated.
None of those questions requires defending an unconstitutional restriction on speech. They require recognizing that constitutional compliance and responsible public-order policy are not opposing goals. Evanston can protect First Amendment rights while also protecting residents, customers, employees and property owners from genuinely threatening or disruptive conduct. The remaining question is whether City of Evanston staff gave all of those interests a meaningful place in developing the solution.
Editorial disclosure
Evanston Action Coalition has not adopted a position supporting or opposing repeal of Evanston’s panhandling ordinance. This report is published for informational and accountability purposes and examines the constitutional issues, legislative process, stakeholder participation and public records surrounding Ordinance 10-O-26.
Related coverage
Feb. 3, 2026 — Evanston RoundTable: Evanston’s panhandling ordinance moves a step closer to being repealed
Bob Seidenberg’s local coverage of the Human Services Committee’s consideration of Ordinance 10-O-26, including the constitutional arguments for repeal, testimony from Chicago Coalition to End Homelessness attorney Kyle Voils and the proposed ordinance’s findings concerning federal enforcement policy.
Apr. 7, 2016 — NPR Illinois: Illinois Issues: Panhandling Laws Face Renewed Legal Challenges
Statewide reporting on the constitutional problems facing municipal panhandling laws after Reed v. Town of Gilbert and Norton v. City of Springfield. The report also examines Evanston specifically, including concerns then being raised by Downtown Evanston representatives and merchants about panhandling and downtown commerce.
Resources
Aug. 24, 2026 — City of Evanston: Ordinance 10-O-26, Staff Memorandum and Updated Materials
The City’s updated memorandum returns Ordinance 10-O-26 to the City Council “For Introduction,” summarizes the constitutional rationale for the proposal and includes a new crosswalk identifying existing ordinances that City staff says can address problematic conduct associated with panhandling.
Feb. 6, 2026 — FOIA 26-512: Panhandling Ordinance Correspondence
Records produced by the City of Evanston under the Illinois Freedom of Information Act documenting communications among City staff, the ACLU of Illinois, Chicago Coalition to End Homelessness and People’s Law Office concerning the proposed repeal of Evanston’s panhandling ordinance.
Feb. 2, 2026 — City of Evanston: Ordinance 10-O-26
The proposed ordinance would repeal Title 9, Chapter 5, Section 25, “Panhandling and Soliciting,” while separately amending provisions of Title 3 governing peddlers and solicitors. Its legislative findings address First Amendment precedent, homelessness, racial disparities and federal enforcement policy.
Feb. 2, 2026 — City of Evanston: Human Services Committee Minutes
Official minutes record the Human Services Committee’s 5-0 vote recommending approval of Ordinance 10-O-26. Councilmember Matt Rodgers made the motion and Councilmember Shawn Iles seconded it.
Sept. 25, 2020 — Evanston Police Department: Inquiring Minds: Is panhandling allowed in Evanston? What is aggressive panhandling?
An EPD public-information discussion of Evanston’s existing panhandling and solicitation rules. The department reported that concerns continued to “linger, especially in downtown Evanston,” described a meeting with downtown stakeholders and outlined conduct then treated as aggressive panhandling.