This isn't a necessarily bad idea, but it assumes that all panhandlers would be happy to stop pandhandling if only they had a job and a place to live. While I'm sure there are many homeless people who only wish to live a normal life again, I'm also sure there are many who simply could not hold down a regular job because of drug addiction, mental illness, or sheer laziness. The incentive program you speak of is already in place, it's the natural course of life. If you work, you make money, and therefore you have food and a place to stay. Maybe not alot of food nor a glamourous place to stay, but nonetheless. You stop showing up to work, you don't make any money, you end up on the street. What would you do if you put a person in the program and they simply didn't show up for work at the farm one day? Well, you'd take away their food and their place to stay and we'd be back at square one. Panhandlers annoy me, but I'm not really in favour of legislating that kind of thing. I will almost never give out money, though, because I know it's going to booze. I'm more in favour of putting the right programs in place to help these people, though admittedly I couldn't say what kinds of programs might help that aren't already in place.