With the U.S. Supreme Court declaring last week that bans on panhandling are unconstitutional, what’s seen as growing visibility of panhandlers in Portland has some in the city’s thriving tourism industry concerned the practice may make the city less attractive to visitors.

Visitors interviewed on Congress Street, however, said they largely ignore panhandlers. And people asking for money and those in social service roles said concern about the perceived effect of panhandling on tourism and business ignores a deeper problem of poverty in the city.

Pat McNamara, who recently was asking passers-by for money on Commercial Street, said he has been homeless since 2006. Concern about his effect on tourism is “ridiculous,” he said.

“To anyone out there I say: Just pretend you have no friends or family and sleep on the ground three nights in a row. Then see how you feel,” McNamara said. “People just don’t want to care.”

Holding a sign reading “perseverance through adversity,” McNamara said hundreds of tourists and locals pass by him daily and most don’t give him a second glance.

Others panhandling on the city’s waterfront Commercial Street and on medians around Deering Oaks Park shared feelings that they are largely ignored as homelessness has risen in the city.

Lynn Tillotson, president and CEO of the Greater Portland Convention and Visitors Bureau, hears a lot of first impressions of Portland. The bureau recently hosted a conference of about 100 international tourists and 350 business owners from New England.

Some, she said, complained about feeling uncomfortable when approached by panhandlers that camp out near highway ramps or cruise ship docks.

“When you’re a stranger coming into a new city, you don’t know its dynamics,” Tillotson said. “When you’re approached by those people, it’s not a safe feeling.”

Tillotson is not alone in the view that panhandling “tarnishes Portland’s image a little bit.” Her sentiment shared by Portlanders frustrated by what they see as a growing problem.

“The last three years have seen a huge jump in panhandling,” Dillon Plunkett of Portland said. “The worst areas are where the cruise ships unload tourists. It’s bad for our image as a beautiful coastal town.”

A comfortable place to visit?

The perceived rise in panhandling has come during a period of swelling numbers of homeless in Portland. The Portland Press Herald reported in May that the city’s Oxford Street emergency shelter has seen record numbers of homeless seeking shelter since 2011, mostly people from other parts of the state.

Donna Yellen, chief program officer at the Preble Street Resource Center, said she thinks tourists won’t be deterred by the sight of panhandling or being approached by someone asking for money.

“Most people who come to Maine come for the state’s natural beauty and welcoming people,” Yellen said. “Tourists will always come. They understand suffering and poverty, because they may have gone through hard times themselves. They also might be moved to do something about it.”

Yellen said that many who have had a family member experience homelessness donate to the Preble Street Resource Center. Some are from out of state.

The disagreement over how panhandling, and by extension homelessness, affects Portland reflects divisions in the community.

David Dodge, a property owner in Portland, wrote a letter to the Press Herald last year in which he said he sees more panhandlers here than when he visits New York City.

“I fear, however, that those who drive into our city, and are continually asked for money as they do, might in the not-too-distant future decide that Portsmouth, Newburyport or even New York City is a more comfortable place to visit than Portland, Maine,” Dodge wrote.

Cariana Venible, a 19-year-old breakdancer panhandling on Commercial Street, said every day she just hopes that somebody will stop and be nice to her. Venible’s sign read: “hungry and homeless.”

“Right now, I haven’t eaten in three days,” said Venible, who said she only raised a dollar during an entire day of panhandling. “I’m just like everybody else, I just don’t have a home.”

‘I feel so alone out here’

For Tianna Sebastian, a tourist from Boston, panhandlers are just a part of the city, a part that she makes sure to ignore.

“I feel sorry for them, but they’re all over,” Sebastian said. “It’s definitely not something that’s exclusive to Portland, so I’m used to being approached.”

“It’s just how they live,” said Georgia Lambert, a tourist from New Mexico.

Tillotson, from the visitors bureau, said that if Portland is going to survive, it must cater to its tourists, as well as its residents.

“This city relies on tourism,” Tillotson said. “The 65,000 people that live here would never be able to support the cities’ cafes, attractions, restaurants, hotels and art galleries.”

She said she would support a plan to repurpose old coin meters as “giving stations,” from which money would be collected and distributed to the needy on a regular schedule.

Other measures, she said, stand to go too far, such as the idea of making it illegal to hand out money to panhandlers. That could be effective at curtailing panhandling, she said, but also could penalize tourists who may not realize giving to a panhandler could result in a ticket.

Abe Dufort panhandles on Forest Avenue and said he has been homeless for five years.

While packing up his backpack and clearing his panhandling spot for another person, he said he can understand the perspective of people concerned panhandling will hurt tourism but that, like any big city, Portland won’t be able to simply erase homelessness.

“I hate it when people just look through me,” said Dufort, who said he panhandles about six to eight hours per day. “You don’t have to talk or give me anything, just a nod or an acknowledgement that I’m alive would be nice.

“Sometimes I feel so alone out here,” he said.

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