SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) — The city of Sioux Falls rolled out the campaign last spring. The signs put up by the city read “Cash Handouts don’t help, but you can.”

“Really, we just saw little to no panhandling, almost little to no panhandling in our downtown area,” said the city’s homelessness services coordinator Michelle Treasure.

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Treasure says people are kind and want to help. After talking with former panhandlers, they determined that handing someone cash is counterproductive.

“We had stories from individuals that had received large amounts of money and unfortunately then consumed large amounts of alcohol, we would find individuals passed out and needing medical attention,” said Treasure.

The city provides a list of non-profits that work with to address the issue of homelessness. One of them is the St Francis House.

“There’s many people who, unfortunately, use those funds for the wrong reasons,” said St Francis House CEO Julie Becker.

Becker says your hard-earned cash can do a lot of good in the right hands. She also says it is a matter of dignity.

“It’s better to provide it to the agencies, not necessarily the St. Francis House, but all of the agencies that are helping so that we can end that way of life and so we can bring more dignity back to them,” said Becker.

Treasure says bringing the program back makes sense.

“We saw such great success with it, and we’ve added a couple more signs as well throughout our community where we’ve felt like it could be impactful too so we will continue to do that and assess where needed,” said Treasure.

The anti-panhandling campaign is expected to resume next spring. Treasure told us that organizers plan to meet this winter to determine if any changes are needed to the program.