By MELINDA HENNEBERGER

Citing riders' complaints about subway panhandlers, Transit Authority officials yesterday announced a new crackdown featuring a public-relations campaign that asks straphangers to help drive beggars out of the trains by refusing to give them money.

"We think it's largely a supply-and-demand issue," the Transit Authority president, Alan F. Kiepper, said at a news conference. "If people stop giving in subways," he said, panhandlers will "go elsewhere and get treatment" or the other social services they need.

Transit officials said the transit police would begin arresting people caught repeatedly begging on the trains, who could face up to 10 days in jail.

A Harder Line

Advocates for the homeless called the plan cruel and unlikely to succeed. But it seems to reflect a nationwide trend of taking a harder line toward the homeless, as well as the conflict, even among social-service advocates, over whether handouts ultimately help or hurt homeless people.

A report issued last month by the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty said cities were increasingly enacting and enforcing anti-vagrancy and anti-panhandling laws.

In Manhattan, an Upper West Side community group recently started a program called West Side Cares to prevent panhandlers from using donations for drugs or alcohol. Like programs popular in a dozen other cities, it has established a system of vouchers redeemable for food or personal items that people can give panhandlers instead of money.

Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, who has himself promised to come down hard on the squeegee men who wash car windows at stoplights, approves of the plan, according to a spokesman. "The Mayor has reiterated time and time again that if a panhandler is aggressive or breaking the law that he or she should be incarcerated," said the spokesman, Allan J. Fromberg. "If they are ill or have special needs, they must be helped through the proper programs so they get the attention they desperately need. The Mayor is in support of initiatives that would discourage the public from helping the panhandlers to buy drugs with handouts that they thought were going toward the purchase of food and clothing."

Even as it is cracking down on panhandling, the Transit Authority said it would increase efforts to encourage homeless people in the subways to seek shelter and services.

But advocates for the homeless were skeptical that the authority had either the expertise or the commitment to make good on that pledge. And they assailed the agency's plan for stricter enforcement of the rules barring panhandling.

David Giffen, New York director of the Coalition for the Homeless, said nothing would be solved by throwing panhandlers in jail. "It's a pointless maneuver because homeless people who need the money are going to panhandle," he said. "But it's frightening that we have the M.T.A. telling people not to reach out a helping hand to people, especially in the winter. What they're doing now is trying to appeal to the ridership to turn their backs."

At subway stations across the city yesterday, the Transit Authority, which is part of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, began passing out leaflets encouraging riders to give to established charities rather than individuals, and broadcast the message: "Ladies and gentlemen, panhandling on board trains is against the law. Don't give to lawbreakers on the subway. Give to charities that help people in need."

The message points out that soliciting and selling anything on subway trains is also prohibited.

'It's Annoying'

At the Astor Place station, two New York University students who heard the message said they would continue to give occasional donations, though they do worry that some of their money goes for drugs or drink.

"I really don't think they should put them in jail," said one of the students, Constance Richards, 36, of Brooklyn. "Some are begging because they need to."

But several riders said they hoped it would help keep panhandlers off the trains. "I agree with it completely; it's annoying" to be asked for money every time he boards a train, said Timothy Wilson, 29, a wine buyer from Manhattan who was waiting for a train at the Times Square station.

A panhandler at the 59th Street station, who was standing at the entrance outside Bloomingdale's, laughed when he heard about the latest plan. "I know a lot of people who would be happy to be in jail for 10 days," said Anthony Thompson, 47, who said he has been homeless for about three years. "That would be a like a vacation."

Transit officials said the plan was drafted in response to rider concerns exemplified by a 1992 survey showing that 89 percent of riders said panhandlers were a problem. In explaining why the program was begun now, two years after the survey was released, officials said the plan was part of their continuing attempts to please customers and increase ridership. They said research also showed that some people did not take the trains expressly to avoid panhandlers.

A Half-Dozen Protesters

As the officials announced the plan, a half-dozen protesters carrying signs that said, "Housing, Not Hate," entered the conference room at the M.T.A.'s midtown headquarters on Madison Avenue. In response, Chief Michael O'Connor of the transit police said, "The programs we're involved in are certainly not based on hate but compassion, for not only panhandlers but riders."

When asked when he last gave money to a panhandler, Mr. O'Connor admitted that he had handed over a dollar as recently as a week ago.

"Some of their stories are compelling," he said. "I think we've got to restrain ourselves from our good intentions and pull back from that."

Copyright 1994 The New York Times Company