The Baltimore City Council spent four hours analyzing the city’s efforts to curb squeegee workers at busy intersections Wednesday afternoon.

The hearing was prompted after a 15-year-old squeegee boy was recently charged as an adult with first degree murder in the death of a 48-year-old motorist who confronted him with a baseball bat downtown.

City police have been visiting busy intersections since the shooting earlier this month to try to deter illegal activity and confiscate illegal guns.

There are roughly 160 people who wash vehicle windows across two dozen intersections citywide and solicit donations from drivers. Some are as young as seven years old.

City outreach workers said during the hearing some of the young people are struggling with mental health issues, lack of stable housing and school attendance. Once a week the city sends outreach workers with immediately available social service resources to encourage young people to seek help.

“We have 21 youngsters that are thriving that were on the corner. They are no longer on the corner,” said Andrey Bundley, director of the Mayor’s Office of African American Male Engagement. “Someone else has taken their place. So this definition of what success is in the mind of Baltimore is that they would just disappear from the corner. That’s an emotional request, not a realistic one.”

Council member Zeke Cohen pitched expanding the city’s ‘basic income’ program, where families are given money as direct aid, to youth who promise to not squeegee anymore. The city already connects young people with job opportunities both in the public and private sector subsidizing their wages.

The council is expected to get a formal report on efforts to reduce the number of young people on street corners washing vehicle windows in traffic.