Beggars can be jailed for a maximum of 12 months in Victoria, with hundreds charged in the past five years, including a man who had 15 cents in his hat, and a woman fleeing family violence.

Ellen Sandell, the Greens MP for Melbourne, said responses from the Victorian Labor Party and the Lord Mayor Robert Doyle, in which they said they did not support the decriminalisation push, were "disappointing".

"The Labor Party and Lord Mayor want to keep begging a crime and keep throwing people in jail or fining them just for asking for help. That doesn't do a thing to solve the problem," Ms Sandell said.

"They should be investing in services rather than demonising people [who are] falling through the cracks."

And she hit back at criticism from the Lord Mayor who described the Greens' approach as "do-gooder compassion".

"I think it is appropriate to be compassionate to people who are asking for help in desperate situations.

Cr Doyle conceded the City of Melbourne was not making any inroads into homelessness, but said decriminalising begging would remove "the one tool we've got where we can intervene".

"Even if it's passive begging with the hat in front of them with the little sign, it gives us the the lever to engage with that person in a way that offers us some ability to compel them to get the help they need," he told 3AW.

Cr Doyle described a "hardcore" group of professionals, drug users and people who "who choose to live this way".

"It's unsightly, it is unpleasant and it makes for a very unpleasant experience in the city for some people and that's not good enough but underneath it there is a real human problem that we have not been able to crack."

Ms Sandell cited statistics from community legal centre Justice Connect which showed more than 800 people had been charged with begging in the past five years, 26 of those in 2016.

"They did a survey of people begging on the street and over 90 per cent were sleeping on the street or sleeping rough, more than half of them had a mental illness and most of them were long-term unemployed.

"We need to treat them with compassion and support rather than seeking to throw them in jail."

Ms Sandell stressed that laws banning beggars from using aggressive behaviour and offensive language were not in their sights.

"The survey by Justice Connect showed more than half of people begging have a mental illness.

"A lot of them came from abusive backgrounds. Why should we throw them in jail?"

Justice Connect's 2016 Asking for Change report says that the criminalisation of begging: "Imposes a significant burden on police and the courts, causes highly vulnerable people to be caught up in the justice system as a result of homelessness and poverty, [and] fails to reduce the number of people who beg."

Ms Sandell said it was no longer a criminal offence to beg in NSW and WA and it was time Victoria followed suit.

"It's a really outdated law. Victoria still send people to court and to jail just for asking for help.

"It doesn't make any sense that we would criminalise people in desperate situations asking for help."

Attorney-General Martin Pakula dismissed the Greens' call for the government to support the bill.

"The Andrews Labor Government won't be supporting the Greens Party Bill and we have no intention of decriminalising begging," he said.

The amendment to the Summary Offences Act was introduced late last year by the Greens Justice spokeswoman Sue Pennicuik.

"The law against begging is a cruel and unjust law that is contrary to human rights," Ms Pennicuik said.

"Research confirms that most people who beg will also be experiencing homelessness, mental illness, substance dependence, family violence, trauma and poverty.

"They are begging as a last resort in order to survive and often report feeling ashamed and humiliated in doing so. It is not the easy or lazy option some people may think or claim."

Last week, more than a dozen homeless people were cleared from outside Flinders Street Station, as part of an ongoing council operation to improve the "public amenity" of Melbourne's CBD.

The Greens will seek to debate the amendment in the next six months.