“Twenty-four inches,” says one narrator. “That’s the width of the median strip on Preble Street at the corner of Marginal Way in Portland, Maine.” And then: “Thirty-two inches. That’s the width of an average man who stands on a median strip holding a cardboard sign, measured elbow to elbow.” Most of us have seen these men and women who stand in the street medians, holding signs and asking for money. A controversial 2013 Portland ban aimed to end the practice, then was twice ruled unconstitutional in federal courts. That ban, its history, and the community of “signers” it sought to restrict are the subject of a new theater work in progress, Anything Helps God Bless, by Snowlion Repertory Company. Collaboratively researched and written by Snowlion founders Al D’Andrea and MK Wolf and the show’s ensemble, Anything Helps gets its first audiences this weekend, in a workshop production at the Portland Ballet Studio Theater.