Feeding Homeless Now illegal

[Herman Munster]

http://www.theledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070204/NEWS/702040387/1134

ORLANDO - At Lake Eola park there is much beauty to behold: robust palms, beds of cheery begonias, a cascading lake fountain, clusters of friendly egrets and swans, an amphitheater named in honor of Walt Disney. Then there are the signs. DO NOT LIE OR OTHERWISE BE IN A HORIZONTAL POSITION ON A PARK BENCH ... DO NOT SLEEP OR REMAIN IN ANY BUSHES, SHRUBS OR FOLIAGE ... per city code sec. 18A.09 (a) and (o). Visit the park's restrooms, and you'll find this sign on the wall above the hand dryers: BATHING AND/OR SHAVING IN RESTROOM IS PROHIBITED ... per city code 18A.09 (p) ... LAUNDERING CLOTHES IN LAKE EOLA PARK IS NOT PERMITTED.

Since joggers and dog walkers tend not to snooze in flower beds, and because employees at the glittering office towers around Lake Eola don't scrub laundry in park sinks, it's clear, says Monique Vargas, at whom the notices are targeted. "They're talking to us, to the homeless," says Vargas, 28, who says she has lived on the streets, in parks or under overpasses, since age 16. "It's a way of saying, 'Your kind isn't wanted in our city.'"

Orlando, population 200,000, works hard to conjure the image of a true-life Pleasantville: a safe, welcoming place where visitors can soak up year-round sunshine and devour choreographed experiences at palm-ringed theme parks. But its spotless sidewalks, sparkling lakes and twinkling skyline belie a real city with real maladies - most notably, a surging homeless population that authorities are struggling to control. After a law that banned panhandling was struck down by the courts, the city tried to discourage aggressive beggars by obliging them to carry ID cards, and later by confining them to 3-by-15-foot "panhandling zones" painted in blue on sidewalks downtown.

Despite these laws, the number of people living on the streets of the Orlando metro area swelled, from roughly 5,000 in 1999 to an estimated 8,500 today, dwarfing the city's shelter capacity for 2,000 people. So in July, the city commission tried a "supply-side" approach: It passed an ordinance regulating the feeding of large groups of people in Orlando's downtown parks. Those who wished to feed more than 25 hungry individuals at parks within a 2-mile radius of City Hall could do so, but only if they obtained a "Large Group Feeding Permit" from the parks department - and no one would be granted more than two feeding permits a year. No exceptions. For the first time anyone in Orlando could remember, not only would panhandlers find themselves in the crosshairs of the law, but so would those trying to help them.

[illinoisprogressive]

1. that is heartless. I dont' understand those who don't care about suffering

[WHEN CRABS ROAR]

2. They are running your government.

[Mojorabbit]

3. Food not Bombs

in connection with other groups are still feeding people. There is a lawsuit re the law by the ACLU winding it's way through court if I remember right. Some members of my Code Pink group are involved with this. I attended a protest re the law a while back.

[Cleita]

4. See how far you can go in making people illegal?

I am speaking of course about all the so-called hispanic illegals that everyone carries on about because it's okay to be huffy about them because they are ILLEGAL. Of course once you make one helpless human being illegal, it escalates.

Now we have the same memo being spread about poor people, too poor to be able to claim a piece of property to call home, a job and even sometimes food and other necessities. Make them ILLEGAL and anyone who helps them ILLEGAL.

See sometimes the letter of the law shouldn't trump the spirit of the law. The spirit of these laws certainly come from the bowels of Hell.

[stellanoir]

5. and they masquerade as Christians

they're nothing less than total hypocrits.

[ninkasi]

6. It seems to me that

people could almost make the case that they are practicing freedom of religion, when feeding the hungry. I believe that most religions encourage that. If I see a hungry homeless person, why can't I, in following the tenets of my religion, give that person a meal? I know the right-wing fundies are the first to squeal when they think their freedom of religion is being interfered with, what about the rest of us? Can't we follow the teachings of our religious leaders?