# Another reason to hate Fort Lauderdale, you'll get arrested for feeding the homeless.
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-reason-to-hate-fort-lauderdale-youll-get-arrested-for-feeding-the-homeless/703794
**Category:** The BBQ Pit
**Created:** [November 5, 2014, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-reason-to-hate-fort-lauderdale-youll-get-arrested-for-feeding-the-homeless/703794 "2014-11-05T19:38:49Z")
**Posts on this page:** 10
**Page:** 6
### Author:  [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)
#### Post date: [November 7, 2014, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-reason-to-hate-fort-lauderdale-youll-get-arrested-for-feeding-the-homeless/703794/101 "2014-11-07T19:21:04Z")
OK, established regular time and place, that is a feeding center. Thanks for the clarification; I was going by the earlier article that described him being arrested in different public sites on different occasions. But this now clearly sounds like a scheduled deal that would, indeed, encourage hungry folks to congregate there. (Not that I think that is necessarily a problem, but it is a somewhat different thing.)
Contrast Mayor Seiler’s quote in the last article with the one from the top of the thread, though. “We hope he feeds. He has a very valuable role in the community,” versus “providing them with a meal and keeping them in that cycle on the street is not productive.”
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### Author:  [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)
#### Post date: [November 7, 2014, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-reason-to-hate-fort-lauderdale-youll-get-arrested-for-feeding-the-homeless/703794/102 "2014-11-07T19:31:53Z")
> [@Bone](#):
>
> Not necessarily no. But do you think it’s the primary motivation of the Salvation Army to have them be homeless somewhere else? That seems uncharacteristic. There could be multiple motivations of local governments, some good, some not good. It’s clear that some have taken advantage of the relocation willingly. That’s enough for me.
I assume the Salvation Army tries to genuinely help people, sure. To the extent that a ticket-out program is offered, without compulsion, to people who actually have somewhere meaningful to go, who could really object? But if a city is simultaneously working to make the lives of all its local homeless people harder, I don’t think we should presume good intentions at all, nor say there is no compulsion at work.
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### Author:  [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)
#### Post date: [November 7, 2014, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-reason-to-hate-fort-lauderdale-youll-get-arrested-for-feeding-the-homeless/703794/103 "2014-11-07T19:40:44Z")
> [@Peremensoe](#):
>
> I assume the Salvation Army tries to genuinely help people, sure. To the extent that a ticket-out program is offered, without compulsion, to people who actually have somewhere meaningful to go, who could really object? But if a city is simultaneously working to make the lives of all its local homeless people harder, I don’t think we should presume good intentions at all, nor say there is no compulsion at work.
That’s sufficiently vague as to not be able to respond. If you want to either presume nefarious intent or not presume good intentions, go right ahead. I’m sure you have evidence.
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### Author:  [@Heffalump\_and\_Roo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Heffalump_and_Roo)
#### Post date: [November 7, 2014, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-reason-to-hate-fort-lauderdale-youll-get-arrested-for-feeding-the-homeless/703794/104 "2014-11-07T23:52:18Z")
> [@Peremensoe](#):
>
> Indeed, but none of this actually has much to do with the OP topic. Nobody with a relevant family/support structure in another city, who has been prevented reaching them for want of a bus ticket, is going to be dissuaded from making that move because they know that kind people will be allowed to sometimes give them free food in the city they’re in.
IMO, this IS the topic of the OP and the issue that’s trying to get resolved. The next sentence in the article after the OP’s quote is this:
> [@](#):
>
> One alternative, he said, was the homeless assistance center run by the Broward Partnership.
Mayor Seiler is the ‘he’ in that sentence.
[Broward Partnership](http://www.bphi.org/) is:
> [@](#):
>
> Since opening on February 1, 1999, the Broward Partnership served over 20,000 homeless individuals and families, by providing short-term housing, and it has been held as a model program for its comprehensive array of solution-focused services that aim to reduce and prevent homelessness. The agency won best practices awards from the Florida Department of Children & Families and the U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development, which also recognized the Partnership as one of the 400 best projects in the nation serving the homeless.
It seems to me like the Mayor wants more people to be funneled into agencies that promote longer-term solutions. Feeding people in the park gets them through one day. Getting them into an agency that could find different alternatives, more resources and more information can get them a lifetime of help.
In order to find that help, people have to know that the resources exist and how to find them. If this guy can help the homeless find resources, that’s great. But it sounds like he spends his entire day getting the food and feeding it to people. The people then eat the food and sleep in the park. It would be more productive to find them other resources.
There are agencies that can provide food and temporary housing as well as give information and provide resources for longer-term solutions. Broward County has an agency like that.
> [@Peremensoe](#):
>
> Also, **Bone** , nothing you say really refutes the idea that the core motivation of such ticket-out programs, for city governments, is to “have them be homeless somewhere else,” or make them another city’s problem, as opposed to helping them _not be homeless_. After all, homeless people with families generally become homeless in the city where their family is, to begin with. That they then ended up in Fort Lauderdale, or wherever–or their family _went_ somewhere else–is probably secondary to the reasons for homelessness.
I disagree. In Fort Lauderdale, many people are homeless because they’re getting released from jail there. They were transported from their homes to the jail by the police. It’s possible that some of them now can’t afford to get back to their home. If they could get back to their home or family, they might not be homeless somewhere else.
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### Author:  [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)
#### Post date: [November 8, 2014, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-reason-to-hate-fort-lauderdale-youll-get-arrested-for-feeding-the-homeless/703794/105 "2014-11-08T01:57:04Z")
> [@Slash1972](#):
>
> I find this both funny and sad…
>
> “Hey homeless guy, you have any family somewhere that isn’t here?”
>
> “Well, maybe a distant cousin or something around New York”
>
> “OK then, one ticket to New York. Good Luck!”
>
> ☹
Hawaii has done this on occasion.
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### Author:  [@GrumpyBunny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GrumpyBunny)
#### Post date: [November 8, 2014, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-reason-to-hate-fort-lauderdale-youll-get-arrested-for-feeding-the-homeless/703794/106 "2014-11-08T02:16:19Z")
Spring Break shenanigans happen in Ft Lauderdale every year, but the police are worried about someone feeding the homeless. _shakes head_
Sheesh.
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### Author:  [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)
#### Post date: [November 8, 2014, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-reason-to-hate-fort-lauderdale-youll-get-arrested-for-feeding-the-homeless/703794/107 "2014-11-08T03:26:35Z")
Hey, I just realized I used to work right next to the park where those folks were arrested. Damn, I guess it’s been about ten years.
A little bit south of there is a satellite campus of FAU, and some scum teenagers beat a homeless person to death there. I don’t think they were FAU students.
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### Author:  [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)
#### Post date: [December 3, 2014, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-reason-to-hate-fort-lauderdale-youll-get-arrested-for-feeding-the-homeless/703794/108 "2014-12-03T22:16:48Z")
[Update](http://rt.com/usa/211135-homeless-feeding-ban-lifted/): a (state court) circuit judge has temporarily stayed enforcement of the ordinance.
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### Author:  [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)
#### Post date: [December 4, 2014, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-reason-to-hate-fort-lauderdale-youll-get-arrested-for-feeding-the-homeless/703794/109 "2014-12-04T03:40:55Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#):
>
> [Update](http://rt.com/usa/211135-homeless-feeding-ban-lifted/): a (state court) circuit judge has temporarily stayed enforcement of the ordinance.
Cool!
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### Author:  [@crucible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crucible)
#### Post date: [December 4, 2014, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-reason-to-hate-fort-lauderdale-youll-get-arrested-for-feeding-the-homeless/703794/110 "2014-12-04T04:50:47Z")
It took more than a year of organizing. 15,000 people signed a [Change.org](http://Change.org) petition demanding that Gainesville feed all who are hungry. Dozens of local demonstrations were held, many organized by local college students and the Coalition to End the Meal Limits NOW. [Change.org](http://Change.org) members even phone-banked the City Commission, demanding to know when a vote would be scheduled.
And finally, on August 18th, the City Commission voted unanimously to end the limit.
Instead, soup kitchens will be allowed to serve food for a 3-hour period each day, a compromise suggested by Kent Vann, Executive Director of the St. Francis House soup kitchen, which was at the center of this debate. The city attorney’s office will now have to draft a new ordinance and the commission will have to approve it. At long last, Gainesville can move past the ill-conceived meal limit.
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