Fort Lauderdale homeless could be given a place to sleep at the local animal shelters, and secure their own food supply by picking up and Bar-B-Queing any illegal stray dogs and cats.
Gainful employment in law enforcement, food shelter, not so many cats roaming the streets.
Where’s the downside? It might even count as an improvement in the town’s moral rectitude.
Feeding the homeless encourages homelessness?
I can see that. If I knew that I could get free food from strangers on the street, I’d gladly quit my job and live under a bridge.
I think this article sums it up.
Are you, perchance, a Republican?
:rolleyes:
Ft. Lauderdale already has shelters, just for the record. I’m not saying this is a good or a bad law, just that the city and county already have other services, both public and private, that feed and shelter the homeless.
This law is more likely intended discourage seasonal homeless migration to Fort Lauderdale when it gets too cold to panhandle in the liberal northeast.
The city wants to make money at the expense of hungry people.
Let them eat cake.
The library I worked at in my teens and early twenties, the job I liked above every one I have had, wanted to rid itself of the homeless using the library bathrooms. The doors were locked, and an ID was required to get a key.
I got into trouble with management for asking for an ID from everyone, not just the homeless.
How the hell do you drive a Mercedes to the library without a drivers license?
But I digress.
Perhaps Fort Lauderdale, the home of Travis McGee, could provide shelter and food for the homeless so that the revered Tourists would not encounter them.
I think this law probably started as a round about way of getting rid of panhandling. We’re going the same thing here because panhandling has become a problem. Because of the first amendment and recent court rulings cities have been unable to pass ordinances banning street beggars so the local governments have started to target the enablers instead.
Well, the perp did break the law. Sure, it’s a stupid law that should never have been passed, but if you can’t do the time, then don’t do the crime.
Here’s hoping the publicity will help get the law rescinded.
Tough shit about the law or his arrest …
This is going to get interesting.
If that was the issue, they would have instated regulations and control of the food being served and its preparation, not on the place where it is served.
Getting your meal more than 500 feet/yard (can’t remember) from a residential area doesn’t make it any safer.
The intent is clear, and isn’t even hidden. So don’t argue that’s it’s all intended to protect the health of the homeless. Not even the people who voted it try to pretend that.
Cities should provide free bathrooms. I Don’t know how it is over there, but over here they have all but disapeared. And apparently it’s the same in Fort Lauderdale, and they are going after people defecating and urinating in public. If people defacate in public, the solution is obvious to me and doesn’t include arresting people.
Certainly. I would bet a lot of money that “not serving food anywhere near a residential area” isn’t part of the regulations these other food service providers are subject to. I’m pretty sure restaurants try to open shop close to residential areas, not in the middle of the woods.
And if the city wants to be 100% sure the food served is totally safe, they just need to organize itself the food distribution programm.
It is obvious that the issue isn’t safety standards or zoning law. The city doesn’t even hide its decision behind this fig leaf. They want the homeless out, period. So, that’s what should be adressed and discussed, not the theoretical reasons why, if it weren’t the case, they might decide on similar regulations.
Because you think that if food distributions were all taking place right in front of the restaurants were tourists are having dinner (where presumably serving food is allowed), the city would be fine with it and would never have come up with these regulations?
What solutions are you suggesting? I don’t know anything about this except for a couple articles I read after I saw this on the news and read this OP, so maybe I’m missing what you’re seeing.
From what I can tell, the problem is this:
There’s a bunch of homeless people who end up in Fort Lauderdale from all across the county because that’s where people are released from jail. The city is then tasked with accommodating all of them or finding ways to transport them.
I’m not suggesting that criminalizing the problem is the right solution. But I haven’t seen any other viable ones offered. I don’t know anything about the city’s budget, but I would think there would have to be some consideration to that in the solution.
How can something like this occur in a Democratic stronghold?
Is that really “a thing”? Like the swallows and Capistrano is a thing? I’m having trouble picturing this mass orderly exodus of people. Do they summer in Montreal?
Keeping the homeless away from tourists isn’t a zoning issue.
Keeping the homeless away from tourists is bad because homeless people are human beings who have rights. They have the right of movement, and freedom to peaceably assemble. Using the police to keep them from public view is direct assault on their freedoms.
What’s really sad is that the “homeless problem” here is focused on the impact of the homeless on business instead of the fact that these are human beings living on the street.
A similar ordinance was passed in Orlando in 2006, and was struck down in 2008 on freedom of expression and religious exercise grounds. The area in the question (a city park) is not touristy, though; it’s surrounded by Important Businesses and some hoity-toity neighborhoods.
They do. That was the point of my post.
I was trying to think hard serious thoughts here about homelessness and you ruined it! Now I’ve got to start over.