The New Your Daily News reported a story I find very disturbing.
" When 90-year-old Florida resident Arnold Abbott said following his arrest on Sunday that police couldn't stop him from feeding the homeless, he apparently meant it". Abbott was charged again on Wednesday night for violating a new city law in Ft. Lauderdale that essentially prevents people from feeding the homeless.
"I expected it" he said in a Sun Sentinel report. "At least this time they let us feed people first."
Officers lingered in the area for about 45 minutes during which time Abbott and volunteers with the Love Thy Neighbor charity he founded handed out more than 100 plates of hot chicken stew, pasta, cheesy potatoes and fruit salad to homeless men and women. If he's found guilty of violating city ordinance laws — his second in a week — he faces 60 days in jail or a $500 fine.
Abbott said he's prepared to go to jail over his efforts.
"Why do I keep doing this?" he asked rhetorically. "Because these are my people and they deserve to be fed."
In a slightly more confrontational incident on Sunday, four police cruisers and approximately a half dozen officers with the Ft. Lauderdale Police Department descended upon an area in the city where Abbott, charity representatives and church members were handing out hot meals to local homeless people.
One officer demanded that he "drop that plate right now" as others picked up the trays off food and inserted them directly into the garbage with lines of homeless people looking on.
The new law in Ft. Lauderdale comes after the city announced in January that people are restricted from camping, panhandling, food sharing and engaging in other "life sustaining activities." The laws regarding food sharing where ironically enacted on Halloween when millions of people were out sharing candy.
Abbott applauded the officers for being more courteous in their enforcement of the law the second time around this week.
The new law in Ft. Lauderdale comes after the city announced in January that people are restricted from camping, panhandling, food sharing and engaging in other "life sustaining activities." The laws regarding food sharing where ironically enacted on Halloween when millions of people were out sharing candy.
Abbott applauded the officers for being more courteous in their enforcement of the law the second time around this week.
The article as reported in the Las Vegas, National is reported as such.....
And This after Las Vegas passed an ordinance making it Illegal to sleep on the streets in Las Vegas Nov 07, 2019.
Officials argued the legislation was “aimed at getting the city’s homeless population off the streets and connected with services,” Fox 5 reported. But Mayor Carolyn Goodman (I), a sponsor of the bill, and the City Council faced a raucous demonstration from activists as the law passed 5-2. Demonstrators flooded the chamber with chants of “Housing not handcuffs! and “Hey hey, ho ho — the war on the poor has got to go!” " Goodman, the mayor, portrayed the new law as “the beginning seed to build something that will flourish,” according to the Las Vegas Review Journal.
“This is flawed,” she said, “but it is a start.”
The law goes into effect Sunday but would not be enforced until Feb. 1, 2020, the Journal reported.
Violators could face up to six months in jail or fines up to $1,000.
Numerous Democratic presidential candidates spoke out against the ordinance, ahead of and after the vote, including Julián Castro, the former Housing and Urban Development secretary, who toured homeless encampments in Las Vegas earlier this year and spoke at an October protest outside city hall.
“This ordinance won’t help reduce homelessness—it will criminalize it,” Castro tweeted. “Punishing desperation isn’t good policy, it’s shortsighted and cruel.”
Other 2020 contenders, including Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Sen. Kamala D. Harris (D-Calif.) and South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, also slammed the law in tweets and statements.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said the ordinance “caters to the interests of business groups rather than our families and our communities,” while former vice president Joe Biden said it “effectively criminalizes homelessness” and that “we should focus on providing housing first and work to find long-term solutions to end homelessness.”
Earlier this year, President Trump pushed for a crackdown on homelessness in California, and administration officials had considered plans to relocate people from the streets of Los Angeles and other cities to government-backed facilities.
“You take a look at what’s going on with San Francisco, it’s terrible,” he told Fox News in July. “So we’re looking at it very seriously. We may intercede. We may do something to get that whole thing cleaned up. It’s inappropriate. Now, we have to take the people and do something. We have to do something.”
It is apparent that the States priorities are out of whack. So instead of focusing on the issues facing homelessness, they have decided its time to criminalize those who have fallen on hard times. I want to know what Mayor Carolyn Goodman think, that this is war on those in most need? Where is the public outrage? I proposed that there should be a national referendum, prohibiting such laws against the homeless.
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