Feud over Miami homeless leads to creation of “poop map”

Miami Herald ^ | 14 May 2015 | David Smiley

[Theoria]

Tasked with marketing Miami to tourists and investors, the tax-funded Downtown Development Authority has plenty of maps highlighting restaurants, tourist attractions and real estate development.

On Thursday, they unveiled their latest: a detailed map showing where people popped a squat on downtown streets.

The scatological atlas, smiling poop emojis and all, was created amid a swirling dispute between downtown boosters and the Miami-Dade Homeless Trust over how to get homeless men and women off the street, and how to deal with corresponding sanitation issues. The two public agencies have been feuding for about a year now, dating back to the creation of a temporary shelter program at Camillus House, and more recently with the DDA’s promotion of souped-up porta-potties.

Long-time Homeless Trust Chairman Ron Book balks at both as ill-conceived initiatives already studied and rejected by the Trust, which focuses primarily on providing housing for the homeless. In response, he has been criticized as a “dictator” blind to downtown issues, who is flushing millions down the drain.

As part of an effort to shame Book and urge the Trust to reconsider, the DDA spent eight hours Friday documenting urine and feces, and then released its map, where the agency says feces was spotted during a sanitation worker’s eight-hour Friday shift.

Now, there’s little hope of wiping the slate clean.

“As the chief advocate for downtown Miami's growing base of residents, businesses and visitors from around the world, the Miami DDA has been making the case that homelessness is having a disproportionate impact on our urban core for years, and yet The Homeless Trust has resorted to passing the buck and ignoring the problem,” executive director Alyce Robertson said Thursday in a statement.

[Darksheare]

The noises are what gets me.
Minimized and playing, the “grrrrr-WAAAAAAAUGH!” part is hilarious.

Which politician would that particular noise go with?

[skinkinthegrass]

*

[Gen.Blather]

About 30 years ago I was touring the Smithsonian. Somewhere near the world’s largest gemstones a homeless guy was peeing on the cases. I found a guard and told him. He rolled his eyes and said, “If I see them do it I can throw them out, but they just come right back in. This is a public building and there’s nothing we can do to keep them out.”

[zzwhale]

YOU GET HOMELESS OFF THE STREET AS FOLLOWS;
you move them to where the politicians live
you know.... the ones that promise JOBS at election time,
and let them squat on their streets and lawns...
unfortunately many need mental health care...