It is stupid to arrest people for feeding the homeless “without a permit.” I don’t agree with hacking Orlando but it is wrong to arrest people who feed the homeless.
the homeless gather around Lake Eola near downtown, and feeding people there simply increases the public problems. These individuals need to be incentivized to go elsewhere for help. I have no problem with this ruling, given that resources are provided to assist these persons.
“I don’t agree with hacking Orlando but it is wrong to arrest people who feed the homeless.”
If only it were that simple. Some of the folks who feed the homeless do so without adhering to basic food safety practices. If the homeless person gets sick tax payers pay for their care.
They also tend to attract homeless people to areas with the food. The homeless people then defecate wherever they want, make a mess and bother other people. Is it fair to business owners to have these homeless people camped out on their doorstep?
If homeless people want a meal there are numerous organized charities they can go to. Nobody will go hungry.
Here in Tampa there are lots of homeless people doing the same thing. Many are young people refusing to work and instead living off others.
Santa Monica had a great "Feed the Po" project until the teeming masses of homeless swelled to the point that it became a public health hazardf what with all the sleeping in doorwells and urinating on the sidewalks - it looked like San Frnacisco!
There are reasons you do not feed that which should be feeding itself.
The area where the people are fed is around lake Eola. It used to be a dump. Drug deals, hookers, pimps, homeless, crime. About 15 years ago Glenda Hood the Mayor) (Also known as the Good Witch Glenda) cleaned up the place. There are now upscale restaurants, condo’s, nice homes and a good family environment.
The city has a place about 5 blocks west of the lake where there can be unlimited feeding of the homeless.
The group “Food Not Bombs” has an agenda. They are about as left wing as you can get.
Even though Mayor Dyer is usually not on the right side of an issue he is on this one.
Then I'm sure you wouldn't mind if some group set up a completely unregulated homeless feeding station in front of your house, or perhaps in a park where your children play.
Orlando doesn’t want the homeless people there to begin with. They don’t fit in with the muzak.
And if the city of Orlando didn’t enforce food safety regs THEY would be held LIABLE if the homeless had a massive outbreak of FOOD POISONING.
Do you want those unwashed, (and odiferous), howlin’ mad bums hanging around your property? Parks where your kids play?
Chasing your community’s golden geese, (in this case tourists), away?
“Are there no prisons? The public work-houses...are they not still in operating order?”
-Charles Dickens
(No, I’m not as callous as Scrooge was, but this is what happened when the bleeding hearts closed the mental hospitals down and let a lot of nuts unable to care for themselves loose on the streets. There are plenty of places where transients can get a decent meal as well as a bed for the night if they wish to. You’d be surprised to learn that a large percentage of them in fact prefer to live on the streets and even if they do have a job or get some sort of check they’d rather spend it on booze or dope than necessities such as food and shelter.)