Fort Lauderdale Targets Homeless Population, Outlaws Sleeping In Public And Panhandling

[steve2470]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/23/fort-lauderdale-homelessness-ban_n_5869380.html

Casey Cooper believes he should be able to lay his head to rest in public. But the City of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, thinks otherwise.

Cooper is one of the city's homeless that will be affected by a local ban on sleeping outside -- an ordinance passed last week that prohibits "camping" within the downtown limits. An individual who violates the ordinance faces a $500 fine and 60 days in jail, the Sun Sentinel reported.

"I have to worry about where I’m going to sleep at, where’s the next meal at, how am I going to get the next piece of clothing, worry if the cops are going to mess with me, and you’re going to try to pass a law that’s ... going to ban homelessness?" Cooper asked city commissioners during a public meeting to discuss the measure, according to Think Progress. "Sleep is a human right."

A separate ordinance, also passed last week, bans panhandling at intersections of public streets. The law also bars those trying to raise funds for charitable causes. Those who violate the ordinance face a potential $500 fine and 60 days in jail as well.


Sigh, so not right.

[Downwinder]

1. Be cheaper to get them a room at the Holiday Inn.

[Ilsa]

2. So they are going to house homeless people in jail?

How kind of them.

[quaker bill]

3. This is not new or uncommon

Our local jails do service as shelters for the homeless with repeated "camping" offenders. One of the guys I work with has a rap sheet pages long with "camping" violations. Whenever I do not see him for a bit, I can rest assured that he is just serving his latest 60 days. He gets fed and help with his meds while there. He does not care for it much, but the jail time never seems to stop him from getting arrested again.

[Algernon Moncrieff]

4. Norris Gaynor

2006

Two witnesses saw the brutal slaying of a homeless man in a Fort Lauderdale park, an arrest report released Sunday reveals.

The two watched as Brian Hooks and Thomas Daugherty walked up to Norris Gaynor on Thursday morning, baseball bats in hand, according to Fort Lauderdale police. Moments later, the witnesses saw Daugherty smash his bat into Gaynor's chest and head, the report says, leaving him unconscious and dying on the bench he chose as his bed.

http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2006-01-16/news/0601150377_1_hooks-and-daugherty-attackers-thomas-daugherty


2012

The youngest of three Broward teens to go to prison for clubbing a sleeping homeless man to death saw his life sentence reduced to 40 years Thursday, the result of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that curbed life imprisonment for juvenile killers.

http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2012-11-15/news/fl-homeless-beating-resentencing-20121115_1_thomas-daugherty-homeless-man-brian-hooks

By 2012, he doesn't have a name. He's just "homeless man"

We don't care. We say we care about the homeless, but we don't. Put photos of the homeless on Facebook, and a few will comment about how sad it is. Post that a kitten has been sent to a shelter, and people will be offering to drive from six states away and bring cash to save the animal.