Orlando: Please Do Not Feed The Homeless
At Lake Eola park, there is much beauty to behold: robust palms, beds of cheery begonias, a cascading lake fountain, clusters of friendly egrets and swans, an amphitheater named in honor of Walt Disney.
Then there are the signs.
DO NOT LIE OR OTHERWISE BE IN A HORIZONTAL POSITION ON A PARK BENCH ... DO NOT SLEEP OR REMAIN IN ANY BUSHES, SHRUBS OR FOLIAGE ... per city code sec. 18A.09 (a) and (o).
Visit the park's restrooms, and you'll find this sign on the wall above the hand dryers:
BATHING AND/OR SHAVING IN RESTROOM IS PROHIBITED ... per city code 18A.09 (p) ... LAUNDERING CLOTHES IN LAKE EOLA PARK IS NOT PERMITTED.
Since joggers and dog walkers tend not to snooze in flower beds, and because employees at the glittering office towers around Lake Eola don't scrub laundry in park sinks, it's clear, says Monique Vargas, at whom the notices are targeted.
"They're talking to us, to the homeless," says Vargas, 28, who says she has lived on the streets, in parks or under overpasses, since age 16. "It's a way of saying, 'Your kind isn't wanted in our city.'"
Orlando, population 200,000, works hard to conjure the image of a true-life Pleasantville. But its spotless sidewalks and twinkling skyline belie a real city with real maladies — most notably, a surging homeless population that authorities are struggling to control.
After a law that banned panhandling was struck down by the courts, the city tried to discourage aggressive beggars by obliging them to carry ID cards, and later by confining them to 3-by-15-foot "panhandling zones" painted in blue on sidewalks downtown.
Despite these laws, the number of people living on the streets of the metro area swelled, from roughly 5,000 in 1999 to an estimated 8,500 today, dwarfing the city's shelter capacity for 2,000 people.
So in July, the city commission tried a "supply-side" approach: It passed an ordinance regulating the feeding of large groups of people in Orlando's downtown parks.
Those who wished to feed more than 25 hungry individuals at parks within a 2-mile radius of City Hall could do so, but only if they obtained a "Large Group Feeding Permit" from the parks department — and no one would be granted more than two feeding permits a year.
For the first time anyone in Orlando could remember, not only would panhandlers find themselves in the crosshairs of the law, but so would those trying to help them.
A week before Orlando's ordinance took effect, Las Vegas criminalized giving food to even a single transient in any city park.
In August, the American Civil Liberties Union filed suit challenging the Las Vegas ban, saying it violated constitutional protections of free speech, right to assembly and right to practice one's religion. A federal court in Nevada has prohibited the city from enforcing the ordinance until a final ruling is issued.
Advocates for the homeless feared it wouldn't be long before other cities passed similar laws.
Already, the cities of Dallas, Fort Myers, Fla., Gainesville, Fla., Wilmington, N.C., and Atlanta have laws restricting or outright prohibiting the feeding of the homeless. In Fairfax County, Va., homemade meals and meals made in church kitchens may not be distributed to the homeless unless first approved by the county.
© 2009 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Then there are the signs.
DO NOT LIE OR OTHERWISE BE IN A HORIZONTAL POSITION ON A PARK BENCH ... DO NOT SLEEP OR REMAIN IN ANY BUSHES, SHRUBS OR FOLIAGE ... per city code sec. 18A.09 (a) and (o).
Visit the park's restrooms, and you'll find this sign on the wall above the hand dryers:
BATHING AND/OR SHAVING IN RESTROOM IS PROHIBITED ... per city code 18A.09 (p) ... LAUNDERING CLOTHES IN LAKE EOLA PARK IS NOT PERMITTED.
Since joggers and dog walkers tend not to snooze in flower beds, and because employees at the glittering office towers around Lake Eola don't scrub laundry in park sinks, it's clear, says Monique Vargas, at whom the notices are targeted.
"They're talking to us, to the homeless," says Vargas, 28, who says she has lived on the streets, in parks or under overpasses, since age 16. "It's a way of saying, 'Your kind isn't wanted in our city.'"
Orlando, population 200,000, works hard to conjure the image of a true-life Pleasantville. But its spotless sidewalks and twinkling skyline belie a real city with real maladies — most notably, a surging homeless population that authorities are struggling to control.
After a law that banned panhandling was struck down by the courts, the city tried to discourage aggressive beggars by obliging them to carry ID cards, and later by confining them to 3-by-15-foot "panhandling zones" painted in blue on sidewalks downtown.
Despite these laws, the number of people living on the streets of the metro area swelled, from roughly 5,000 in 1999 to an estimated 8,500 today, dwarfing the city's shelter capacity for 2,000 people.
So in July, the city commission tried a "supply-side" approach: It passed an ordinance regulating the feeding of large groups of people in Orlando's downtown parks.
Those who wished to feed more than 25 hungry individuals at parks within a 2-mile radius of City Hall could do so, but only if they obtained a "Large Group Feeding Permit" from the parks department — and no one would be granted more than two feeding permits a year.
For the first time anyone in Orlando could remember, not only would panhandlers find themselves in the crosshairs of the law, but so would those trying to help them.
A week before Orlando's ordinance took effect, Las Vegas criminalized giving food to even a single transient in any city park.
In August, the American Civil Liberties Union filed suit challenging the Las Vegas ban, saying it violated constitutional protections of free speech, right to assembly and right to practice one's religion. A federal court in Nevada has prohibited the city from enforcing the ordinance until a final ruling is issued.
Advocates for the homeless feared it wouldn't be long before other cities passed similar laws.
Already, the cities of Dallas, Fort Myers, Fla., Gainesville, Fla., Wilmington, N.C., and Atlanta have laws restricting or outright prohibiting the feeding of the homeless. In Fairfax County, Va., homemade meals and meals made in church kitchens may not be distributed to the homeless unless first approved by the county.
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Doesn't change the fact there are right and wrong ways to do it, but to say it's the family that decides if their troubled family member lives or dies is just wrong.
through waste, and the war in Iraq. B.Thanks to such entities as the ACLU, who champion for a seperation of church and state, there can be No interaction or liasion with faith based groups that could intervien.c.With all the amount of Churches and or Synagouges in Orlando, if every one of them adoped a homeless family or person,by proxy, there would NOT be any homeless problem to begin with!
And lastly, not everyone is fortunate enough to be as generous as some folks. To be able to sponsor a homeless family until the children graduates from college. That is a moving story and I am sure that fortunate child in turn will help other homeless. But the reality is that such philanthropists do not even constitute 1% of the general populace. Perhaps, 1 in a thousand is more likely. As hbjon2000 says, more tax funds may need to be allocated to solve this problem. Already America is spending too much money waging an unnecessary war. I do not know why politics is such a taboo subject. Like it or not, government policies DO affect our lives. If something is not right with the government, I do not think it is wise to just discount it and say nothing. It is precisely bad goverment policies that prevent many internal problems from being solved.
Good night everyone. Nice sharing ideas with you folks.
cbslogin12 is right. Of course public parks are not meant to be a sanctuary for the homeless. But can we ask SusanHelit, what viable alternative places are there for the homeless? As the article mentioned, those places that were designated by the authorities are unsafe. The homeless get killed in those areas. Therefore, it would seem that criticisms directed at the authorities are not unwarranted. Clearly, they are not offering a solution to the problem.