Orlando homeless laws stir heated debate
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: a safe, welcoming place where visitors can soak up year-round sunshine and devour choreographed experiences at palm-ringed theme parks. But its spotless sidewalks, sparkling lakes 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 Orlando 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.
<snip>
A 2006 report on 67 cities by her group and the National Coalition for the Homeless, a nonpartisan, non-profit network, found an 18 percent increase since 2002 in laws prohibiting aggressive panhandling; a 12 percent jump in laws outlawing "passive" begging; a 14 percent rise in laws defining sitting or lying in public places as criminal acts.
Says Michael Stoops, the coalition's executive director in Washington, D.C.: "The idea is to drive the visible homeless out of downtown America, so that cities can attract developers, big money."
What's wrong with attracting investment?
Nothing, Stoops says — unless it comes at the expense of decency. "It's a sorry state of affairs when you can feed the squirrels, the doves and pigeons at Lake Eola, but not a hungry guy down on his luck."
for full story check link below:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070203/ap_on_re_us/do_not_feed_the_homeless_1
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