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Natural News
It is now
illegal to share food with the homeless in Florida
Wednesday, November 26, 2014
by: J. D. Heyes
If you're someone who believes in personal (not government-provided)
charity and who likes to make sure that as many homeless people as
possible get a decent meal each day, good for you. But you might want
to avoid Fort Lauderdale, Florida, because you could wind up with a
hefty fine and some jail time.
Seriously.
According to reports, police in the city issued citations and further
threatened to arrest two priests and a 90-year-old World War II vet for
the "crime" of feeding homeless people. A group of bozos on the city
council recently approved a measure making the sharing of food a
citable offense. As reported by The Daily Sheeple:
Fort Lauderdale police removed at least three volunteers, as well as
the Sunday lunch they were serving to several dozen homeless people,
citing a controversial new ordinance that prohibits food sharing.
Passed in October, the measure was created to try to cut down the
growing population of homeless people in Fort Lauderdale.
All it has really done is put a chill on charity.
'The whole world is watching'
In video footage located on this web page, you can see three police
officers show up and disrupt an in-progress feeding program, removing
Arnold Abbott, 90, the Rev. Canon Mark Sims of St. Mary Magdalene
Episcopal Church, and the Rev. Dwayne Black of the Sanctuary Church.
As the men are being removed and the operation disrupted, several
people begin to protest the police action, following the police
officers as they escort the men to their patrol cars.
"Shame on you, arresting an elderly man!" shouted someone in the
assembled crowd.
"The whole world is watching!" another shouted.
But the officers, who don't have any choice but to enforce laws the
city passes, were unrelenting. In the video one officer explains to the
three men, "Basically you are going to be cited for serving to the
community without proper accommodations. Everything is explained in
here. This is a citation. If you guys continue to come out here you
will face arrest."
As The Daily Sheeple further reported:
The ban on sharing food is part of city officials' recent efforts to
cut down on the burgeoning downtown homeless population. The most
recent law - passed by a 4-1 vote - limits where outdoor feeding can be
located. It can't be situated near another feeding site; it has to be
at least 500 feet from residential property; and feed program
organizers must seek permission from property owners for sites in front
of their buildings.
City officials say the new laws are merely "public health and safety
measures," but opponents have begun referring to them as "homeless hate
laws," the Sun-Sentinel newspaper reported.
"We are simply trying to feed people who are hungry," Sims told the
paper. "To criminalize that is contrary to everything that I stand for
as a priest and as a person of faith."
The program in question is operated by a group called Love Thy
Neighbor. Abbott, its founder, has served food to homeless people for
two decades.
'We've lost our collective minds'
The anti-homeless feeding ordinances follow additional mandates in Fort
Lauderdale that have banned homeless people from soliciting at the
city's busiest intersections, from sleeping on public property uptown,
and have strengthened measures against defecating in public. There is
also a new measure making it illegal for anyone to store their personal
belongings on public property.
"I'm not satisfied with having a cycle of homeless in the city of Fort
Lauderdale," said Mayor Jack Seiler, in an interview with the
Sun-Sentinel. "Providing them with a meal and keeping them in that
cycle on the street is not productive."
But such ordinances don't really do anything to address the cycle,
either, or correct it - they just penalize anyone who wants to help
such people.
"I think we've lost our collective minds. We're arresting people who
should be lauded and lauding people on Wall Street and elsewhere who
should be arrested," Joel Berg, executive director of the New York
Coalition Against Hunger, according to Sheeple's source.
Read this article and more, with sources, at Natural News
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