Fort Lauderdale takes on
the homeless feeding issue -- again
Trying to balance aiding the homeless against resident complaints about their behavior, Fort Lauderdale commissioners have decided to research potential new spots for a homeless feeding site.
The City Commission did not take a formal vote, but generally agreed to direct staff to look at city parking lots as potential sites to allow church groups and volunteers to feed the homeless.
Several groups feed the homeless at
Stranahan Park in front of the main library downtown. But that highly visible site has led to concerns among some city officials and others who say that some homeless individuals urinate and defecate in the park.
The city must tread carefully as it tries to relocate the feedings.
The city lost a lawsuit several years ago when it attempted to halt such feedings on the beach.
Read the
Miami Herald report
here.
Town rejects homeless man's run for office
A homeless man who wants to run for village trustee in a Chicago suburb will take his fight to court after the village's electoral board voted 2-1 to keep him off the April 7 ballot.
"We've been preparing for this," Daniel Fore said. "We knew it was not going to be an easy battle to fight."
Attorneys dealing with Fore's case believe it is the first time in the United States a municipal electoral board has taken on the issue of a homeless person's residency and eligibility to run for office, and it will be the first time a court will review such a matter.
On his statement of candidacy, Fore indicated he was homeless but living in Oak Park and gave an Oak Park post office box as his address. Fore attends and speaks at most Village Board meetings.
State law requires a candidate's nominating petitions to include their place of residence with "the street and number thereof, if any."
Fore's attorneys maintain that the phrase "if any" allows a homeless person to seek office without a permanent residence. Village President David Pope, who voted to keep Fore on the ballot, said the phrase becomes a hole large enough to drive a truck through."
Read the
Chicago Tribune report
here. And see previous post
here.
For more information about the voting rights of homeless persons, check out the
National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty's report,
Voter Registration and Voting: Ensuring the Voting Rights of Homeless Persons.
Homeless may win round one
as city considers overturning its camping ordinance
A homeless man sleeps on Main Beach in Laguna Beach. The ACLU recently sued the city Beach for treating disabled homeless people like criminals and cited ticketing homeless people for illegal lodging in public places as one of their concerns. Laguna Beach may soon revoke a 1920s era ordinance prohibiting nighttime camping in public areas, following a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union contending the law unconstitutionally restricted the rights of the homeless.
Though the Southern California city says it has refrained from enforcing the measure after opting to reconsider it last February, the ACLU suit contends that Laguna Beach police have used the law to harass and conduct unwarranted searches on the transient population.
Read the
Orange County Register report
here. And see previous post
here.
Counterpount: A column in
The Wall Street Journal argues that the lawsuit subverts the broad public interest, arrived at democratically, in favor of judge-created rights conferred on favored victim groups. Read the column
here.
Even in Florida, homeless people freeze to death
Affectionately called "Bobbo" by his family, Robert Raimondo weaved in and out of their lives as he wrestled with his drinking problem. "I wish he had had some place better to stay, but he wanted to be with his friends," said his nephew.
A homeless man who spent the coldest night in six years wrapped in black garbage bags and huddled in a tent froze to death in Pompano Beach.
Robert Raimondo, 49, died of hypothermia as temperatures dipped to the low 30s, but he might have survived — if he hadn’t drank alcohol while setting up camp in some woods. Witnesses told investigators they saw Raimondo drink heavily that night.
“Hypothermia was a very important element ...” said Dr. Joshua Perper, Broward County's chief medical examiner. “An excess of alcohol certainly contributed to his death.”
Experts say the homeless are more susceptible to hypothermia because many are alcoholics, weakening their hearts and immune systems.
As Raimondo bundled up in the garbage bags, an arctic chill blowing from the north swept through South Florida. Temperatures reached a record 33 degrees in Palm Beach, but because of the wind, it felt more like 20 degrees in Broward County, according to the National Weather Service in Miami.
Read the
South Florida Sun-Sentinel article
here.
By the way: More people have died from cold weather than from heat in Florida, says the National Weather Service. From 1979 through 1997, 113 people died from the cold, and 97 died from the heat.
Why can't a homeless person run for office?
A homeless man is running for a seat on the board of a suburban Chicago village.
Daniel Fore filed nominating petitions to have his name placed on the ballot for village trustee in the April 7 election. The petitions indicate he is homeless.
But two
Oak Park residents have filed objections, claiming a person without a fixed address cannot run for office or register to vote.
Attorneys representing Fore said a homeless person can legally register to vote and can circulate nominating petitions. They also said the objections to Fore's candidacy are incomplete and invalid.
Read the
Chicago Tribune report
here.
And read more about the voting rights of homeless persons
here.
Body found encased in ice
Inside an abandoned warehouse in Detroit, a body lies frozen in a block of ice.It took two days and three phone calls from a Detroit reporter, but city authorities eventually recovered a body frozen in ice in an elevator shaft at an abandoned building, The Detroit News reports.
Charlie LeDuff, the reporter, writes that a friend tipped him about a body "encased in ice, except his legs, which are sticking out like Popsicle sticks." After checking it out for himself, LeDuff called 911 -- three times. It wasn't until a day later that he heard from the fire department, which arranged to meet him at the site.
Read the
Detroit News article
here.
Homeless sex offender dies in the cold
after being turned away from shelter
Thomas Pauli didn't choose to die alone in the cold.
He apparently froze to death because of a crime he committed nearly 20 years ago, and a law that's dogged him ever since his release from prison.
Temperatures the night he died got down to zero in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
In the days prior to the discovery of his body in the snow outside an auto body salvage shop, he reportedly attempted to get a bed at two shelters.
Officials at both facilities reluctantly acknowledge they would have turned him away because state law forbids registered sex offenders to reside for even one night within 1,000 feet of a school.
Read the
Grand Rapids Press report
here.
