How many homeless people?
There are likely half as many homeless in St. Johns County as previously thought, according to a pilot study performed by local volunteers and the University of North Florida.
Volunteers from
People United to Stop Homelessness,
Food Not Bombs St. Augustine and the community counted around 600 homeless living in the area.
While the numbers aren't final, it's clear that they will show far fewer than the 1,238 the Emergency Services Homeless Coalition said it counted in January 2009.
"We had expected to find significantly more homeless people in the county than previous counts," said Mary Lawrence, count organizer and PUSH member. "While we did not, we believe that our count is more accurate."
But Jean Hardin of Emergency Services Coalition said the agency stood by its count. "I think there's even more than 1,238" homeless, she said.
Social services agencies say the difference in number likely won't impact their funding, but advocates for the homeless say the study could change how the county and public agencies spend their dollars.
"You can pinpoint the population you have and put your resources where they'll do the most good," Lawrence said.
Read the
St. Augustine Record article
here.
Roommates convicted of murdering homeless man
Two roommates have been convicted of murder in the July slaying of a 56-year-old homeless man in Oregon.
Herbert “Pac-Man” Bishop was attacked by the men after they went to a park “to find someone to beat up.” They were drunk when they left their apartment in Eugene. One of the men told the acquaintance that the two spent about five minutes beating the man with their fists and kicking him, but hadn’t intended to kill him.
Michael Andrew Baughman, and Ryan Eugene Casch, both 22, were convicted of intentionally murdering Bishop, who was 56. In short, “stipulated facts” trials, each acknowledged that the state had enough evidence that they would have been convicted in full-blown murder trials.
A sentencing date has yet to be set.
Read
The Oregonian report
here, but for more details on the case read the older article from the
Eugene Register-Guard here.
Not forgotten: We remember
those who died without homes
It's the first day of winter and the longest night of the year, so it's time to bring attention to the tragedy of homelessness and to remember our homeless friends who paid the ultimate price for our nation's failure to end homelessness.
Each year since 1990, people have gathered in cities across the country to observe National Homeless Persons' Memorial Day.
Here in Orlando, we were able to identify 34 homeless people who died this year in the metro area.
Four were murdered. At least two of them were murdered
because they were homeless.
Most died of natural causes. That's part of the tragedy of homelessness, too. The average age of death of homeless persons is about 50, while non-homeless Americans can expect to live to age 78. Homelessness dramatically elevates one's risk of illness, injury and death.
I knew some of them: a veteran I found already dying in a woods camp, a few I took to collections court to resolve legal troubles, a few more we helped get IDs at
IDignity. I held the candle for
Pastor Brian Nichols of the First Vagabonds Church of God, a friend and colleague, who started his ministry for the homeless when he was on the street himself.
Read the National Coalition for the Homeless report on homeless deaths, "Dying Without Dignity,"
here. And read the National Health Care for the Homeless Council's "The Hard, Cold Facts About the Deaths of Homeless People,"
here.
A voice for legal aid to the poor is silenced
F. William McCalpin, one of the earliest advocates and most vocal defenders of the
Legal Services Corporation, a federal program that has provided legal aid to millions of poor people, died Dec. 9 at his home in St. Louis. He was 88.
McCalpin butted heads with the Reagan administration when it sought to eliminate the program he had long championed.
Eliminating the program, he said, would amount to a denial of the nation’s commitment to equal justice under law, “putting a price tag on justice, just like a Cadillac or a yacht.”
Congress restored the corporation’s financing.
“Early on in his legal career, he was assigned poor clients by the courts,” William McCalpin said of his father. “I remember one client, Gerald Thomas, who served time for burglary. My father bought Christmas presents, and we took them over to the family. He thought there should be a more organized way to represent poor people.”
Read
The New York Times obituary
here.
Stimulus kept 425,000 Floridians out of poverty
About 425,000 Floridians would have found themselves living in poverty had they not received assistance through the federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.
The Act also reduced the severity of poverty for about 1,970,000 more Floridians who are poor by lifting their incomes, said the study by the
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
The study pointed to the recovery act's increase in food stamp benefits, expansions of the
Child Tax Credit and the
Earned Income Tax Credit; the new
Making Work Pay tax credit; extra weeks of unemployment benefits for the long-term unemployed and an increase of $25 in jobless benefits; and a one-time payment to many elderly people, veterans and people with disabilities.
Read the report
here.
2 teens arrested in homeless man's shooting death
Two teenagers are accused of killing a homeless man and shooting his friend outside a Pompano Beach apartment complex.
Harry Velez, 17, and Brady Fisher, 19, were arrested in connection with the shooting of Cristobal Mariano and his homeless friend, Eustoquio Lopez.
Mariano and Lopez were chatting outside the apartment where Mariano lives when the suspects approached, a confrontation ensued and shots were fired, the Broward Sheriff's Office said.
Lopez, 46, died at the hospital, but Mariano, 40, is expected to survive.
A security guard at a nearby apartment complex saw two shirtless teens get inside a Ford Taurus and drive off. He wrote down the car's license plate number and gave it to detectives.
Velez faces one count of first-degree murder and Fisher faces one count of accessory after the fact.
Detectives said the motive for the shooting was robbery.
Read the
South Florida Sun-Sentinel report
here.
Homeless newspaper debuts in St. Pete
The
St. Petersburg Homeless Image -- a forum for advocates, homeless and formerly homeless people, students and the general public -- made its debut this weekend on the streets of St. Pete.
The paper includes articles on the
homeless lawsuit against the city, St. Pete's designation as
the second meanest city, a blistering attack on the
St. Petersburg Times for their
recent article against panhandling and passionate obits on street people who died recently.
The paper is the brainchild of my friend and colleague G.W. Rolle, a formerly homeless man who serves on the county's Homeless Leadership Network. The project grew out of a need to provide accurate news and opinions to the people of St. Pete during an unusually hostile atmosphere toward the homeless. Plus, through a generous vendor program, the paper provides an economic opportunity. Homeless folks can sell the paper for a profit and, besides getting some extra cash, learn valuable job skills. Rolle says it's a good alternative to panhandling.
Read the newspaper
here (but if you're in St. Pete, buy one anyway).
(Adapted from
Alex Pickett's post at
Pushing Rope.)
Firefighter rescues homeless squatter from blaze
A 63-year-old Boston firefighter, making his way up a stairway through black smoke, pulled a homeless man to safety from a burning warehouse in South Boston.
John Smith, a firefighter for 40 years, was being hailed as a hero for rescuing the man from the two-alarm blaze.
"There was heavy smoke," Smith said. "You couldn’t see your hand in front of your face."
Smith said the man, who had been squatting in the building, was disoriented from the smoke.
However, the man, identified as Jean Jaquez Eve, 49, was arrested after being rescued. Eve was wanted after failing to appear in court on an August 2008 charge of open and gross lewdness for urinating in public, Boston police said.
The warehouse was sectioned off by the squatters into several illegal mini-apartments that were strewn with debris. Electrical power was brought into the building by illegally bypassing the power meter and jumping cables directly from the electrical lines coming into the building.
Read the
Boston Globe report
here.
Thanks to
@hardlynormal for the link.
City won't appeal camping ruling
The city of Victoria will not appeal a
court ruling which upholds the right of homeless to set up tents in parks.
"Appealing this ruling does nothing to solve homelessness, and the real goal for this council is to ensure that all members of the community have a home," Mayor Dean Fortin said. "For us there is no win in appealing."
Read the
Times Colonist report
here. And see previous posts
here,
here and
here.
This morning, I'm getting ready for an appellate argument in the
Orlando homeless feeding case ... and wishing my city would chose to spend the costs of its appeal on solving the problem of homelessness instead of continuing a court battle that's lasted more than three years. Oh, well.
Orlando t-shirt seller uses homeless models
Photo by Wheat WurtzburgerAn Orlando t-shirt business called
Fat American every so often uses homeless people to model their t-shirts in photos by
Wheat Wurtzburger.
"It may be an unorthodox way of flaunting our t-shirts, but we feel it is appropriate when we consider our feelings about the failure of the United States social system. Throughout the photo shoot we didn't meet a single person whom the US government hadn't failed. Of the 11 homeless men and women we photographed 5 are mentally ill, two are Vietnam war veterans, two are physically disabled, one is down on his luck (unemployed), and one has aids, he apologized for the spots and sores he displayed while putting on the shirt we gave him. The only system caring for this group of people is the prison system."
Thanks to
The Daily City for the links.
It's OK to camp in parks, says Canadian court
Homeless people can camp temporarily in public parks if municipalities can't provide them with sufficient alternative shelter, British Columbia's highest court has
ruled.
The B.C. Court of Appeal upheld a lower court ruling that struck down a Victoria bylaw banning camping in city parks by the homeless.
The court determined that the bylaw (Americans would call it an ordinance) deprived homeless people of their rights to life, liberty and security of the person, in violation of the principles of fundamental justice.
Read the CBC News report
here. And read the court opinion
here.
Two Florida cities among America's most unequal cities
If you're feeling like the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer, you may be on to something. Especially if you live in one of the two Florida cities to make the top 10 of America's most unequal cities.
Naples is home to many people who got rich somewhere else and then moved to Florida's Gulf Coast. The annual income of the bottom 20% there is $15,803, while the top 5% have an annual income of $599,269. The richest 20% in Naples earn nearly $100,000 a year more than the richest 20% nationwide.
In Miami, the annual income of the bottom 20% is only $10,793. The top 5% earn $367,402. In most cities on the list, the whole city is rich but the rich are especially rich or the whole city is poor but the poor are especially poor. But In Miami, the rich are unusually rich
and the poor are poorer than average.
Read the
Forbes report and see the full list
here.
After winning legal challenge to panhandling law,
he's back in jail -- for panhandling
David Timothy Booher found himself in a familiar place on Monday for a familiar reason.
Booher, 52, wound up in the Marion County Jail after being arrested by Ocala police for panhandling.
It was his 24th arrest in Marion County since July 2003, according to Sheriff's Office records, and Booher's latest visit to the jail comes with some irony.
Half of those arrests, including the one on Monday, have been for violating local or state anti-panhandling laws, a situation that made Booher the poster child for an effort to enforce the rights of beggars locally.
Two years ago Booher was the plaintiff in a lawsuit challenging Marion County's panhandling ordinance.
Enacted in 2006, the local law required beggars to submit an application and a $100 fee to the county administrator. On the application, they had to spell out the hours during which they would panhandle, the location where they would do it and a permanent address, which could be a homeless shelter.
Booher applied for a permit but was turned down because of his multiple arrests.
He sued the county, alleging that the County Commission had violated his constitutional rights to beg by passing the law and by singling out panhandlers.
A federal judge eventually barred the county from enforcing the ordinance and signaled that Booher, were the case to proceed to court, stood a strong chance of winning.
The county repealed the law in March 2008 and reached a $10,000 settlement with Booher.
Reda the
Ocala Star-Banner report
here. And see previous posts
here and
here.
Give to the Public Defender's Clothes Closet Drive
If you're in the Orlando area, take a few minutes to dig to the back of your closet and find some gently worn professional clothes that you don't wear any more. The Public Defender’s Office Clothes Closet will use them to provide people with suitable attire for court appearances.
“We really have a critical need for all types of clothing,” said Orange/Osceola Public Defender Bob Wesley. “These donations help maintain the dignity of court proceedings and ensure that the lack of proper attire doesn’t affect the outcome of cases before the court.”
Donations will be accepted from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday, Dec. 19, in front of the Orange County Courthouse at 435 North Orange Avenue, Orlando. Donation receipts will be provided.
"Now is a great time for people to reach into the back of their closets for those items they don’t wear anymore," said Wesley. "Why not clean out your closet and make room for the new clothes you’ll be getting for the holidays?"
DeLand passes ordinance regulating panhandling
A new ordinance prohibiting panhandling at night — between the hours of 7 p.m. and 6 a.m. — anywhere in the city of DeLand takes effect immediately.
One may not panhandle on downtown streets and sidewalks at any time, except during special events, in the daytime.
Aggressive panhandling is outlawed at any time.
The ordinance came in response to concerns of Downtown merchants who reported some of their customers were being frightened away by panhandlers, and some of their staff were being endangered by the more aggressive beggars.
Read the
West Volusia Beacon report
here.
St. Pete police to homeless:
Move your belongings or lose them
Authorities are poised to confiscate the property of a group of homeless people camped outside the
St. Vincent de Paul soup kitchen -- or at least those belongings the homeless can't carry off on their own.
A posting outside the kitchen in downtown St. Petersburg gave the homeless a deadline for removing their things or they will be stored by police.
On Jan. 24, 2008, the city council passed an
ordinance allowing police to confiscate the effects of the homeless that block sidewalks and other rights of way. The rule is aimed at eliminating encampments on sidewalks.
"If they block the sidewalk or some public access their stuff will be picked up and stored," said police spokesman George Kajtsa. "That's what the ordinance says."
Gary Bush, an operation for the St. Petersburg codes enforcement department, said the posting was not unusual. No specific complaint was made regarding the soup kitchen site, but whenever a code enforcement or police officer sees belongings beginning to accumulate at a particular location, action is taken, Bush said.
Read the
Tampa Tribune report
here.
Homeless man arrested for stealing a slice of pizza
A 53-year-old homeless man was arrested for taking a slice of pizza from a buffet line in Fort Walton Beach.
When a member of the wait staff told the man he would have to pay for the food, the man said, “No” and walked away, a police report said. A customer of the restaurant stopped the man and told him he needed to pay for the food he ate.
He was charged with obtaining food with intent to defraud and disorderly conduct.
Read the
Northwest Florida Daily News report
here.
Poverty keeps growing in the U.S.
but the press is almost blind to it
The American press follows the lead of politicians by zeroing out coverage of poverty at a time when ‘the U.S. has the greatest income inequality, highest per capita prison population and worst health conditions of all high-income countries,’ Jeffrey Sachs, a leading figure on world poverty, says
Jeffrey Sachs, a leading figure on world poverty.
Read the Nieman Watchdog's commentary
here.
Jesus Christ dumped from jury pool for disruption
Jesus Christ was called for jury duty this week in Birmingham, Alabama.
Court officials were skeptical at first when on Monday a potential juror submitted a name change form with "Jesus Christ" on it. But the 59-year-old Birmingham woman, who previously went by Dorothy Lola Killingworth, assured the presiding judge that was her name.
"It raised eyebrows, so I asked her if that were truly her name," Judge Scott Vowell said. "She assured me that it was. She had her name changed in the Probate Court, and she presented her driver's license."
Christ was sent to Judge Clyde Jones's courtroom for a criminal case. She was excused because she was disruptive, court officials said. Instead of answering questions, she was asking them, a court employee in Jones's office said.
Efforts to reach Christ today were unsuccessful, the
Birmingham News reported.
Read the
Birmingham News report
here.
Two teens get life for killing homeless men
Bound by handcuffs and leg irons, Thomas J. McCloud Jr. and Dontez Tillman betrayed few emotions as they headed to prison for life for beating two homeless men to death in an attack described as "sport."
The two 15-yesar-olds were convicted of first-degree murder in the separate August 2008 slayings of 61-year-old Wilford "Frenchie" Hamilton and Lee Hoffmann Jr., 65. While McCloud was convicted in both deaths, Tillman was convicted in the fatal attack on Hoffmann.
Read the
Detroit News report
here. And see previous posts
here and
here.
San Diego sued for trashing
homeless people's belongings
The city of San Diego has been accused of conducting “well-planned, ruthlessly executed and mean-spirited raids” to harass homeless residents and drive them out of town.
The
26-page lawsuit was filed in federal court on behalf of homeless people who said their belongings were illegally confiscated and destroyed.
Police officers and environmental services workers watched as homeless men and women stored their belongings near a fenced-off vacant lot, the lawsuit claims. The group then went into a nearby church and homeless shelter to receive services, such as showers and laundry.
The workers tossed all of the possession into a garbage truck and destroyed them in a compactor, despite protests by some of the homeless who pleaded for them to stop, the suit said.
David Blair-Loy, legal director of the
ACLU of San Diego & Imperial Counties, said the raids have nothing to do with cleaning up trash.
“This is purely and simply a drive to force homeless people out — out of the neighborhood, out of the city, and out of sight and mind.”
Read
The San Diego Union-Tribune report
here.
Cold night shelter named
for -- get this -- a homeless man
At age 60, Shakey Burnett has lived on the streets for nearly 20 years, a lot of it in Tarpon Springs. Too often, homeless people are overlooked when groups are put together to make decisions on how to help them -- or when new facilities are opened.
But city officials in Tarpon Springs have named a cold night shelter after a homeless man. Located at
St. Timothy Lutheran Church, the James "Shakey" Burnett Cold Night Shelter is open from Nov. 15 to March 15 when temperatures drop below 40 degrees.
For the last 20 years, James "Shakey" Burnett has served food at soup kitchens and worked to get sleeping bags for the homeless. He has cooked, mopped floors at church shelters and cleaned soiled bathrooms.
"He is one of those people who gives back more than he takes," said Tom Henderson, board chairman of the Tarpon Alliance for Humanity. "He's always been kind of the watchdog in the (homeless) community."
For once, at least, a homeless man's efforts have not gone unnoticed.
"I just believe that if you help somebody, somebody's going to help you," Burnett said. "It might not come when you want it, but it comes."
Read the
St. Petersburg Times article
here.
I skipped a meal to fight hunger!
