Homeless man reunited with his cat
Daniel Harlan was tearful upon being reunited with Samantha, his companion of nearly four years.Samantha the cat and Daniel Harlan, a homeless man who owned her, have been reunited.
Harlan wept when Tom Neville, who had the missing cat for weeks, gave Samantha back.
Harlan said he put the cat on a leash while he went to get food at a nearby store. When he returned, Samantha was gone.
Harlan was convinced his Himalayan cat had been stolen and maybe sold for money. He searched all over for the cat and even tried to file a missing cat report with the police and the SPCA.
As it turned out, the cat hadn't been stolen at all, only rescued. As Neville tells it, he was driving to work one rainy morning and spotted a wet and bedraggled cat tied on a leash under the freeway at a homeless encampment. To a stranger, the cat's situation looked desperate.
Neville said he asked around, but nobody knew anything. So he picked up the cat and took her to work. He gave Samantha a bath, fed her and gave her a warm place to sleep in his office.
Neville was working on finding a permanent home for her, when a friend called and told him that the cat he'd rescued had its picture in the newspaper. Neville was torn; he believed he'd given the cat a new lease on life and didn't want to see the animal go back to the homeless life.
He thought about it for hours, but then got Harlan's phone number from The Chronicle story and called. Harlan told him about his life with Samantha.
"He does love her," Neville said. "No question about it."
Meanwhile, Harlan and the cat have become minor celebrities - their story got out on the Internet, on radio and television. He got hundreds of phone calls on his cell phone, some from faraway places like Kuwait, Germany, Korea, and Mississippi, he said. Some offered money.
"I appreciate all the help people are offering," he said. "But I can't take money. I've always tried to do stuff on my own, but it don't work most of the time."
Read the
San Francisco Chronicle story
here.
On being ... homeless in Seminole County (part 2)
Dale lives in an unlawful (and undisclosed) camp in the woods of Seminole County.Three homeless men who live in a hidden -- and illegal -- woods camp share their stories and their perspective on being homeless.
Central Florida Matters accompanied a team of two outreach specialists who daily bring hope and advice to more than 200 other clients.
Meet Ricky, David and Dale and visit their camp in
Part Two: The People.
Check out Part One: The Problem and the Players
here.
Part Three, which will launch on-line several weeks from now, will address the possibilities of better serving the homeless or even lowering the number of homeless.
Santa Monica settles lawsuit over treatment of homeless
Santa Monica has agreed to settle a
lawsuit over the city’s treatment of the homeless, and a federal judge in Los Angeles has dismissed the suit.
But no details will be available until June 8, when the City Council is scheduled to approve the resolution and report it publicly.
In July 2009, the
ACLU of Southern California filed a civil rights suit against Santa Monica, saying police routinely violated homeless people's constitutional rights and the Americans With Disabilities Act by harassing and arresting them even as the city failed to provide sufficient shelter beds.
When the suit was filed, ACLU legal director Mark Rosenbaum said: “Santa Monica is effectively running a deportation program for the homeless.” The suit was similar to previous legal challenges against
Laguna Beach and
Santa Barbara that Rosenbaum said had resulted in policy changes that have helped the homeless.
Read the
Los Angeles Times report
here.
15-year-old arrested in beating death of homeless man
A 15-year-old boy has been arrested in connection with the beating death of a homeless man in Bakersfield, California.
A witness said the teen became involved in an altercation with 50-year-old Mark Steven Herrold. He forced Herrold to the ground and then kicked and stomped on his head and neck, police said.
When Herrold was no longer moving, the teen instructed the witness to call for medical aid and walked away.
The teen, whose name has not been released because he hasn't yet been charged, was held on suspicion of murder.
Read the
Bakersfield Californian report
here.
Homeless man jailed in theft of 6 chicken nuggets
A 22-year-old homeless man accused of trying to steal six chicken nuggets from a Dallas fast-food restaurant faces a robbery charge.
Marquis Marsh walked into a Wendy's restaurant, jumped over the counter, grabbed the nuggets and jumped back over the counter, knocking over the cash register.
The store manager tried to stop Marsh, who punched him several times and dropped the nuggets, police said.
Marsh was being held at the Dallas County Jail on $3,500 bail.
Read the
Dallas Morning News report
here.
Homeless man killed for his cigarettes
Ralph Millward, 41, was a well-known figure in Bournemouth, referred to affectionately as the town’s "most familiar face." He sold the Big Issue to try to make ends meet.Three teenagers beat a homeless man to death for refusing to hand over his tobacco.
Jimmy Ayres, 15, Craig Real and Warren Crago, both 17, attacked homeless Ralph Millward and dumped his body in bushes in Bournemouth, England. They then boasted to friends they did it 'for a laugh'.
After a five-week trial, the jury took just two hours to find them guilty of manslaughter.
Millward had previously given cigarettes to one of the boys, the court heard. On the evening of May 7 last year, Ayres, Real and Crago had been drinking large quantities of cider at a friend's flat. When they ran out of cigarettes, they went in search of Millward but he refused to hand over any tobacco.
They then brutally punched and stamped on him. Millward was left for dead with ten fractured ribs, a ruptured spleen and bleeding to the brain. After the attack, Crago and Real returned with a shopping trolley to continue the assault.
Millward's body was discovered under the trolley in nearby bushes early the next day by two outreach workers.
Ultimately, it was three teenagers who brought each other down during the trial. In attempting to minimize their own involvement, the boys all readily told of the violence dished out by their friends.
The three boys will be sentenced next month.
They can be identified because Judge Guy Boney said their actions were so "frankly appalling" that it was in the public interest to know what they had done.
Read the
Bournemouth Daily Echo report
here.
Teen gets bond in beating death of homeless man
Bail has been set at $15,000 for a Lakeland teenager accused of second-degree murder in the beating death of a homeless man.
Shawn Whitten, 17, is one of three teenagers accused of fatally injuring Joseph Ruba, 52, during an April 17 fight outside a restaurant. Witnesses told detectives that a confrontation began after Ruba and 18-year-old Christopher Decatur exchanged words.
Decatur and Cody Osborne, 15, also face charges of second-degree murder.
Whitten and Osborne each kicked Ruba. A medical examiner's opinion is that "more than likely" kicks caused most of the damage to Ruba.
Whitten's lawyer, Gil Colon, argued his client stepped forward to defend Decatur after Decatur yelled that he had been cut by Ruba. A pocketknife was recovered near Ruba's body.
When Ruba was no longer a threat, Whitten attempted more than three times unsuccessfully to pull Decatur away and restrain him, Colon said.
Judge Michael Raiden said it remains an "unresolved question" whether Whitten and Osborne had a "clear and unmistakable right to defend their friend."
Read
The Ledger report
here. And see previous posts here and here.
Frumpy middle-aged mom:
Why my kids feed the homeless
When you help someone, you give something to them and in return you get all these good feelings back knowing that you have contributed a little into the bank of humanity. Buddhists call it karma, other religions have names for it, too, but it's something I want to impart to my children in the hope that when they grow up, they'll continue to value it all their lives.
Read the rest of Marla Jo Fisher's explanation
here.
Accused trespassers forced to vacate Deltona house
Volusia County deputies forced a family to vacate a lakefront home in Deltona because it did not own the home.
Bolstered by information from a group called
Take Back the Land, Maria Torres and her family moved into the home last month. The group promotes people who need housing to move into houses that are vacant following a foreclosure.
The sheriff's office began to investigate the people living in the home when deputies were called out twice for a complaint about a party.
At first, deputies allowed the Torres and her family to stay even though she didn’t own the home because she cited a little known state law called
adverse possession.
The
Florida law allows homeowners to claim a piece of land if they've paid taxes on it or taken care of the property over a period of time.
Deputies later cited Torres for trespassing.
Read the WFTV report
here.
Homeless tip off cops to alleged murder-for-hire scheme
A man tried to hire a homeless person to murder someone, Santa Monica police said.
He allegedly contacted more than one homeless person, and at least a few told the police department's Homeless Liaison Program workers. The homeless informants helped police catch the suspect.
Juan-Carlos Cruz, of Los Angeles, was arrested on charges of solicitation to commit murder, police said.
Police said they learned the method by which the prospective victim was to be killed, and the "terms of payment," but they would not offer more details.
Read the
LA Weekly report
here.
Update: The Los Angeles Times gas a
more complete story.
Florida governor signs homeless hate-crime bill
Attacks on homeless people will soon be classified as a hate crime in Florida, which has ranked first in the nation for such attacks the past 11 years.
Gov. Charlie Crist has signed the bill, which amends the state's hate-crime statute to include offenses where there is evidence of prejudice based on the victim being homeless. The law goes into effect Oct. 1.
Florida's law places it in a small group nationally -- Maryland, Maine and Washington, D.C. -- that has similar hate crime bills, according to officials at the National Coalition for the Homeless. Advocates are seeking a similar change in the federal hate crime law.
Read the
Daytona Beach News-Journal report
here. And see previous posts
here and
here.
Dispute continues over rights
of homeless folks to camp on public lands
No agreement has been reached in the lawsuit over the rights of homeless individuals camping on public lands in Anchorage.
The
lawsuit filed last month by the ACLU seeks to declare unconstitutional a city law passed last year allowing sweeps of homeless camps and removal of property -- from tents and sleeping bags to family photos and personal papers -- as waste. The camp closures can happen with as little as 12 hours' notice under the law, though city officials say none actually were shut down that quickly.
The city says the camps are illegal and they can be violent places. It is proposing to change the ordinance passed last July and give five business days' notice to homeless campers, allowing them time to clear out before the camp is closed.
The ACLU was seeking two weeks' notice or a promise from the city to store property seized from homeless camps, said Jeffrey Mittman, executive director of the
ACLU of Alaska. Other communities around the country offer storage, he said.
The mayor's homeless leadership team doesn't want camps cleared unless people can be offered a more stable place to live.
Read
The Anchorage Daily News report
here.
Palm Beach County quits prosecuting panhandlers
Palm Beach County’s state attorney no longer will prosecute panhandlers under the
“obstruction of public streets” statute, saying the state law is legally flawed.
The action heads off a hearing on the constitutionality of the law that could have bounced all the way to the state Supreme Court.
West Palm Beach police arrested Elizabeth Annese, 29, on April 22 as the homeless woman collected money near Palm Beach International Airport. She had stepped off the median, violating the law, which makes panhandling on the street a second-degree misdemeanor punishable by up to 60 days in jail and a $500 fine.
The next day, Assistant Public Defender Marie Calla filed a motion calling for the law to be declared unconstitutional. Arguing the law was intended to protect public safety, Calla said it was unfair to cite Annese, but not firefighters who hold out boots or school volleyball teams with pails.
Read the
Palm Beach Post report
here.
On being ... homeless in Seminole County
On any given night in Seminole County (a wealthy suburb of Orlando), 700 homeless people are sleeping in more than 70 camps or in cars or vans, behind trash dumpsters, or doubled-up with other families in apartments.
In Seminole County public schools, 1,140 students were considered homeless as of April 2010. This is an increase from 600 just two years ago.
Hear more of the problem in this
Central Florida Matters interview with Cathy Jackson of the
Homeless Services Network in
Part One: The Problem and the Players.
Part Two (tentatively set to post on 5/27/10) will feature voices from the homeless population.
No bail for teen charged with homeless man's death
A judge has denied bail to a Lakeland teenager accused of beating a homeless man to death.
Circuit Judge Michael E. Raiden said he would be “very surprised” if 18-year-old Christopher Decatur were acquitted at trial based on the evidence that he reviewed during the bond hearing.
Decatur faces a charge of second-degree murder.
Joseph Ruba, 52, was fatally injured during an April 17 fight outside a restaurant in Lakeland, according to arrest reports.
The judge said Decatur's claim of self-defense doesn't hold up against eyewitness accounts. Witnesses told detectives, after Ruba was no longer fighting back, Decatur broke away repeatedly from people restraining him so he could continue beating Ruba.
Two other Lakeland teenagers, Cody Osborne, 15, and Shawn Whitten, 17, who are also accused of striking Ruba, also remain in the Polk County Jail without bail.
Read
The Ledger report
here. And see previous posts
here and
here.
Westgate Tabernacle closes homeless shelter
Natacha Cenat and her daughter Jhazmyn, 4, wait outside Westgate Tabernacle with other homeless residents for a ride to another church mission -- this one in Fort Lauderdale.When it came to the illegal homeless shelter operating out of Westgate Tabernacle, what the county couldn't shut down, a dwindling bank account did.
After spurning the county's efforts to close the tabernacle's shelter for 16 years, a debt totaling up to $200,000 prompted Pastor Avis Hill to evict his live-in congregation. "I've been preparing them for about a month now, telling them our situation," Hill said.
The county has battled the church for more than a decade, arguing that the 1920s building is dilapidated and unsuited for housing the dozens who sleep there nightly. It has fined the church tens of thousands of dollars for violating neighborhood zoning laws by operating an unlicensed homeless shelter. The church in return has -- so far unsuccessfully -- sued, claiming the county unfairly targeted its operations.
The fines and court costs have taken a toll. But so have the simple costs of day-to-day operations.
Still, not everyone is convinced this spells the end of the homeless shelter.
Sylvia Negley said she was turning down requests to house homeless at the tabernacle right up to Sunday night. "It'll probably start all over in a month or so, as it goes. You know Avis - I don't see him turning away anyone."
Read the
Palm Beach Post report
here.
