A city makes amends for destroying
homeless people's belongings
Following a lawsuit and months of talks, San Diego is on the verge of opening a storage facility where homeless people can keep their possessions.
And dozens of people would receive compensation for the personal belongings that city workers destroyed.
Homeless advocates would be allowed to use the storage building for a year and given $100,000 to staff and run the facility, the settlement said. If the program is a success, the City Council could look at re-funding the program.
The tentative settlement was reached in a closed session of the City Council. A public council vote on the settlement is expected in January.
More than a year ago, Yolanda Dillard and 12 others homeless were eating inside a church when police and city crews tossed their donated carts -- including medication and photos -- into garbage trucks.
"Now I don't have anything. I've lost it all. Everything in there was my life," Dillard said at the time.
After two other similar incidents, homeless advocates and the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit. They claimed the city crews knew the carts weren't trash.
Read the 10News report
here.
Hit-and-run driver causes life-threatening injuries
to homeless man in wheelchair
A hit-and-run driver left a wheelchair-bound homeless man in critical condition in Orlando.
William Phillip Capps, 52, was being treated at Orlando Regional Medical Center for life-threatening injuries.
The impact of the crash scattered Capps' clothes all over the roadway, where his wheelchair rested in a crumpled heap, police officers said.
No one witnessed the crash, which occurred about 3:30 a.m.
Read the
Orlando Sentinel report
here.
Teen pleads guilty
in homeless man's beating death
Nineteen-year-old Christopher Decatur has pleaded guilty to beating a homeless man to death earlier this year.
Decatur and two other teens are accused of fatally injuring Joseph Ruba, 52, during an April 17 fight outside a Lakeland restaurant.
His sentencing is scheduled for Dec. 20. The maximum punishment is 15 years in prison. The lowest recommended prison sentence is about 10 years in prison.
Arrest reports state that an exchange of words erupted into a deadly confrontation between Decatur and Ruba.
Read
The Ledger report
here. And see previous posts
here,
here and
here.
Poverty rises in Florida,
while tax breaks benefit the wealthy
The number of Floridians living below the federal poverty level increased between 2007 and 2009 by almost 550,000 -- equal to the population of the cities of Orlando and Tampa combined.
New U.S. Census figures show about 2.7 million Floridians, or 14.9%, lived in poverty in 2009, a sharp rise over 2007's 12.1%. Among children below age 18, 852,000 lived in poverty in 2009, driving the child poverty rate to 21.3% from 17.1% in 2007.
But while more low- and moderate-income residents of Florida struggle to make ends meet and hundreds of thousands fall into poverty, many Floridians with the greatest wealth receive tax breaks.
The poorest 20% of Floridians paid an average of 13.5% of their income in Florida taxes in 2009, while the wealthiest 1% percent paid 2.1% of their income, on average, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. State and local taxes paid by the poorest 20% of non-elderly Floridians ($10,500 average income) are the second-highest in the nation.
Read Alan Stonecipher's commentary in the
Ocala Star-Banner here.
Homeless man beaten, dragged behind truck
A man was so enraged a homeless man was sleeping near his Detroit home that he allegedly beat the man, tied him to his truck and dragged him by the feet, police said.
In a case that shocked homeless activists and neighbors, Steven James Diponio, 54, is accused of assault with intent to do great bodily harm in the Oct. 6 attack on Charles Duncan, 42. He faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted.
Diponio told the arresting officer he was tired of the man sleeping behind a school near his house, a police spokesman said.
Diponio allegedly took a rope from his pickup, tied up Duncan and beat him several times with a baseball bat. He then tied the man to his bumper and dragged him in his car a short distance before neighbors freed Duncan, police said.
Read
The Detroit News report
here.
