Homeless woman pleads not guilty
to stealing son's education
Moments before going into court, Tanya McDowell appeared before a phalanx of cameras and reporters in Norwalk, Connecticut.The homeless woman accused of stealing more than $15,000 from Norwalk taxpayers for sending her 5-year-old son to a city elementary school has pleaded not guilty.
Tanya McDowell, 33, is facing up to 20 years in jail on first-degree larceny and conspiracy charges. The case was continued until May 11.
Defense attorney Darnell Crosland said McDowell was undeniably homeless when she enrolled her son at the school and he should have been allowed to remain there, according to
federal law.
Read the
Stamford Advocate report
here. And see previous post
here.
"Into the system I go"
A guy in Boston has just started blogging about his day to day experiences as he goes through the system. Newly homeless, he's wondering "how the f*** did it come to this?"
Check out
Homeless in Boston.
Orange County didn't get votes
to push out homeless
Commissioners in Orange County are trying to get homeless people out of wooded areas surrounding neighborhoods.
Some county leaders wanted to give deputies the power to clean the homeless out of the woods, but they didn't have the necessary votes. A majority said they had no interest in “criminalizing homelessness,” as
Commissioner Lui Damiani described it.
Commissioner Ted Edwards wrote a letter to
Mayor Teresa Jacobs asking her to add additional, specific language to a current no-camping ordinance. Edwards wanted Orange County to adopt laws similar to the city of Orlando where it’s illegal to camp on public or private land without permission.
“You would have individuals walking through you yards, pilfering things, petty crimes,” Edwards said.
But commissioners expressed worry that enforcement would bog down deputies.
Sheriff Jerry Demings spoke out, saying “The camping ordinance in Orlando is no silver bullet for dealing with homelessness.”
Some social service advocates also opposed to the idea, including United Way President and CEO Bob Brown, who said it was not a “realistic or feasible” way to deal with the problem of homelessness. Read Bob Brown's letter
here.
Read the WDBO report
here and the
Orlando Sentinel report
here.
Ending homelessness is cost-effective
The cost of homelessness is high.
Taxpayers in Hennepin County (that's Minneapolis) spent $4.2 million on 266 people and got
no results. These people used more than 70,000 nights in a combination of jail, shelter and detox over five years and were still in those places.
With a modest private investment, the strategy shifted. Instead of allowing these individuals to cycle through the system, the goal became to provide housing and services.
Nearly 70 of the top 100 most frequent users of these systems are now in housing. After one full year in housing, taxpayer costs associated with each person were reduced by an average of $13,000 per year.
Read more in
this post by Cathy ten Broeke, the project coordinator for the Office to End Homelessness in Minneapolis and Hennepin County.
How Ben Franklin escaped poverty
-- and how his sister couldn't
The lives of Benjamin Franklin and his younger sister tell an 18th-century tale of two Americas. Against poverty and ignorance, Benny Franklin prevailed; his sister Jenny did not.
Their father was a Boston candle-maker, scraping by. Massachusetts’ Poor Law required teaching boys to write; the mandate for girls ended at reading. Benny went to school for just two years; Jenny never went at all.
But their story is a reminder that, especially for women, escaping poverty has always depended on the opportunity for an education and the ability to control the size of their families.
Read more in
The New York Times here.
Cops arrest man in connection
with homeless slaying
Orlando police have arrested a man in connection with the March slaying of a homeless man.
Wayne "Turnpike" Spencer, 46, is accused of killing Richard "Richie Rich" Lynch in late March.
Lynch's body was found March 24 in woods off John Young Parkway near Colonial Drive, in an area where many homeless people have camps.
Read the
Orlando Sentinel report
here. And see previous post
here.
Cops bust homeless woman
for sending child to school
A homeless woman has been arrested for enrolling her 6-year-old son at a Norwalk elementary school.
Tonya McDowell, 33, is accused of stealing $15,000 -- the cost of her son's public education -- from the Norwalk School District.
McDowell, whose last known address is in Bridgeport, used the Norwalk address of the boy's babysitter to register him at the school.
The babysitter was evicted from her public housing apartment.
Read the
Stamford Advocate report
here.
Thanks to
@hardlynormal for the link.
Another take on the court ruling
Moral Low Ground takes a look at the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that Orlando may restrict groups handing out free food to homeless people in city parks.
The post points out that in San Francisco, local authorities -- described as "a decidedly more progressive bunch" -- allow Food Not Bombs to do its valuable work unmolested.
"The wise men and women who run San Francisco realized that there is no higher priority than feeding the hungry, and today Food Not Bombs is a respected institution that serves meals to the city’s needy five nights a week.
Here’s hoping that one day soon they’ll be able to do the same thing in Orlando."
Check out the post
here.
So far, the post has been shared by 109 people.
Statewide crackdown on panhandling
proposed in Florida Legislature
Tampa City Council members have struggled to agree on a solution for the city's panhandling problem.
So Republican
Sen. Jack Latvala has one for them — and the rest of the state.
Latvala, who represents parts of Hillsborough and Pinellas counties, is behind
SB 1180, a sprawling Senate Transportation Committee bill that imposes blanket restrictions on roadside solicitations for the state.
His solution for getting it under control: requiring anyone who wants to accept money from the road to register with local government.
Read the
St. Petersburg Times report
here.
Homelessness: A crisis
we can no longer afford to ignore
"With so many Americans in need, it is not the time to cut proven and cost effect solutions to end homelessness," writes Rep.
Alcee Hastings, who is the founding co-chair of the Congressional Caucus on Homelessness.
Read the rest of his comments on The Hill's Congress Blog
here.
Poverty linked to anxiety and mood disorders
People with low incomes are more likely to suffer mental illness, a new study suggests.
It also found that a decrease in income is associated with increased risk of anxiety, substance abuse and mood disorders.
"Most important, the findings suggest that income below $20,000 per year is associated with substantial psychopathologic characteristics and that there is a need for targeted interventions to treat and prevent mental illness in this low-income sector of the population," the researchers concluded. "The findings also suggest that adults with reduction in income are at increased risk of mood and substance use disorders."
Read the
US News and World Report article
here.
Bruce Springsteen writes: "Story on poverty,
aid cuts gives voice to voiceless"
Bruce Springsteen, for decades the voice of the working man, wrote a
letter to the editor of his local paper, the
Asbury Park Press, expressing his displeasure at "cuts in services to those in the most dire conditions."
The Boss was responding to a story, titled
“As poverty rises in NJ, cuts target aid,” that focused on the cuts being made to government services as poverty rises in New Jersey.
Springsteen expressed his gratitude for the article, writing that it “is one of the few that highlights the contradictions between a policy of large tax cuts, on the one hand, and cuts in services to those in the most dire conditions, on the other.”
