Academic

West Palm Beach is dropping its ban on giving food to the homeless

Posted on December 04, 2008
City commissioners have agree to throw out a roughly 14-month-old law that makes it illegal to hand out free food at two locations in downtown West Palm Beach.The action will become official when the commission formally wipes the law off the books at hearings on Dec...

Orlando appeals federal court's order on homeless-feeding ordinance

Posted on December 01, 2008
The City of Orlando is appealing a federal court's order to stop enforcing its controversial restrictions on feeding the homeless in public parks.The city has notified the court of its intent to appeal the September ruling in favor of First Vagabonds Church of God and Orlando Food Not Bombs...

Homeless customer memorialized by chair at Starbucks

Posted on November 30, 2008
Employees and patrons of Starbucks left mementos and prayers in honor of Fleming Taylor, a homeless man who frequently sat in this chair.Photo from the Journal News in Westchester, N.Y.Nearly every day during the past year, Fleming Taylor walked into the Starbucks on Main Street in Nyack, New York, as the doors opened, sat in the same purple velvet chair, read and discussed what was in The Wall Street Journal with other regulars, and left only when the store closed in the evening...

Recession could push millions into deep poverty

Posted on November 26, 2008
The current downturn is likely to cause significant increases both in the number of Americans who are poor and the number living in "deep poverty," with incomes below half of the poverty line,* says a new report from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities...

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Homeless man spends almost 3 years in jail -- and then is found not guilty

Posted on November 26, 2008
After two years and eight months in jail awaiting trial, a homeless man was freed when he was acquitted of an assault charge.Jurors deliberated only one hour and 17 minutes before reaching their decision at the conclusion of a two-day trial in Joplin, Missouri...

Dear President-Elect Obama: Please work on ending homelessness

Posted on November 25, 2008
More than a dozen other national homelessness advocacy groups today called upon President-Elect Barack Obama to take steps immediately upon becoming President to address the urgent crisis of homelessness in the United States.The groups include my friends at National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty and National Coalition for the Homeless...

40,000 visitors!

Posted on November 23, 2008
Visitor Number 40,000 showed up last night a little before 10 p.m. Someone in Atlanta was looking for information about Jacksonville's homeless feeding ordinance and, I'm happy to say, found what they were looking for.

Another Florida city is making homelessness a crime

Posted on November 23, 2008
Davie is cracking down on homeless people.A new ordinance outlaws sleeping outdoors on public or private property without permission of the property owner. It also forbids cooking, making a fire, digging and urinating or defecating on public or private property without permission...

Happy dance!

Posted on November 21, 2008
Thanks to Over the cliffs, onto the rocks for the happy dance. Yes, your First Amendment rights include the right to hand out free food to hungry people.

It's sad that jail was his answer

Posted on November 11, 2008
A homeless man called 911 from a pay phone because he wanted to go to jail.When a Fort Walton Beach police officer said he did'nt have a reason to take him to jail, the man said he had marijuana, pulled it out of his sock and dropped it on the back of the patrol car...

20-year life gap separates a city's poorest and wealthiest

Posted on November 09, 2008
A 20-year difference in life expectancy between a low-income neighborhood and an upscale area across town has been revealed in data compiled by the Baltimore Health Department.In West Baltimore's impoverished Hollins Market neighborhood, the average life expectancy is about 63 years...

Thousands wrongfully dropped from KidCare

Posted on November 09, 2008
As many as 27,000 kids may have been wrongfully dropped from the KidCare program, which offers low-cost insurance to Florida families.Computer glitches apparently are to blame for axing the kids.Read the Capitol News Service report here.

Sex offender law unfair to homeless, court says

Posted on October 27, 2008
A provision of Georgia's sex-offender registry law is unconstitutional because it fails to inform the homeless who have no address how they can comply with the statute, the state supreme court ruled today.The decision was a huge legal victory for William James Santos, charged for failing to register a new address in the sex-offender registry...

Police break up tent city in park; five arrested

Posted on October 18, 2008
Homeless activist David Johnston waits to be arrested after refusing to take down his tent as police break up a tent city in Beacon Hill Park.Photograph by the Times ColonistIn the wake of a court ruling that says homeless people have the right to set up shelters in public parks, police moved in and cleared out a fledgling tent city that had sprung up in Victoria...

Homeless win legal battle to sleep in public parks

Posted on October 15, 2008
Homeless people have a right to camp in public parks, a Canadian court has ruled.Because there are not enough safe and secure beds for the homeless, it was unconstitutional for the city of Victoria to prevent them from erecting some form of shelter to protect themselves from the elements...

Brain injury may be the cause of homelessness for many people

Posted on October 09, 2008
Traumatic brain injury is common among homeless people, found a study of homeless men and women in Toronto.In the study of more than 900 people in Toronto?s shelter system or who use meal programs, 58% of homeless men and 42% of homeless women had a history of traumatic brain injury...

We win! Homeless feeding ordinance struck down

Posted on September 30, 2008
For the first time, a judge has ruled that sharing food with hungry and homeless people in a public park is expressive conduct protected by the First Amendment.That?s the most important part of the federal court ruling that Orlando?s ?large-group feeding? ordinance is unconstitutional...

The verdict is in: Guilty!

Posted on September 19, 2008
Two Plantation men accused of fatally beating a homeless man with a baseball bat and injuring two others were found guilty this morning of second-degree murder.Thomas Daugherty, 19, and Brian Hooks, 21, were also convicted of two counts of attempted second-degree murder in the Jan...

Jury deliberations continue in homeless beating case

Posted on September 19, 2008
After their first day of deliberations, 12 jurors were sent home Thursday without reaching a verdict in the Broward County murder trial of two teenagers accused of beating a homeless man to death in 2006.Thomas Daugherty and Brian Hooks face charges of first-degree murder and two counts of attempted murder for participating in brutal, unprovoked attacks against three homeless men in downtown Fort Lauderdale on Jan...

Take a look into one beating victim's life in the shadows

Posted on September 19, 2008
He spends most of his time sitting in a white plastic lawn chair, keeping to himself, in a Fort Lauderdale park."I don't bother anybody," Jacques Pierre said.This is his life, 32 months after getting international attention as the homeless man in a surveillance video pummeled by bat-wielding youths in Fort Lauderdale...

Quote of the day

Posted on September 17, 2008
"I took nothing but bread-and-butter classes, not "Law and Poverty," or other made-up stuff, Scalia said to laughter. He said his advice to law students was: "Take serious classes. There's so much law to learn. Don't waste your time."-- Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia in a speech to 500 members of the Federalist Society in Chicago on Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Group allowed to feed homeless again without permit (no, this isn't about Orlando)

Posted on September 14, 2008
A faith-based group that was threatened with arrest for feeding the homeless at a state park has settled its lawsuit after a permit requirement was lifted.California State Parks agreed it would not enforce Regulation 4321, which is designed to ban unlawful assembly,* and members of Welcome INN (Interfaith Needs Network) can feed the homeless without threat of citation or arrest, as long as they comply with rules that apply to everyone such as hours of operation, orderly conduct and clean-up...

Twenty questions: Social Justice Quiz 2008

Posted on September 12, 2008
Do you know: In how many of the more than 3,000 cities and counties in the US can a full-time worker who earns the minimum wage afford to pay rent and utilities on a one-bedroom apartment?Answer: None.Bill Quigley writes: "We in the US who say we believe in social justice must challenge ourselves to look at the world through the eyes of those who have much less than us...

Homeless man wins $10,000 in panhandling lawsuit

Posted on September 10, 2008
Marion County will pay the homeless man who filed a federal civil rights lawsuit over the county?s panhandling ordinance $10,000 for lost income, emotional distress and mental anguish.The settlement likely ends the saga of the controversial panhandling ordinance passed in May 2006...

Doesn?t sound like much of a defense to me

Posted on September 07, 2008
"The intention was never to kill," said defense lawyer Michael Gottlieb in his opening statement. "They thought it was fun to mess with some homeless people, and that's what they set out to do."They never meant to do serious harm, argued the lawyers for two men charged with beating a homeless man to death and viciously attacking two others with baseball bats...

Cops shot 47 times at homeless man with toy gun

Posted on September 06, 2008
It started with a report of a man with a gun.Eddie Felix Franco, carrying a toy gun in his waistband, allegedly refused to put his hands up, and officers fired beanbag rounds at him. Police said Franco then reached for his waistband and was shot dead...

Trial begins in homeless beating case

Posted on September 04, 2008
A jury has begun hearing the murder case against two men accused of beating a homeless man to death with a baseball bat as he slept on a park bench in Fort Lauderdale.Thomas Daugherty, 19, and Brian Hooks, 21, are charged with first-degree murder and attempted murder for their roles in the Jan...

Project Homeless Connect cancelled

Posted on September 03, 2008
The Project Homeless Connect set for Friday at the Fairgrounds in Orlando has been cancelled.The decision was made because of Tropical Storm Hanna.Hanna is expected to reach hurricane strength by Friday morning and is out in the Atlantic Ocean, moving in the general direction of Florida...

Crackdown begins: Food Not Bombs house among raids ahead of Republican convention

Posted on August 30, 2008
Aided by informants planted in protest groups, authorities raided at least six buildings across St. Paul and Minneapolis to stop an "anarchist" plan to disrupt this week's Republican National Convention.The highly intimidating, sweeping police raids involved teams of 25 to 30 officers in riot gear, with semi-automatic weapons drawn, entering homes of those suspected of planning protests, handcuffing and forcing them to lay on the floor, while law enforcement officers searched the homes, seizing computers, journals, and political pamphlets...

Teenagers charged in beating of homeless men in St. Augustine

Posted on August 27, 2008
Three men sleeping under an overpass in St. Augustine were attacked by a group of teenagers and punched, kicked, and beaten with sticks, a shopping cart, a bike and rolled-up fencing.Two 17-year-old cousins, a 16-year-old and a 15-year-old are facing charges of aggravated battery and attempted robberyA juvenile who was with the attackers told police that one of them needed money and planned to rob someone to get it...

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