Academic

The courts are open -- but only if you can afford it

Posted on May 18, 2008
It's only one of the bad ideas that came out of this year's Legislature, but this one is right in the wheelhouse of a poverty lawyer.A bill that would make it much harder for poor people to assert their rights in court has passed the Legislature and is awaiting the governor's signature...

Sweeps of homeless camps ruled unconstitutional

Posted on May 13, 2008
Sending out city workers to raid homeless camps and destroy whatever personal property they found there violates the U.S. Constitution, a federal judge has ruled.Fresno's "clean up" policy in homeless tent cities violates the Fourth Amendment, which bars unreasonable searches and seizures...

Not guilty! (again)

Posted on May 12, 2008
Five men -- arrested for drumming "too loudly" during a protest against the city of Orlando's policies on homelessness -- have been acquitted of charges they violated a noise ordinance.Ryan Hutchinson, Bryan Jones, Brett Mason, Eric Montanez and Will Vertlieb, all members of Orlando Food Not Bombs, were arrested in June 2007 during a protest outside a restaurant where Mayor Buddy Dyer was holding a campaign fund-raising event...

Mildred Loving followed her heart and made history

Posted on May 06, 2008
Mildred Loving and her husband, Richard, refused to accept Virginia's ban on interracial marriage. They took their case to the U.S. Supreme Court, which in 1967 struck down similar laws across the country.Mildred Loving, a black woman whose challenge to Virginia's ban on interracial marriage led to a landmark Supreme Court ruling striking down such laws nationwide, has died...

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Florida is No. 1 (again) in violence against the homeless

Posted on April 30, 2008
Florida led the nation in the number of attacks on the homeless for the third year in a row, according to a report released Tuesday by the National Coalition for the Homeless.With 31 attacks in 2007, Florida had more than any other state in the country...

With no direction home

Posted on April 27, 2008
The deadline has been extended since this notice was posted.Homeless people have lived in woods on the west side of Orlando for as long as anyone can remember, surviving on disability checks, military pensions or odd jobs.Now at least 60 homeless people will have to find another place...

St. Pete shelter for homeless to stay open

Posted on April 26, 2008
A temporary shelter and assistance center for homeless people in St. Petersburg that was scheduled to close at the end of the month will remain open through the summer, but on a smaller scale.With $200,000 from private donors, Pinellas Hope will stay open through Sept...

'Bum Bot' fights the homeless

Posted on April 25, 2008
Rufus Terrill runs bar in downtown Atlanta called O'Terrill's. He's had it with drug dealers, vandals, prostitutes, and the homeless, so he built the "Bumbot."Read the USA Today article here.Seems like a publicity stunt to me. (On that level, it sure is working...

Gainesville's homeless services center on hold again

Posted on April 24, 2008
Gainesville commissioners voted to rezone a warehouse to allow a homeless services center, which would provide meals, counseling, job training, housing assistance, showers and limited medical services.But they also seemed to be in agreement that the warehouse isn't the best location for the center and directed the city attorney to "go slow" with the next step of the process, which is drafting an ordinance for the land use, while the city considers alternative locations...

Think lawmakers in Tallahassee don't hear your ideas?

Posted on April 23, 2008
Jack Davis of Miami Shores is congratulated by Gov. Charlie Crist after the signing of a law that allows restaurants to donate leftover food to the homeless.Photo by The St. Petersburg TimesThink lawmakers in Tallahassee don't hear your ideas? Don't tell that to 11-year-old Jack Davis...

I gotta ask ...

Posted on April 22, 2008
Why is the Florida Department of Transportation paying to be a sponsor of the Orlando Magic playoff games?I'm a huge Magic fan and I'm thrilled that they're in the playoffs, but every day there's another report about essential services being cut because Florida's budget is so tight...

More guilty verdicts for "hit-and-run grannies"

Posted on April 21, 2008
An elderly woman was convicted Monday of the last two counts in a murder-for-profit scheme which authorities said targeted homeless men and earned millions of dollars.Olga Rutterschmidt, 75, was convicted of first-degree murder and conspiracy to murder for financial gain in the death of Paul Vados, 73...

Foreclosure City

Posted on April 19, 2008
Want to see what's happening in the housing market via foreclosures? Here's a map of the Orlando market.

Charges dropped for homeless man who flashed toy gun while panhandling

Posted on April 17, 2008
A felony robbery charge has been dropped, freeing a homeless man accused of flashing a realistic-looking toy gun before asking a patron in a San Francisco laundry for 50 cents to buy a can of beer.A jury had deadlocked 8-4 in favor of acquitting Stephen Quiles, and a mistrial was declared...

City's rules for clearing homeless camps goes farther than most but still draws fire

Posted on April 16, 2008
Seattle crews have razed six homeless encampments so far this year while the city developed rules for the controversial sweeps.The new rules call for at least three days' notice before forcing homeless people from unauthorized tent encampments and an opportunity to later retrieve some of their seized property...

Jury reaches some verdicts in "hit-and-run grannies" case

Posted on April 16, 2008
Jurors submitted some verdicts to the judge in a sealed envelope before retiring for the day in the murder-for-profit trial of two elderly women.They also asked the court what happens if they are not unanimous on one of the criminal counts involving the deaths of two homeless men...

Jurors deliberate fate of "hit-and-run grannies"

Posted on April 15, 2008
Jurors are deliberating the fate of two elderly women accused of killing homeless men to collect insurance money, after a prosecutor said the women had gone "out of their way to target men who had nothing."Helen Golay, 77, and Olga Rutterschmidt, 75, are accused of befriending two homeless men, taking out life insurance policies on them, and then collecting on those policies by killing the men in hit-and-run accidents...

Panhandling for 50 cents or a robbery?

Posted on April 12, 2008
A jury deadlocked on whether to convict a homeless man of robbery after he flashed a toy guy moments before asking a patron in a laundromat for 50 cents to buy a can of beer.The jury deadlocked 8 to 4 in favor of acquitting Stephen Paul Quiles, a 42-year-old homeless man with a long history of misdemeanor convictions, of a felony robbery charge that could bring him up to five years in prison...

Police say homeless man is a suspect in his own beating

Posted on April 02, 2008
A St. Augustine man who was severely beaten and left unconscious at a homeless camp last week remains on life-support and in a coma. Two different versions emerged about what actually happened that night to Mark Moynihan, 45, a carpenter and house painter...

The preach goes on

Posted on April 01, 2008
Members of the Street Church Ministry say they're victims of religious persecution by the city as it attempts to get an injunction barring them from gathering in parks to feed the homeless while exercising their faith.But now street preacher Art Pawlowski can continue his public ministry for at least another 17 days...

As jobs vanish and prices rise, food stamp use nears record

Posted on March 31, 2008
Driven by a painful mix of layoffs and rising food and fuel prices, the number of Americans receiving food stamps is projected to reach 28 million in the coming year, the highest level since the program began in the 1960s.Florida is one of six states which saw recipient numbers rise more than 10% from December 2006 to December 2007...

Homeless drop-in centers advance in fits and starts

Posted on March 31, 2008
A Homeless Access Center, offering job and housing search assistance, financial assistance, and possibly medical and legal aid, is in the works in Riverside, California. The City Council approved plans to spend $1.1 million to acquire a 6,128-square foot commercial building and convert it into a multi-service homeless center...

Homeless man testifies that he nearly fell victim to "hit-and-run grannies'

Posted on March 29, 2008
A few years ago, a stranger made Jimmy Covington an irresistible offer.He was sitting on the steps of an office building when an elderly woman approached him. She offered Covington, who was living on the streets, a place to stay. And if he just filled out some paperwork, she could get him $2,000 in benefits within a month...

The handwriting is on the wall for Orlando's homeless-feeding law

Posted on March 27, 2008
Orlando's restrictions on feeding the homeless in public parks don't seem to serve any purpose other than spreading the problem around and discouraging the homeless from showing up, a federal judge said Wednesday.U.S. District Judge Gregory Presnell made his opinion known while hearing arguments from a city lawyer, who wants a lawsuit challenging Orlando's homeless-feeding rules thrown out...

Settlement in lawsuit over boy without arms and legs

Posted on March 25, 2008
Carlitos' mother said that pesticides sprayed in adjacent Ag-Mart fields drifted and reached her and other workers. She also said she was forced to work in freshly sprayed fields and had suffered sore throat, burning eyes and headaches from the chemicals...

What if a disease killed hundreds of thousands of people at an average age of 48?

Posted on March 24, 2008
You know what would happen. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would jump to attention and commit enormous resources to curing it. The National Institutes of Health would grant millions of dollars for research. Scientists who developed effective treatments would rightly be celebrated...

Orlando leads the nation in empty houses

Posted on March 22, 2008
Orlando has the highest homeowner vacancy rate in the United States, with 7.4% of its housing stock unoccupied in 2007, The Wall Street Journal reports.Other Florida cities aren't far behind: Tampa-St. Petersburg (5.1%), Jacksonville (4.6%), and Miami-Ft...

Church has a constitutionally protected right to shelter the homeless, city legal staff says

Posted on March 22, 2008
A city has no legal authority to impose demands on the Catholic Church over its operation of a homeless shelter, lawyers for Green Bay, Wisconsin, have concluded. The city can't close the shelter or fine it for operating without permission, the lawyers said...

Not the typical murder weapon viewing

Posted on March 22, 2008
Jurors had to kneel down and even lie on their stomachs to get a good look at the 1999 Mercury Sable station wagon that two 70-something women are accused of using to kill a homeless man so they could collect his life insurance.Prosecutors say the car killed Kenneth McDavid...

Witness: I sold the car to "hit-and-run granny"

Posted on March 21, 2008
A former car salesman testified that he sold a Mercury Sable station wagon to one of the "hit-and-run grannies" accused of using the car to kill a homeless man in a murder-for-life-insurance scheme.Although it doesn't sound like he was the greatest witness, the man was the first eyewitness to tie Olga Rutterschmidt, 75, to the car that prosecutors say was the murder weapon in the death of Kenneth McDavid, 50, in an alley in West Los Angeles in 2005...

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