We continue to see the homeless in Bryant park and in our downtown. Panhandling seems to be on the rise. With the unemployment numbers, it is no wonder. Some cities have actually enacted anti-homeless laws. It's now against the law to be homeless in Columbia, South Carolina. They are giving two options for the homeless.
But Columbia is not alone. This summer, Portland, Ore., and Tampa, Fla., also initiated steps to boot out their homeless. Hawaii actually has a program that will give the homeless a one way ticket out of the state. In 2006, Palm Beach County began to develop a ten year plan to end homelessness. It costs a lot to take care of them--$18 to 20 thousand a year per person.
Some of the homeless actually like their state of affairs. Palm Beach County is allocating funds to end homelessness but one homeless man spends time at the Glades Road intersection making about $20 an hour from the charity of commuters and sometimes picking up odd jobs from them. He rents a motel room downtown says, the Sun Sentinel. In recent months at John Prince Park, the homeless have been told they can only congregate in threes at the unoccupied park pavilions unless they have paid reservation--fees that cost at least $55. They say they are also being singled out and told to sit up or move along if they lay down anywhere at the park. Authorities can keep moving them along but they all come back.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development put out a study that says that five states account for nearly half of the homeless: California, New York, Texas, Georgia and Florida.
Lake Worth Homeless shelters
Beverage violation--100 BLOCK S GOLFVIEW RD--11/17/2013 9:02:00 AM This is the address that all of the homeless use in Bryant Park.
What more can we and should we be doing?...There for the grace of God.
That's good. Maybe some of the losers can get the heck out of town and hang out on Glades Rd.
ReplyDeleteWe (all tax payers) pay for homeless shelters in Palm Beach County. If someone chooses to be homeless they need to be told "Sorry, but we the residents choose for you not to be homeless in our towns and parks".
ReplyDeleteface it the city of lake worth or our leaders have no clue how to fix things--the proff----our city and whats going on in it
ReplyDeleteThe homeless issue in So. Fla. is complicated and multi-faceted, many cities struggle with the issue not just LW.
ReplyDeleteFirst, Florida has a much higher homeless population than much of the country b/c its warm and therefore much easier to be homeless down here.
Second, a very high percentage of the male homeless population suffer from mental health problems and sadly our country's mental health system is a one huge mess. Shifting from hospital to community care was supposed to save taxpayer money and improve treatment but the money did not follow to community care. It is nearly impossible to make someone take medication for an illness and that is because we live in the land of the free.
Third, services for homeless are lacking, most of the beds available are for women or families, there are very few beds available for single men.
Fourth, the homeless are attracted to areas that do provide services, here in LW we have at least two churches and one community org that are feeding the homeless. Both churches are in Parrot Cove and as a result problems in Parrot Cove relating to homeless has gone up. These churches are contributing to a problem and we as a community need to ask them to stop.
PBSO needs to do regular and repeated sweeps of parks both to make the parks safe and available for the rest of us and to enforce our laws that are already on the books. PBSO has really been non-existent in Lake Worth the couple of years, they are not doing and patrolling or working on these types of crimes.
I think the churches need to be approached and the case needs to be made that they are not really helping people by feeding them. They are enabling a lifestyle. Many of these men have mental illness. But others are ex-cons. We really can't have them hanging out all day in the park 20 feet from little kids. Really helping them would involve putting them to work, giving them something meaningful to do with their lives, and the pride of earning their own bread.
ReplyDelete