At Tuesday night's commission meeting, Katie McGiveron spoke about her 80 something year old mother being accosted by a Homeless person while on her way into church. People are approached by the Homeless every day in downtown Lake Worth. You see them crossing the street to hit on someone. They flock to the sidewalk cafes where people are easy marks. You see them sitting or laying on benches right in front of our city hall.
Ms. McGiveron made a statement that the Homeless is a growing problem...when she visits Palm Beach she doesn't see the homeless there. When she visits Delray, she doesn't see the Homeless there either. We know that there is a big homeless population in Palm Beach County but the fact that she doesn't encounter them in other cities wasn't really her point. Her point was that in our downtown and in our Bryant Park, they are everywhere and people are being harassed and stores are being looted and Lake Worth does not seem to be taking any sort of pro-active approach to help eradicate the problem.
Just recently Delray decided to do something about the homeless as it was getting a lot of complaints from residents especially along Atlantic Avenue. Their police are now passing out information that will assist them on groups that can help. They are off the hook on the first offense but if they are caught doing it again, they will be arrested. Their idea is to help people be brought back into society-- help them rather than to just remove them as chronic nuisances.
There are over 3,000 homeless people on any given day in Palm Beach County. According to statistics, most of them are homeless because of no job and/or lack of affordable housing. You always have a percentage who don't want to work at all. Our weather entices them. People are always talking about wanting better paying jobs here in Lake Worth but these people just need a job, period, so that they can afford one of our many low-cost rentals that exist here with more soon to come.
We all know that the homeless have civil rights and that it's not illegal to be homeless as Commissioner Amoroso clearly stated, but those rights do not extend to accosting other citizens. He said that Lake Worth was moving forward in a way that he feels will help the City of Lake Worth but he did not get specific or give any examples as to what they are considering. We need ordinances that ban aggressive panhandling or soliciting of any kind in the downtown area and in or around Bryant Park. Solving this on-going problem is a worthy goal in order to help the homeless as well as to benefit all the visitors and residents to this city.
Fresno, California has an ordinance that says panhandlers now can be fined up to $1,000 or be sent to jail for 6 months if they ask for money or use aggressive tactics in places prohibited by their ordinance. The Palm Beach County Commission passed a law banning all activity on county medians. Here, they don't hang out on medians and we have such a liberal population that people would argue a law such as Fresno's would be unconstitutional as it would be targeting one group of people. I can see the demonstrations now.
Perhaps our legal eagle team can look into a solution (anti-loitering/panhandling law?) to help diminish this problem instead of getting lectures from the dais on the homeless' civil rights or spending taxpayer money in taking on the Supervisor of Elections.
10 comments:
Hi, Katie Mcgiveron here. Commissioner Amaroso's reply to me was arrogant, rude and VERY CONDESCENDING. OF COURSE the homeless have rights. That was not my point! My point was that no one is going to want to shop in downtown Lake Worth if they are approached by aggressive panhandlers at every turn. What is going to happen when the Gulfstream opens? There was not ONE WORD of concern for our merchants ,or the people getting hit on by the bums, from our Commission. This Commission gets giddy when talking about Lake Worth as "an arts destination". When was the last time our Commission really took a good long look at our downtown? And no, I don't mean in between drinks at Dave's . Maybe Commissioner Amaroso likes the bums better than the struggling business owners.Maybe he envisions a future Lake Worth with nothing but bars and porn shops,along with some Kava dens and Vape stores thrown in for variety.I have not seen homeless people in Palm Beach or in downtown Delray. However, I was at those places during daylight hours, unlike(from what I've been told ) a blogger from Wes Blackman's site that was in a Delray back alley at 2 A.M. Rumor has it that his good friend Wes was riding shotgun during that interlude.
I have worked in Delray for over 33 years and lived there for 28 (and regret leaving). The homeless problem there is no where near what it is used to be. There used to be a tragic soul who hung out near the downtown beach area-his face half-eaten away by cancer. It was sad, but many people avoided that area so they wouldn't have to see him or his buddies. That was great for business. In the mid 90s several businesses left downtown because of the homeless.
I'm not sure what kind of art scene LW is trying to attract, exactly.
LW is too strict about some things and amazingly lax about others. This is what keeps the artsy people I know from coming here. They're looking at some of the up-and-coming central Florida towns instead.
I feel bad for the businesses in Lake Worth. A citizen has the guts to step forward and tell the politicians about a problem and instead of thanking the person, they disrespect them. I watched the tape and could not believe what Amaroso said.If I owned a business here I would cut my losses and leave town now.This Commission cares more about the pervs and drunks wandering our streets than the people who pay rent.
Last time we ate outside at Dave's (a couple of weeks ago for lunch on a Sat.) we were harassed by a homeless person. Clearly other towns have problems too, WPB has a big homeless population and I've been accosted there as well. I'm sure Delray has homeless too, although I've not been hassled there. It is clear that Palm Beach has solved their homeless problem if they every have one.
Of course homeless have rights, but what about citizens, do we have rights. I've been accosted by homeless at the cultural plaza, in Bryant park, at Snook Island, in my own home (they bang on the door looking for hand outs after they hit the churches for feedings). I'd like to be able to go to the park with my child and not be afraid. Maybe Andy thinks the homeless' rights are superior to mine, but I'd say that since I pay taxes and pay for upkeep at the park that I ought to have more rights to use it than the homeless. Is that harsh, perhaps.
I'm surprised that Andy as a downtown business owner doesn't see the negative impact on his business by these folks. I won't go to the 7-11 anymore on Federal as I don't feel safe there. I won't go to the CVS on Lucerne either, I'd assume these business would care and take steps.
We clearly have a problem, it would be nice if our elected officials spent as much time on crime and the related issues (including the homeless) as they did on LW2020.
One comment by Katie the great and three anonymous comments. Got to stir the pot somehow. Attack the downtown merchants -attack the commissioners
And now we have the fourth comment by "anonymous the great." Way to go for missing the point. You guys really don't miss the point, and that's really the problem.
Attack the downtown merchants ? What the hell ? Katie was trying to protect the downtown merchants.It was Commissioner Amaroso who attacked the downtown merchants in favor of all the homeless bums !
How in the world do aggressive homeless help the downtown merchants? People don't feel safe coming to downtown LW b/c they get solicited, eating outside, something that should be enjoyable feels unsafe, going to the park or the library feels unsafe. I'm surprised that Andy doesn't see the negative impacts of these folks on his own business.
9:12 stay home scaredy cat, the homeless are gonna get ya!
That is exactly what people do, they stay home. How does that benefit downtown biz?
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