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Frenchman_in_the_d
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Username: Frenchman_in_the_d

Post Number: 138
Registered: 08-2006
Posted on Monday, December 18, 2006 - 7:18 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Las Vegas cracks down on the homeless
POSTED: 2:44 p.m. EST, December 18, 2006

http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/12/ 18/vegas.homeless.ap/index.htm l

"LAS VEGAS, Nevada (AP) -- This is a boomtown, but it is also scattered with signs of bust -- namely, homeless people. And the city is taking a hard line against them.

With mixed success in the courts and on the streets, Las Vegas has tried sweeping away their encampments, closing a park where they hang out, making it a crime to feed them, even passing a ban on sleeping within 500 feet of feces.

Mayor Oscar Goodman has been leading the charge in his effort to clean up and revitalize the city's aging downtown, north of the world-famous Las Vegas Strip.

The booming Las Vegas area of 1.8 million people expands by more than 5,000 a month but also counts 14,500 homeless people.

Goodman, a former lawyer for the mob with a flair for the dramatic, said many of the homeless are ruining things for their neighbors by breaking the law while on drugs and alcohol, and "that's intolerable to me." He said the goal is to get homeless people to use shelters and other services available to the poor.

The crackdown has alarmed the homeless and their defenders.

Goodman "has the idea that every homeless person is public enemy No. 1," said Greg Malm, a 58-year-old homeless man. "He wants this city to be lily white, for the tourists."

Prison site offered

Over the years, the mayor has also proposed moving the homeless to an abandoned prison 30 miles outside the city and once accused Salt Lake City officials of busing the homeless to Las Vegas.

"The sense that to be human is to help each other out, it's under siege," said Julia Occhiogrosso, an advocate for the poor with Catholic Worker.

The current battleground is the city's public parks. Officials recently closed Huntridge Circle Park after a homeless man was killed there in a fight.

Witnesses told police the scuffle started after a man broke sprinkler heads in the park because his belongings got drenched. Another homeless man told him the damage would make the homeless look bad, witnesses said.

Park closed after stabbing

A fight broke out and the man who objected to the vandalism was stabbed to death. Four days later, officials declared the park a safety hazard and closed it.

In August, the City Council banned sleeping within 500 feet of feces not deposited in an appropriate sanitary facility. Officials said the ordinance was an administrative blunder and acknowledged that the distance between sleeper and deposit was unworkable. The law has since been repealed.

In July, Las Vegas made it illegal to feed the poor in parks -- a reaction to homeless advocate Gail Sacco's practice of bringing homemade spaghetti, vegetable soup, sandwiches and water to Huntridge Circle Park.

Before it was closed, the park had received a $1.5 million facelift. After residents complained that Sacco's free food was drawing the poor away from a neighborhood three miles away where most social services and shelters are concentrated, the City Council made it a misdemeanor punishable by a fine of up to $1,000 to feed anyone "who a reasonable ordinary person" would believe to be entitled to public assistance.

The American Civil Liberties Union challenged the ordinance, and a federal judge ruled it unconstitutional. City officials promised to rewrite the law.

'Nobody wants it in their backyard'

Sacco now brings food to the homeless in another park -- this one across the street from City Hall. On a recent afternoon, a dozen people huddled around a bucket of soup, sending steam toward the mayor's 10th-floor offices.

"Nobody wants it their backyard," Sacco said. "Obviously, there are people there who are dangerous, but they don't have to be homeless to be dangerous. And being homeless does not make you a criminal."

The mayor shows little patience for Sacco's work.

"To give a sandwich in the park doesn't do anything," Goodman said. He called advocates like Sacco "enablers crying like bleating sheep."

"I'm trying to get these people to a shelter, that's where the services take place, not in a park," he said. "I won't coddle them."

As for the park, the mayor plans to keep it closed until someone comes up with a way to curb the problems. He is not alone in his frustration.

"There's a lot of bluster, enacting policies and laws that really do nothing to solve problems," said ACLU Executive Director Gary Peck. The real problem is "a reluctance to dedicate the resources and time necessary to fixing these problems."

Goodman insisted more money and services are not necessary. He noted that the city's 400 emergency shelter beds are often not full.

"No one is turned away," he said."


How horrible. The day Detroit booms (maybe one day), I really hope we won't have a nutjob mayor literally displacing people out of the city because of their status. Reminds me of some horrendous WWII memories...
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Ray1936
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Username: Ray1936

Post Number: 983
Registered: 01-2005
Posted on Monday, December 18, 2006 - 9:31 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Why don't you invite a few into your home, Frenchman???
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Frenchman_in_the_d
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Username: Frenchman_in_the_d

Post Number: 139
Registered: 08-2006
Posted on Monday, December 18, 2006 - 11:06 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

oh so you think I'm 'pro homeless'?
I'm just saying that the solution seems a little too harsh and disproportionate...
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Dds
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Username: Dds

Post Number: 69
Registered: 10-2006
Posted on Tuesday, December 19, 2006 - 11:57 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)


quote:

I really hope we won't have a nutjob mayor literally displacing people out of the city because of their status.




Back in the late 80's and 90's that was common practice in Ann Arbor. I'm not sure what they are doing these days. You could always tell when people were rounded up because the panhandlers around campus disappeared for a week or so.

I'm also pretty sure the homeless were rounded up for the Superbowl and the All-Star game. Not necessarily shipped off, but corralled, so to speak.

And those of you who were here, confirm the rumor, but back in 1980 for the Republican National Convention, there was a similar round-up. I have heard a few friends refer to this, but I cannot offer proof to those stories.

As terrible as it sounds, there already seems to be a precedent here in Detroit and the surrounding area.
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Dabirch
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Username: Dabirch

Post Number: 1991
Registered: 06-2004
Posted on Wednesday, December 20, 2006 - 1:46 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)


quote:

And those of you who were here, confirm the rumor, but back in 1980 for the Republican National Convention, there was a similar round-up. I have heard a few friends refer to this, but I cannot offer proof to those stories.




Speaking of the 1980 convention, you should hear some stories about the Ren Cen elevator, a certain notorious former Detroit bartender, a lady they once called "the Sun Goddess", and a large collection of assorted party big wigs.
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Dds
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Username: Dds

Post Number: 73
Registered: 10-2006
Posted on Wednesday, December 20, 2006 - 3:17 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Always figured the Republicans knew how to throw a party.
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Dhugger
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Username: Dhugger

Post Number: 138
Registered: 03-2005
Posted on Wednesday, December 20, 2006 - 10:16 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Complex issue to address. I do not think we will ever have the number of homeless of say Las Vegas or Miami because we have WINTER. Those with out shelter tend to head towards warmer climates.

I know of a few people on the economic edge due to drugs & alcohol who did this relocation thing to Florida. Not such a friendly place for those in need.

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