Florida Couple Fined $746 For Crime Of Feeding Homeless People

Well this is just ridiculous.

A couple in Florida was fined over 700$ for feeding poor people in a Daytona park. They run a Christian outreach group, Spreading the Word Without Saying a Word Ministry, that gives food to the needy every week, and they have been feeding the homeless and poor every weekend for over a year at this park.

On may 7th 6 cops showed up and wrote citations for the couple and four volunteers totaling over 2200$ , and if that is not enough they were also banned from the park.

What is going on in this country when they make it a crime to feed hungry people? I bet you can still feed the ducks though.

"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me:
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”

America is suppose to be better.

[After feeding the hungry in a Daytona Beach park every weekend for more than a year, it’s just as easy to imagine Chico and Debbie Jimenez given a ticker-tape parade as what they actually got: a slew of citations and a permanent ban from the park./ex]

thinkprogress.org...

a reply to: alienjuggalo


Good God Almighty, it's a sad day in Amerika when doing feeding homeless is a crime

I read where Daytona Beach is one of a handful of cities that enacted ordinances barring individuals from serving food in public.

But really... couldn't the cops just give them a verbal warning instead of serving up several citations???
Makes the cops look like azzes.....again
So much for common sense, or rather common decency
*shakes head*

Disgusting getting fined for feeding those in need ..
Would have tore up the ticket and told the police get stuffed then continued helping those in need ..

Things are seriously bolloxed when people get fined for showing compassion to others ..

a reply to: alienjuggalo

I don't like that the cops did this but do you also see the other side of the argument and why it had to be done?

OP, Have you ever owned a home by a park? Even if it had nothing but green grass and a few trees no play ground just a nice view.

Children and teenagers will still go this said park and you do not want local bums who could be former rapist or murders being in the same area.

So question for you OP.

Is if you owned a home down the street from this park. You lived in this Nieghbor hood for 15 years prior to homeless people migrating to it 1 day a week for a meal would you want them there one day a week potentially endangering the local under age populace?

a reply to: alienjuggalo
in a different thread i brought up how i couldn't universally support all freedoms because it is quite legal for me to watch someone starve to death while eating a buffet in their face and not help at all.

i didn't even imagine a situation where one would be fined if they tried to help the starving person tho.

I'm a bit confused here, and not with the OP themselves. Different sources are reporting this very differently. However, in another report, they mention...

"We've always enforced it. This got so big, it was posted on YouTube, it was really brought to our attention that, hey, things are really out of control on Manatee Island," Chitwood said.

The city recently hired a consultant to analyze the homelessness issue and leaders are preparing to set up a possible transitional housing center near the county jail. The consultant told officials that feeding the homeless only adds to the problems, but Chico Jiminez and Debbie Jiminez feel they're making things better.

Source

That can mean different things, of course, but I came across the extent of homeless services in Daytona Beach. It's pretty extensive.

Daytona Shelters and Services

Why not distribute food near one of those? I did find something else Daytona Beach could use reading tho...

Apartment rents cheaper than stays in homeless shelters

I don't know the answer, but the solutions right now aren't working so well, to say the least.

a reply to: Thiaoouba Prophecy

good grief, seriously? personally i'd join in helping feed them. we are all human beings, and as much as they might be rapists and murderers, they might also be unlucky, well educated, haven't had a break. the more i watch empathy leaving our civilisation, the more dismayed i am about it.

a reply to: Thiaoouba Prophecy

Any one can be child rapist and murderers.

I do own my home and it is near a park but no issues like this there. I would like to think I would be more tolerant of people basically having a big picnic in the park once a week.

Times are hard all over the country and more and more people are needing help. If someone wants to spend their time and money feeding hungry people who the hell is anyone else to stop them?

a reply to: Thiaoouba Prophecy

Children and teenagers will still go this said park and you do not want local bums who could be former rapist or murders being in the same area. So question for you OP. Is if you owned a home down the street from this park. You lived in this Nieghbor hood for 15 years prior to homeless people migrating to it 1 day a week for a meal would you want them there one day a week potentially endangering the local under age populace?

Wow, that is a stretch.

Homeless people = Bums = rapists + murderers and you managed to include "its for the children."

You should get a job advising the TSA

Wow, just wow!

P

This is cruel. And the homeless have never been a problem in any parks I lived near, it was the dealers from out of the neighborhood trying to pitch their crap that were. The homeless did their best to run them out. These old Nam vets, most not in their right mind as it were, had enough common sense to know that a park where the neighborhood kids and teens came to have fun was in danger of being a crime-ridden selling zone, and chased them out as soon as they tried to dig their heels in. You know what became of that park? The cops rounded up the homeless, and it became a drug park. Shootings, muggings, rapes, and dealing. None of that happened with the homeless folks keeping an eye out. Many years later, it's still a hellhole park, and for something I used to walk through on a daily basis, I'll never go back now. It's too far gone. It's not the homeless that ruin public spaces, it's the gangs, the dealers, the hardcore criminals. Not the guys without a roof.

Quite ridiculous a church group is being banned and fined for feeding the homeless, in a Christian nation. Isn't feeding the homeless exactly something the church would say follows their values, and by extension the values of this nation and the principles it was founded upon?

I'm not religious either. The hypocrisy is blatant though.

originally posted by: Thiaoouba Prophecy
a reply to: alienjuggalo

Is if you owned a home down the street from this park. You lived in this Nieghbor hood for 15 years prior to homeless people migrating to it 1 day a week for a meal

It will be awesome to see people feeding homeless in front of my house everyday of the week.

Expand your mind, your neighborhood is called Earth.

Its illegal to feed the birds in most parts of London as they are considered a pest.

Feeding homeless people though? Thats really not in the same league, birds are pests, homeless are the product of a society system that doesn't work.

Even prisoners get work pressing car plates and stuff, homeless are better off committing a crime and getting tossed in prison than being on the streets these days and thats just messed up.

a reply to: Wrabbit2000

You hit on the issue there Wrabbit. As I heard it they had been given notice on several occasions to cease and desist feeding on the weekend. The same thing happened on an occasions where I lived by the beach.

I know it seems cruel but what happens is homeless start migrating to the area many you will find passed ut on the beach latter after having their booze. Where I was living t was getting bad to the point things were being stolen off my porch all the time you couldn't go to the convenience store without being hit up for money 10 times.

I understand times are hard, but setting up at a park like that where that is at is inviting groups to take up residence nearby. I knew a guy that had an empty house at the beach that he would let homeless go take showers and get cleaned up at least, do you know many wouldn't clean themselves up. I didn't live at Daytona and I wouldn't I consider that area unsafe, but even where I lived started getting bad because as one of the homeless told me "man its the easy life here".

BTW you hear the guy in the video "he" lives at New Smyrna beach there are parks there as well, but homes there cost a bit more I guess that may factor in why he doesn't set up free food by him.

a reply to: alienjuggalo

When I read your OP, I was reminded of this:



Anyone who's taken a basic psych course should remember Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. For those who aren't familiar:
Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs


Pathetic that they fine people for providing a basic, human need; one human being to another. Makes me sick what this country is turning into and fearful there is no turning back.

a reply to: Wrabbit2000

It sounds like they want people in a system... which is odd.

There is a place for homeless to go to and take showers here (where I live); homeless people can eat (free) hot meals twice a day, do their laundry, get clothes and hair cuts and get any kind of help or charitable assistance people may need. Which is all real cool. One of the best places in town for helping homeless people.

But then they got in with some government organization who said they couldn't get anymore government assistance unless everyone who went there got a specific ID in order to go, and they took people's pictures and took down their name and any information about them such as social security numbers etc and gave them this ID card and if you didn't have the ID card you could no longer even eat there.

I thought that was seriously weird. Seems like they are doing something similar there in Daytona, wanting people in some kind of a system and not outside it in any way.

ETA:

The card they used here was a VCM ID. Here is a link that tells you about it. virtualcasemanager.com...

While it seems like a good thing on the surface, its just weird that it seems predominately about tracking people. I don't know... just weird that even homeless people need to be in a system in order to get help.

a reply to: alienjuggalo
This is a growing trend- an infuriating one at that.
I shared a thread recently about a group of people who bought land and built a camp to offer as a sanctuary to the homeless and the backlash from the bureaucrats is disgusting:

www.abovetopsecret.com...

The why of all of this is actually pretty simple and is the same reasoning that applies to pretty much all actions by government:
1) THE GOVERNMENT DOES NOT TOLERATE COMPETITION.
2) THE GOVERNMENT MUST CONSTANTLY LEGITIMIZE ITS EXISTENCE- In order to do so, it needs money which is acquired primarily through robbery (aka TAXATION), bribery (aka LOBBYING), and creating as many laws as possible with attached penalties and fines.

a reply to: Thiaoouba Prophecy

In a day and age when a large part of the population can't maintain the mandated quality of living without juggling a few minimum wage jobs, don't you think that maybe this is all a sign of the times? Ordering human beings away doesn't solve it. You essentially don't understand the problem.

Our society isn't good enough yet and for those that it does work for to close their eyes or sweep away under a rug the problems of it... Well... It resurfaces.

and America claims to be a Christian nation?

Feed the homeless - Starve the trolls!!!