Friday, February 26, 2010

Bad Idea for the Homeless and the City

As I was reading the news I came across a news article from Miami Today News and that it brought up something I remembered last year as I was walking toward downtown and the article was called "No free lunch: Miami to vote on licensing feeding of homeless" so I started reading the article:
A proposed Miami ordinance that would make it illegal for unauthorized persons or groups to feed the homeless downtown won a vote of support last week from directors of Miami's Downtown Development Authority.

As I read it I started thinking about me walking to downtown last year as I past the City Hall located at 444 SW 2nd Avenue I notice a car with the trunk up and some people standing around it and I also noticed other people walking up to the car and the people there were handing out some food. There were way too many people living on the streets and were without the basic, food to eat.

I went over the car and asked what was going on? The guy told me that he has been coming here handing out food for the people that needed it. He told me that he has been doing this for awhile. I asked him how did you get the money to do this. He told me at that time he was paying for all the food himself. His wife, daughter, and he bought the food and at home made the sandwiches every Saturday morning and then load the car up and come here in the afternoon to give them to the people that had nothing to eat. He also gave out a copy of the bible which he buys and gives to the people to read.

As I was talking to Steve, right now I do not remember his last name but I do have is website: Surrender40 "Reaching out to the homeless, the sick and the prisoner through God's Love". The others were his wife and his daughter helping out giving food to the people. It’s not the just giving out the food, there is a lot of work that goes into getting the food ready for the homeless. The day that I met Steve and his family they were giving out sandwiches and it takes time to make all of them along with the cost too. I really like what Steve and his family is doing for the homeless people even when the local government has failed at this and many other things too. A person without food and homes to live in is a major failure of our governments.

Steve told me that the problem is overwhelming here in Miami. I agree with him as I walk through downtown and I live not far from it. I come across homeless people all the time each and every day. Now the City Commissioners want to charge people like Steve and his family that take money out of their own pockets and make them pay for a permit along with putting up portable toilets and have some way of cleaning up the streets. I think that there should be some way of cleaning up the streets but the City should clean up their own mess first before even thinking about having people like Steve pay all this extra money doing a job that was created by the City of Miami, Miami-Dade County, State of Florida, Federal Government, and Justice System
Madoff defrauded many people out of money and the government had tax payer money paying inspectors to make sure that would never happen to people. Allen Stanford was another failed paid regulators that did nothing until everyone was defrauded out of their money. There are laws and tax paid inspectors that regulate the Mortgage Industry and nothing was done to correct that before everything came crashing down which has caused many people to become homeless and now they want to charge good people trying to help these people. This is a shame and a disgrace. Besides the Mortgage Regulators failed to do their job caused the largest meltdown since the Great Depression. So instead of charging people that help they should charge the people that cause the problem in the first place, Failed Salary Paid City Officials and Inspectors out of their own pockets since the taxpayers has already paid them to do a job and they failed.
I walk on SW 3rd Avenue from 9th Street North toward the Jose Marti Park I come upon, I believe SW 3rd Street where the City just redid the sidewalks and curbs by the Miami River. Nobody uses the street and it is thrashed out with the weeds growing up and nobody takes care of it. I could be wrong but I think is because of the cuts in the City Budget. So to make up for this shortfall the City is trying to put extra taxes on people that are doing the City job of making sure that the Homeless People have jobs so they can eat and have a place to live. This is wrong. There are many streets around the river that have been redone and are thrashed out after they spent millions of tax payer dollars making it look nice. The City is not maintaining the streets that they just fixed and then they have the nerve to say: "The trash, rats and feces have gotten to the level that it needs the attention of the city commission and the authority.” The problem is that this is a very old problem that the City has neglected for years and now wants to blain it all on the people feeding the homeless. That problem has been there for years and has been neglected by the city for years and years, not the people feeding the homeless.

I like what Surrender 40 is doing and the City Commissioners should attend to fixing what caused the problem in the first place, City, County, State, and Federal internal working structure, jobs, the Judicial System, would all be a good start instead of messing with people that already have enough problems. The homeless people do not need more problems cause by more government stupidity.

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