Epic Filibuster, Vigil Keeps The Focus On Homelessness

As the fall session of the Fort Lauderdale City Commission convened, the actions of the City's public officials couldn't help but dog them.

War On The Homeless: Jaywalking Blitz Edition

FLPD ticketing jaywalkers next to Stranahan Park (from Invisible People FtL)

Homeless advocates couldn't even get to the Commission without being caught up in the City's discriminatory tactics towards the homeless - Broward Boulevard was turned into a giant jaywalking trap! Coincidentally focused on the exact areas that homeless people live in downtown, FLPD was handing out $60 tickets to anyone who didn't strictly adhere to the crosswalk lights, including two contributors to this blog. While two officers involved insisted this was not about homelessness, none of the 3 homeless advocates that observed this procedure saw tickets being issued to anyone other than FLPD's usual targets in downtown, homeless people and young black males.

The walk-up to City Hall had another spectacular reminder of the City's mistakes coming back to haunt them; this roving billboard was parked out front. The City has made few friends this year!





Vigils and "Hijackers"

Raymond Cox, filibuster savant

It's true, without the dedication of homeless advocates this Ft Lauderdale City Commission would've been utterly forgettable, a bureaucratic tragedy. One homeless advocate described their experience as "3 1/2 hours, and nothing was addressed," although an hour was given over to talking about "pineapples." Fortunately as described by the Sun Sentinel, Raymond Cox "hijacked" the meeting, signing up to speak on every agenda item and inevitably tying them back to the City's apathetic, harmful approach to helping homeless people.

Completely separately, Fort Lauderdale Food Not Bombs was joined by congregants from the Unitarian Universalist Church of Fort Lauderdale for a silent vigil outside City Hall.

It seemed that no matter how much the City wanted to talk about spending money on swimming pools and limousines and figuring out how they could tax the internet (yes really this all was on the agenda), the City's pathetic homeless policies, which have recently been described by mainstream media outlets as "ethnic cleansing" and a "war on the homeless", just won't go away. Kudos to Raymond Cox for making sure the inhumane treatment of human beings took precedent over Olympic-size swimming pools and zoning restrictions! 

We will be back with more soon, and so will the City of Fort Lauderdale - the next commission meeting is Wednesday, 9.3.2014, and they will likely be discussing all the same homeless ordinances that they tabled at this meeting.