While the legal challenges to the City's sharing ban trudges on, not much has been done to stop the other homeless hate laws. This is despite the fact that cities such as Miami & Gainesville both rejected laws last month similar to Fort Lauderdale's camping ban, which passed in September without much of a ruckus.
One participant in the homeless hate regime that has not had an easy 2015 is the FLPD (and a host of other Broward County police departments), who have been riddled with scandals, indictments, and resignations for months now.
Another major change for the homelessness struggle in the area is the closure of COSAC/ Homeless Voice. While Sean Cononie's exodus took dozens of homeless people to their new "pay-what-you-can" motel project in Central Florida, many chronically homeless people in the Hollywood area are basically shit out of luck. Hollywood PD's homeless outreach program painted a rosy picture of the transition, claiming that ultimately only 9 people " would not or could not move out of Hollywood." No new facilities or services are being created in Broward County to replace The Homeless Voice building, and Hollywood plans to turn it into more overpriced stores and condos. In other news more food has come to downtown in the form of #payitfwdftl, a project for customers of participating businesses can pitch into donations to homeless people. Slice Pizzeria next to the downtown library has already given away hundreds of slices of pizza in the past 2 weeks. There's also a project to pass on prepaid cards at the Broward Blvd Laundromax.
So welcome to year 2!
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