Homeless Confiscations - A For-Profit Enterprise

Notices and sticker tags went up on homeless property around the Stranahan Park area once again yesterday, November 29th. The notices say that the City will once again be cleaning the area tomorrow, December 1st, and anything left at 8 am that morning will be removed.

Fort Lauderdale's Storage Ban was passed in 2014 and has been used very infrequently the past few months. In fact, one of the most consistent uses of enforcement so far has been when the Women's Club of Fort Lauderdale has a wedding coming up. That's been true in prior enforcements, and it is also true this week, as there is a wedding scheduled for 4:30 this Friday inside Stranahan Park.

Matters of improper policing and class are often brought up in regards to issues surrounding Stranahan Park. The storage ban may be the clearest lesson yet - a law that is ONLY enforced when wealthy, influential people are intending to profit off of a public space,  and need the area cleared out ahead of time.

This issue has dragged on for years, and it has only gotten more ridiculous. One of our most in depth pieces on Stranahan was actually written due to the incessant rumors, spread by FLPD and Women's Club volunteers, that Stranahan wasn't a public park at all. Around the same time, the Women's Club induced the City to put a fence around the Park. Although this courtesy was not extended to any other organization that has been using the park on a regular basis for years, the Women's Club was conveniently given a key to the Park.

In another weird twist, a church group that booked the Women's Club to do a Thanksgiving sharing for the homeless last year got a rude surprise when they tried to do it again this year - a last minute call from the FLPD announcing that their sharing was cancelled. Again, we have the same group of privileged individuals, using the police to have their own event pulled because they got cold feed about having too many homeless around.

It is well past time that the Women's Club's ability to dictate how the homeless people around Stranahan are treated to end. Their ability to command the police to take away homeless people's belongings, in order for them to make a buck off a wedding, is absolutely repulsive.

Food Not Bombs Appeals Sharing Ban Case

Last week, attorneys for Fort Lauderdale Food Not Bombs filed an appeal in its effort to stop Fort Lauderdale's sharing ban law. In the original case, the judge ruled in favor of a motion for summary judgment for the defense, dismissing the case before it could head to trial. 

Food Not Bombs feels confident that the Judge's ruling did not properly reflect the group's mission to share food with the homeless as an act of protest against war and greed, which should be protected by our first amendment rights.  

Two years after the sharing ban was originally enforced against homeless advocates in downtown Fort Lauderdale, the criminal cases against food sharers are still dragging on. Closing in on nearly 3 years since city officials first announced their intent to impose a sharing ban, they still have not announced a revised sharing ban law.  

Fort Lauderdale Food Not Bombs stands in solidarity with all the people who have been affected by the City's anti-homeless laws and will continue to work towards a day where they are all repealed.