HUFFINGTON
08.19.12
TAMPA’S MAVERICK COP
haven’t done much to discourage
people from living on the streets:
On the contrary, homelessness is
on the rise in some of the cities
with the toughest statutes.
An advocacy group called the
National Coalition for the Homeless compiles a report on the
treatment of homeless people every few years, and Florida’s cities
often rank among the “meanest.”
The last time the report came out,
in 2009, St. Petersburg, Florida
came in second, after Los Angeles. A placid town of retirement
homes and beachfront restaurants, St. Pete’s lies 20 minutes
from Tampa across the glittering
bay. Between 2007 and 2009, the
city passed six new ordinances
cracking down on homelessness.
From a certain point of view,
St. Pete’s has made homelessness a crime, and homeless people
are afraid that Tampa may follow
its lead. Last fall, a proposed ban
against panhandling appeared before the Tampa city council. One
councilwoman, Mary Mulhern,
told a local paper she was worried
about “criminalizing poverty.”
“I just morally couldn’t do that,”
she said.
Hers was the one dissenting
vote. The ordinance passed by a
measure of six to one, and panhandlers now face a fine or a jail sentence of up to a year. The general
feeling among the homeless seems
to be that the council wanted to
“clean up” the city before the big
political convention came to town.
“The streets kinds of knew it was
coming,” one activist said.
Some observers describe the
proliferation of laws of this sort
as a response to the failures of
the country’s social services systems. A little more than 10 years
ago, hundreds of agencies and advocacy groups around the country made a bold promise—with
enough funding and political support, they would effectively end
homelessness in America by the
end of the decade.
Led by the National Alliance
To End Homelessness, they asked
for $2 billion a year from the federal government, and pressed the
government to close the “front
door to homelessness” by fixing programs like Medicaid and
welfare. The Bush administration
embraced the idea of a “10-year
plan” and required local community groups to come up with their
own versions. Ten years later,