Florida man fined for feeding the homeless by Jonell Williams, 2nd Period

     Arnold Abbot, a 90 year old Florida man was charged with a $500 fee and possible jail time because he feed the homeless in a South Florida Park. A police officer demanded he put his plate down, "...like I had a weapon" Abbot added. Abbot is not the only one facing charges and possible jail time for breaking the recent ordinance banning public food sharing; two pastors in Fort Lauderdale, Florida were in the same position for "publicly sharing food", but Abbot is the only one out of the three to sue the city in 1999 previously for banning him from feeding the homeless on the beach-- and win. Abbot does not plan to back down now and stop his Love Thy Neighbor nonprofit since 1991 from continuing and even states with conviction, "I'm not afraid to go to jail. I'm not looking to go, but if I have to, I will,". Even though, Jack Seiler the major of Forth Lauderdale defended the law , "I'm not satisfied with having a cycle of homeless in city of Fort Lauderdale and providing them with a meal and keeping them in that cycle on the street is not productive." Abbot remained headstrong and stated firmly that onWednesday he'll be at Fort Lauderdale Beach, ready to serve another meal.
     The article I got my primary information from was written by Kevin Conlon and Catherine E. Shoichet. The purpose of the article in my opinion was to inform on the obvious wrongness of the recently passed ordinance on public food sharing and how the officials in Fort Lauderdale deal with homelessness. By keeping men and women from being feed they can magically encouraged them to not indulge in homeless behavior and become appropriate citizens. Well what's "not productive" is keeping people from being fed because they do not own a home and can't make a steady income. Homelessness at times is almost treated like a disease, not everybody that is homeless chose to be homeless. Circumstance is a great factor and the treatment of the problem at hand was shortly thought out and not encouraging of the right things such as psychological help, education, job hunting or medical treatment. The article was published on November 2, 2014.

 1. http://www.cnn.com/2014/11/04/justice/florida-feeding-homeless-charges/index.html?hpt=us_c2

2. http://www.sun-sentinel.com/local/broward/fort-lauderdale/fl-homeless-feeding-citations-20141102-story.html ----> another article dealing with the same story. Informative.