LEADS

Seeking Shelter

            Mayor Datolli will introduce a new panhandling ordinance to city council next week. The new program will provide the option of a safe ride for those in need of a home to out-of-town family members.

            Local businessmen have become quite upset with the local vagrants being a major deterrent for their businesses. Complaints have been recognized as the seemingly never-ceasing and inappropriate actions of homeless people have gained attention to more than just the businessmen themselves.

            It has been reported that the panhandlers of downtown have been eating, urinating, and sleeping just about everywhere within the area, gaining the city unwanted attention and blemishing its reputation. One might say “they may have nowhere else to go,” but talks of a new ordinance may say otherwise.

            Businessmen are not the only ones who have noticed the problem; Mayor Datolli also realizes the harm being done. Today she announced that next week a new ordinance to deal with the panhandlers will be launched, providing one-way-bus tickets to vagrants’ out-of-town family members, if they so choose.

            However, some critics of this new ordinance say that it is inhumane. One critic, Sandra Ganfolf, says that it is heartless, that they should be provided with help in other ways, such as creating ways to feed and shelter the homeless, provide job assistance, substance abuse counseling, and even mental health treatment. Prior actions have proven ineffective; charging them with indecent exposure and shoplifting, making for over populated jails, a court system work overload, and even when all is said and done, the now-criminal homeless people of downtown wind up back on the streets.

            The downtown businessmen have promised to fund the optimistic resolution for our city, providing all of the money necessary for the bus tickets. 

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