The City That Never Sleeps June 2014 | Page 5

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By: Anita Khan

by onecpd.info. As reported by Theeconomiccollapseblog.com, it is official that in many major cities across the country, feeding the homeless is a crime that can result in a fine or ending up in jail. Feeding the homeless on city property without a license will make you end up in the same situation as stated above. Pursuant to the laws in Houston, Texas for example, feeding the homeless is a crime that can be charged up to $500. Feeding the homeless will enable them to stay there longer because they’ll survive that much more off of what you fed them. It is illegal for regular “do-gooders” to feed the homeless and even the homeless people can be charged for taking out food from the trash because it belongs to the city. Cruel and bizarre laws are being made in order to “cut down” and “help” the homeless but it is just hurting them and increasing the homeless population. In order to get a real insight of how New Yorker’s feel about homelessness, a survey was given to 15

residents ranging from the ages of 17 to 23. Based on the results, not one survey member knew that there were laws in New York and other states banning the feeding of homeless people, or that the homeless were being arrested for sleeping in subways or how they were being kept out of shelters unless it was severely cold. According to the surveyors & statistics from homeaid.org, the main cause of homelessness in this country is because of the loss of a job. Homeless shelters even claim that many of their residents are actually people who work more than one job but still don’t make enough to pay for rent. It is evident to the citizens of this country, poor or middle class, that homelessness is becoming an insanely fast rising issue. All fifteen surveyors and researchers claim that the government and our mayor can do more to fix this predicament and the first step in order to do that is to bring attention to it and lower the homeless population in our own state.