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Five reasons I'm betting the homeless meal ban will not, in fact, be enforced today.
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Five reasons I'm betting the homeless meal ban will not, in fact, be enforced today.
Before referring you, dear readers, to another post I wrote this morning explaining the same thing, I'll add, in the first person, why I think Mayor Nutter will not, in fact, enforce any homeless "feeding" ban today or anytime soon.
#1: Nutter lost the support of his only strong ally in the homeless community, Sister Mary Scullion, yesterday. Scullion had flanked Nutter when he announced the ban, and — despite the near-universal regard for her work in creating Project HOME and working to get homeless folks into house — took some heat for it. In yesterday's Council hearing on the ban, Scullion (via statement) said she could not support the enforcement of the ban, as no alternatives to the outdoor meals have since arisen.
#2: This whole thing has been all over the place since it started. Even before the ban, the city announced a separate permitting process, through the Department of Health, that would regulate — but not ban — outdoor meals. It was only later that Mayor Nutter called a hasty press conference to announce the ban of outdoor "feeding" in city parks. The proposed relocation of meals to City Hall has not taken place (the city can blame those who provided the meals, but the city itself provided only a couple of port-o-potties next to a construction site).
What's more, the ban was supposed to have gone into effect 45 days ago. June 1st only recently became the day the city would start enforcing its own ban, suggesting the date itself is arbitrary: after all. the Barnes has already opened.
#3: There isn't a mayor in America who wants to see headlines about his city issuing tickets to little old ladies for feeding homeless people — and if there is, it isn't Mayor Nutter.
#4: The city hasn't lived up to its end of the bargain, and it knows it. Mayor Nutter did appoint a task force to come up with new, better ways to provide meals, but only after announcing a ban on meals in the first place. The task force has met, but has made little to no progress so far.
#5: The last thing Mayor Nutter wants to do right now is piss off Council. Nutter's plan to move to the "Actual Value Initiative" system of property assessments (and raise $94 million for the schools in the process) is under serious fire in Philly's City Council; the mayor doesn't need to give it any fuel — potential or otherwise.
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