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11:00 AM, Hot Topics; Unsheltered: Criminalized and Cast Aside
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Hot Topics Luncheons
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LUNCHEON & PROGRAM
As more residents of Central Florida are forced from their homes by rising rents and other factors, they also now are threatened with arrest if they camp on public property. The League of Women Voters of Orange County hosts a March 12 panel discussion of this double squeeze on the homeless population — “Unsheltered: Criminalized and Cast Aside” — and a new collaboration of news media formed to cover recent developments.
Doors open at 10:30 a.m. at the Winter Park Events Center for a buffet lunch. The discussion starts at 11:45 a.m. at 1050 W. Morse Blvd. in Winter Park and ends at 1 p.m. Tickets are $30 for League members, $37 non-members. Register at www.LWVOC.org/HotTopics
Mark Brewer, president and CEO of the Central Florida Foundation, will moderate. Panelists include Martha Are, CEO of the Central Florida Commission on Homelessness and the Homeless Services Network of Central Florida; Zeynep Portway, executive director of the Samaritan Resource Center, and Lilly Hernández Caraballo, a journalist with Central Florida Public Media who covers housing and homelessness.
The region is facing a shortage of shelter beds and low-cost housing, in addition to the impact of a new state law that allows local residents, business owners and the state attorney general to sue cities and counties that fail to enforce camping bans. About two dozen homeless people have been arrested and booked into Orange County Jail for sleeping on public property since Jan. 1, a sharp increase. Only 19 people were arrested for the violation in the previous six months. The arrests have been criticized as unnecessarily criminalizing homeless people who have no other options and forcing them out of sight and out of mind.
The situation also has inspired a unique journalism collaboration between 10 Central Florida news outlets to tell the stories behind the issue. Judith Smelser, president and general manager of Central Florida Public Media, is the driving force that led to the regional news collaborative, the first of its kind. Other members include the Oviedo Community News, the Orlando Sentinel, WKMG-TV, WUCF, Lakeland’s LKLDNow, the Osceola News Gazette, Orlando’s The Community Paper, Winter Garden’s Vox Populi, and the Winter Park Voice.
Among the issues to be discussed:
--What are the biggest challenges to providing homeless people with shelter? Who are the new faces
of the homeless?
--Will the City of Orlando be able to open new downtown homeless shelter soon?
--What is the role of Orange County and efforts by religious organizations, nonprofits, media and
private business in easing the homeless crisis?
Hot Topics is streamed live on the League’s Facebook page Facebook and an edited version will be available on the League’s YouTube channel, League of Women Voters Orange County - YouTube.
Doors open at 10:30 a.m. at the Winter Park Events Center for a buffet lunch. The discussion starts at 11:45 a.m. at 1050 W. Morse Blvd. in Winter Park and ends at 1 p.m. Tickets are $30 for League members, $37 non-members.
Hot Topics is streamed live on the League’s Facebook page Facebook and an edited version will be available on the League’s YouTube channel, League of Women Voters Orange County - YouTube.
Visionary sponsors: Phil and Jennifer Anderson. Silver sponsors: Lyn and David Berelsman and Voting Voices — Michele Levy, Charley Williams, and Laurie and Richard Wack. Bronze sponsors: Alex and the Hon. Cynthia Mackinnon.
The League of Women Voters of Orange County, Florida, is a nonpartisan political organization that encourages the informed and active participation of citizens in government, works to increase understanding of major public policy issues, and influences public policy through education and advocacy
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