Our County Council has set a similar deadline. Claiming they will end homelessness by housing every single homeless person by December of this year, they conveniently are seeking to pass laws criminalizing homelessness, in an apparent scheme to drive the homeless away - - to make it appear they were successful.
But what's so interesting about the British case, is that Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead Council leader Simon Dudley's talking points are almost identical to those of our Montgomery County Council. "A large number of adults that are begging in Windsor are not in fact homeless," Dudley wrote to police, "and if they are homeless they are choosing to reject all support services ... In the case of homelessness amongst this group, it is therefore a voluntary choice.”
The Montgomery County Council, during their last attempt to pass the panhandling law, claimed that the homeless asking for money in Montgomery County are actually "professional panhandlers" who travel here from outside the County each day. They provided no evidence to support their claim. A national non-profit organization condemned the County's proposal at that time, writing that the Council was trying to "criminalize homelessness."
Similarly, homeless advocates in Windsor blasted Dudley for his claims. “For someone to ask for loose change, your self-esteem is at its lowest," Murphy James of the Windsor Homelessness Project told The Guardian. "No one does this from choice. We shouldn’t be demonising these people, but asking them what we can do to help.”
A public hearing will be held on the panhandling ban on January 30 at 1:30 PM at the County Council Office Building.
This article can be reduced to two sentences, only one of which relates to Montgomery County.
ReplyDelete1) The British are trying to oust the homeless from the vicinity of Windsor Castle during the royal wedding in May. (Windsor Castle is not in Montgomery County. It is not in Maryland. It is not in the United States. It is not in North America.)
2) The Montgomery County Council is considering a bill that would prohibit soliciting in the middle of roadways in the County. (Not only does it not ban panhandling everywhere, it does not even ban it from the sides of County roadways. And it includes all types of solicitation - selling flowers, collecting for charity, not just panhandling. And this is old news.)
8:11: You don't have a clue, and need to go back and read my whole article again to get up to speed. This is new news, by the way, concerning a new law before the Council this term.
ReplyDeleteThe only "new news" I can find about Montgomery County in this article, is that a hearing date for the bill has been scheduled. Everything else is just a rehash of your December 19 article, plus the completely irrelevant material about the royal wedding in Windsor.
ReplyDelete8:40: Looks like you need to read it a third time. You may notice, for example, the British guy using the same talking points as our County Council did to describe the homeless panhandling. Very relevant. Trying to hide the homeless by getting rid of them. very relevant. Get woke, or at least get Hans Riemer's dry cleaning before he fires you.
ReplyDeleteThe big question anonymous can answer: does the councilman like extra starch in his shirts?
ReplyDeleteDyer, you're an idiot if you think that Montgomery County's proposed ban on soliciting in roadways somehow inspired proposal to completely sweep the area around London's Windsor Castle of homeless people.
ReplyDeleteThe world does not revolve around Montgomery County or its Council.
The world does not revolve around Westbard.
The world does not revolve around your insane obsession with Hans Riemer.
You are an idiot.
Hmm, they BOTH use the talking points that have been bandied around since at least 2008.
ReplyDeleteoooh...very revealing...they can read...scandalous
Google professional panhandlers...see? a valid point
Getting the homeless off the streets AKA helping the homeless
How easy for people who have means po think asking for money is soul-crushing. For those without means, it's no big deal. Ask them.
What do you have against helping the bindle stiffs?
its freezing out there as well. "criminalizing" homelessness is a step to help them as well. If it's not a criminal act to sleep on a corner when its -20 then we'll be picking up bodies in the morning like in Monty Python's Quest for the Holy Grail
ReplyDeleteIf its a misdemeanor they can be moved inside to police stations and released in the morning. No judge is going to fine these people for it since they won't pay anyway. They'll never see a judge its better to think of it as charity forced on them so we don't have to pick them up in the am.
What happened to I don't use clickbait titles like Bethesda Beef? They use Trump, 13 Reasons Why to bump up clicks, yet you just used the royal wedding, which has absolutely less to do with Bethesda than Trump and 13 Reasons Why. If anything, they showed how those events were affecting Bethesda, your article was just a hot jumbled mess.
ReplyDelete^^ This ^^
ReplyDelete"This is a political attack unprecedented in the DC region. The only journalist who dares to criticize the corrupt MoCo Council, Planning Board and certain developers is attacked, harassed, threatened, persecuted. Combined with the attack on my Twitter last week, this is a powerful commentary on just how immense corruption in Montgomery County is.
ReplyDeleteAll the many hours I spend helping the community, with no financial compensation, and I have to take this kind of abuse. Unreal.
I don't know who you are, you've threatened me before. But Robert Dyer doesn't quit. My site will continue to publish despite these Communist China style attempts at political persecution by the MoCo cartel."
^^ This ^^
ReplyDeleteFoolish Dyer - you can’t make fun of the homeless in your comments calling readers hobos and then post a story like this.
ReplyDelete