Hundreds Line Up for Government Handouts, Meet Riot Police Instead
March 13th, 2008Via: Palm Beach Post:
A crowd of more than 500 people waiting for hours this morning for housing voucher applications were dispersed by police in riot gear at the Boca Raton Housing Authority when the applications ran out sooner than expected.
The action prompted complaints that officers used excessive tactics and housing authority officials were incompetent in their planning.
Two people were arrested and six to eight people hospitalized for exhaustion during the ordeal.
Hundreds of people, mostly mothers who had spent more than eight hours in line, were forced to leave the property at 2333 W. Glades Road by 30 Boca Raton Police officers, including SWAT team members, who walked toward the crowd in unison holding their police shields up about 10:30 a.m.
“Leave or face arrest,” police officers shouted at the crowd as they urged them out of the housing authority parking lot. People were made to leave the vicinity altogether, with officers forcing them to cross the street and move toward their cars.
The overwhelming turnout of people desperate for housing money came as little surprise to Suzanne Cabrera, president of the Housing Leadership Council of Palm Beach County.
“This is an indication that housing it’s still a huge problem,” Cabrera said this afternoon. “It’s a reflection of people’s concern for housing, their uncertainty. I got people today asking me: was this my last chance to get housing I can afford?”
Several other things, such as mortgage foreclosures and high gas prices, are contributing to that feeling of insecurity and desperation, she said.
So whenever word gets out that voucher applications are being handed out, which she said doesn’t happen very often, people get full of hope.
Research Credit: GT
This story brings tears to my eyes.
This is the first of many similar stories to come.
I better buck up and stop crying.
Do what I can do to help.
Realize I can’t save the world.
Really wish I could.
How many habitat for humanity homes at retail could be bought … in depreciated dollars at that … for 3 trillion dollars ?
We aren’t supposed to ask that question, I know.
but …
the alternative is what ?
my friends, it is past time for us to band together for the good of all. we do not have the luxury of time.
cybele
Cybele,
How do we band together for the good of all?
Sheesh.
Even the millions of dollars that were contributed to help tsunami victims, New Orleans, etc. was vacuumed up by the Red Cross and diverted into some hellhole of government suck-it-up-into-oblivion that fed the FEMA and other parasites that have found a way to divert dollars and cents, or whatever currency it is in towards the mouth of the great [ ]. I have no name for it- except to call it the great vacuum monster.
I for one do contribute a sum from each and every one of my paychecks to several causes from A to Z. I don’t know how this helps anyone or anything or if its just a piss in the wind.
Kevin and Becky thank me.
At least here I see that my paltry sum is appreciated.
But joining together to help the less fortunate in the US isn’t going to happen.
It will be one by one.
I will save the families of those who care for my mom as long as I am earning the big bucks.(yuk, yuk, yuk)
These people have built up a great moral energy.
Those are the types of people and organizations I will support as long as I am able to.
well, i agree with you about targeted giving. The problem with public charities is that they are designed to get people to give money to them for the wrong reasons. It is too late to fund things when the disaster has already happened.
I have tried to give money and expertise to those who would at least try to profit from what I have given. I know K & B will use what I gave intelligently.
Imagine what 10 more people like them could do ? 100 ? 1000?