Florida Couple Fined, Threatened with Jail for Feeding Homeless

[baja]

Florida couple who retired from their management jobs to care for the poor vowed Monday to wage a tenacious legal fight days after being fined more than $300 each for violating a local law.

Debbie and Chico Jimenez openly admit committing the act that earned them two citations apiece: feeding more than 100 people who are homeless in Daytona Beach.

Police in Daytona Beach also threatened them with arrest and incarceration, if they offer any more of their home-cooked meals at Manatee Island Park, a gathering the Jimenezes say they’ve hosted every Wednesday for the past year.

“The worst thing is, these are people we have grown to love, they've become like family to us, and now we’re not allowed to go down and do that anymore. It's just heartbreaking. I have cried and cried and cried,” said Debbie Jimenez, 52, a retired auto parts store manager. She and her husband, 60, a retired construction manager, operate New Smyrna Beach-based ministry called “Spreading the Word Without Saying a Word.”

“One of our (homeless) friends said that Wednesday is just not going to be Wednesday anymore,” Debbie Jimenez added. “We were given 10 days to either pay the fine or tell them we're going to court. We’re going to court. The police don’t like it. But how can we turn our backs on the hungry? We can’t.”

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/...meless-n103786

[barryr]

They got tired waiting for Obama to do it.

[cutthemdown]

I volunteer at a homeless shelter quite often. In our city we have a couple parks the homeless like to conggregate in, sleep in and sometimes people go to feed them there. The police try to stop them. The reason being if you do that it turns the place into homeless park and that isn't fair for the residents nearby.

The reason many homeless won't go to shelters is they have rules on drugs and alcohol just for starts. So they don't mind a free mean but staying and sleeping, following the rules isn't going to happen.

[Guess Who]

"They were told (the previous Wednesday) that if they come back there, they would be cited and they could risk going to jail," Chitwood said. "There is a segment of the homeless population that is homeless by choice. I don't want to impugn them all. But some are homeless because they are sex offenders, substance abusers and bank robbers.

WTF,,, Bank robbers... where did that come from HAHAHAH


Why don't the police just coordinate with this family and be there when they are doing this? Police suck, they really do. I don't have much respect for most of them.