{"id":30424,"date":"2023-02-22T11:07:19","date_gmt":"2023-02-22T16:07:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=30424"},"modified":"2023-02-22T11:07:24","modified_gmt":"2023-02-22T16:07:24","slug":"lakeland-to-restrict-groups-feeding-people-who-are-homeless-at-city-parks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2023\/02\/22\/lakeland-to-restrict-groups-feeding-people-who-are-homeless-at-city-parks\/","title":{"rendered":"Lakeland to restrict groups feeding people who are homeless at city parks"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Lakeland leaders are asking groups to stop feeding people who are homeless in public spaces.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Live music, festivals, and farmer’s markets can happen any day at Lakeland’s Munn Park. It’s also a meet-up spot for people experiencing homelessness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I’m here probably five days a week,” said Kenny Krebs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Krebs spends most of his day on the park bench, not knowing where his next meal will come from.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We depend on them to come out here and feed us,” Krebs said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“A lot of people would go hungry, and they would not have anything to eat, and they would starve,” Krebs said.               <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lakeland Mutual Aid said the need is great. The group serves food to as many as 120 people every Sunday at Munn Park.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“A combination of people who are unhoused, combination of downtown workers who aren’t being paid enough to pay for the meals that they serve everybody else. It’s a combination of people that are just working poor,” said Katie Smith with Lakeland Mutual Aid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nearby business owners said although feeding the hungry is charitable, they are left to clean up the mess.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“These folks are using alleyways and door fronts as public bathrooms instead of utilizing the facilities that are nearby,” said Julie Townsend, director of Lakeland Downtown Development Authority.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

City leaders are now drafting a new law restricting food-sharing in the city’s parks to deter people struggling with homelessness from gathering there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those who advocate for the homeless hope the city will find a resolution that will benefit everyone, including those who might need help the most.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I think it would have a devasting impact on the community as a whole. Just poor people in general, people on fixed income, we bridge a gap that the city isn’t,” Smith said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The regulations must be voted on and approved by the city commission before taking effect.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lakeland leaders are asking groups to stop feeding people who are homeless in public spaces. Live music, festivals, and farmer’s markets can happen any day at Lakeland’s Munn Park. It’s… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":30425,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"{title}\n\n{excerpt}\n\n{url}","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30424","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30424","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30424"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30424\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}