(Weekly Update #206)

Dear Members and Advocates,

In addition to working with FAC, I sit on a couple of boards and subcommittees with the goal of fostering successful reentry for individuals who are required to register. This morning’s monthly meeting of one particular subcommittee was held online and attended by some of the most dedicated and qualified people in our little niche. As the meeting began, the chair asked a participant whether there was any update on a particular individual she spoke about last month. There wasn’t.

The individual is an older man who was recently displaced from his apartment because rents are becoming more expensive and the landlord wanted to renovate and get more money. It’s not an uncommon occurrence and who can blame any homeowner for wanting to get top dollar for their property? But for this particular tenant the consequences of his displacement are more dire than for others. He’s on the registry, so finding a compliant, affordable place that will take him is incredibly tough. He has a sister who lives locally and would take him in, but her residence is not an option. So like hundreds of others in my community alone, the residency restrictions have forced him into homelessness.

It’s a situation we are all used to hearing regularly by now, but what makes this situation a bit more dire is that he was recently diagnosed with prostate cancer and requires surgery. He can get the surgery, but his doctor won’t clear him for the procedure because he has no place to recover. He can’t just have an operation and be sent out to the streets. Between last month’s meeting and today’s there have been no solutions and if our team of the most dedicated and qualified experts in our particular niche have been unable to find a solution for this poor guy, who out there will have better luck?

Two years ago, we posted that we are in urgent need of assisted living facilities for people on the registry (https://floridaactioncommittee.org/need-alfskilled-nursing-facilities-taking-registrants-in-florida/). Not much has changed but it needs to and it needs to NOW. The registrant population is growing and more of the population is aging. It is inevitable that we will need skilled nursing facilities or assisted living facilities for each of us. We need to do something today! There is currently a man in South Florida who will die on the streets if we cannot fix this situation NOW! We need solutions and we need them immediately!

If you are reading this weekly update, please help save this man’s life and help save all of our lives. Please visit our website an recent post Enough is Enough: Stop the Homeless Crisis and in the comments section share at least one idea you have for helping this man. If you can’t come up with an idea, read the comments posted by others and follow their guidance. If you want to contact your local politician, you can find their contact information here: https://www.flsenate.gov/senators/find. Please share this weekly update with others, send it to your local newspapers and ask them to PLEASE print it. Send it to other advocacy groups and ask them to share it on their sites.

Join one of the newly-formed FAC subcommittees on either 1) Homelessness or 2) Elder Care and help us organize a campaign to attack and resolve these issues. Contact [email protected] or call 833-273-7325 Option 1.

Please do something now to help save a life.

Sincerely,

The Florida Action Committee

ANNOUNCEMENTS

See Calendar of Events – Click Here for Calendar, and double click on the event to view details and RSVP instructions. Keep up with Meet-and-Greets in your area, Support groups, Membership Calls, and other events.  For questions, contact [email protected] or call 833-273-7325,Option 1.

Join the County Coordinator Team.  Only requirement is your desire to HELP us organize your county.  If you are interested in joining the County Coordinator Team, leave message at 833-273-7325, Option 1, or email [email protected]

SOME HEADLINES FROM THIS WEEK

Enough is Enough: Stop the Homeless Crisis

In this week’s update, we sent out a plea to help an elderly man in South Florida find a stable home so that he can receive medical treatment for prostate cancer.  He is only one example of those struggling to survive due to residency restrictions, especially when…read more

Building a Forgiving Society by JOSEPH MARGULIES

I am hard at work on a new book. It begins at the end. It imagines we have created a world that is considerably more forgiving than our own. Where society has neither the right nor the inclination to treat a human being as a monster, indelibly branded as unworthy of…read more

Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie 2022 provides the most comprehensive look at U.S. incarceration since the start of the pandemic

the Prison Policy Initiative released Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie 2022, compiling national data sources to offer the most comprehensive view of how many people are locked up in the U.S. — and where they are being held — since the COVID-19 pandemic began. The…read more

The U.S. carceral system is overly punitive

The United States has the most punitive criminal legal system in the world, containing 25 percent of the world’s prison population. Prisons and jails in the United States are overcrowded, unsanitary and dehumanizing. In comparison to many other nations, the United…read more

SC Legislature can’t keep delaying fix on sex-offender registry

Nearly a year ago, as The Post and Courier’s Seanna Adcox reminds us, the high court ruled unanimously that South Carolina’s toughest-in-the-nation sex offender registry is unconstitutional, because it gives an unappealable lifetime sentence to people most of us…read more