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Interview with Terry Converse April 1 1993
Converse, Terry ( Interviewee )
Mena, Juan ( Interviewer )
Alachua County General Oral History Collection ( local )
Made available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 4.0 International license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.
Samuel Proctor Oral History Program (SPOHP)
AL163 ( .pdf )
AL163_Page_10.txt
AL163_pdf.txt
Interviewee: Terry Converse
Interviewer: Juan Mena
M: The date is April 1, 1993. This is an oral [history] interview with Corporal Terry
Converse of the Gainesville Police Department conducted in his office at 721
NW 6th Avenue, Gainesville Police Headquarters.
Corporal Converse, thank you for agreeing to this interview on the homeless
situation in Gainesville. I would like to discuss the role of law enforcement as it
impacts on the homeless situation in Gainesville and in general. I also hope you
can give us some insight on this problem, both as a police officer and [as] a
Gainesville resident.
C: OK.
M: First I would like to get a little biographical information. When were you born?
C: May 2, 1960.
M: Where?
C: In West Palm Beach, Florida.
M: Oh, I am from down there. Well, [I am from] Dade [County], but close enough.
Did you grow up down there?
C: Yes, until the age of ten. Then my father took a job with the University of Florida,
so we moved to Gainesville.
M: You have been kind of around Gainesville since then?
C: In the general area, yes.
M: Where did you go to high school?
C: Santa Fe High School in Alachua.
M: Did you go on from there?
C: I have an associate's degree from Santa Fe Community College.
M: In criminal justice?
C: Business management.
M: That is interesting. When did you decide to become a police officer?
C: I think it more or less happened, but it turned out to be very positive. I was a
jewelry store manager in 1980 when I applied with the Gainesville Police
Department, and through a fortunate set of events, mainly [that] the police
department decided to hire people [laughter], I was employed in October of
M: So that is twelve years.
C: Almost twelve years.
M: Are you still pretty excited?
C: Oh, I love the job.
M: Really?
C: Yes.
M: Were you out on the street?
C: I have spent time on the street. I spent six and a half years in the training unit at
the academy.
M: That must have been interesting.
C: Yes. It allows you to learn all aspects of the law enforcement and corrections
professions, as well as allows you to teach and know everybody in the
department.
M: So I guess you like Gainesville? You just settled here. You like the size [and]
kind of the intimacy. That is one thing from being down South that really
strikes me is the intimacy of the city.
C: I have lived in different areas. When I was manager of the jewelry store, I spent
two months in Houston, Texas. I have lived in South Florida. There is an
attraction to North central Florida because you get a change of seasons [and]
the population in this city, particularly seems to be ever-changing. So there
is always a lot of variety, not only professionally, but personally. I do not know
what my future holds whether I am going to stay in Gainesville or relocate to
another area. But right now, it seems like every time I go away, something
draws me back to Gainesville.
M: That is true. I took a year off after my B. A., and I just love the city, especially
when you come from a big city. I think Houston is the same way.
C: Oh, it is unbelievable.
M: How does Gainesville in general rate with other cities of its size as far as crime
rate?
C: Gainesville kind of exceeds most cities its size. We compete with the big boys.
We compete with Miami, Jacksonville, Atlanta, and New York, mainly because
for the size of the populous of Gainesville, the crime rate seems to be a little
higher. Some people attribute that to the fact that we have a lot of people
moving in and out of the area, the fact that we have some major interstates and
major highways that go through Alachua County, and for other reasons we do
not know. But we seem to have a pretty high crime rate. Over the last few
years, it has been leveling off, but in 1992, we had an abrupt increase again. So
it is hard to say.
M: Is that across the board, or is that property crimes? There are violent crimes
also.
C: Both. We have had a drastic increase in homicides, sexual batteries, robberies,
and things of a violent nature. Property crimes are always real high, and we
attribute that probably mostly to the University of Florida; the students who are
getting a start in life maybe do not have the experience.
M: They make a vulnerable lot.
C: Exactly. They allot the opportunity for the bad guys to take advantage of them.
So that is why there is always such a high crime rate in the area.
M: Coming from Miami, I think of this like paradise.
C: Even in Miami, people take precautions because they expect crime, so it is not
as big a surprise, probably, when it happens. But in Gainesville, there is almost
an expectation that there will be no crime.
M: [People] leave the doors open at night.
C: Exactly. [They] leave their keys in the car. Stupid things that you would never
think about.
M: That you would never do someplace else, but you feel like this is an oasis.
C: You are not an exception to the rule as far as being a victim of a crime.
Gainesville is a small city, but has a big city crime mentality.
M: You have been in Gainesville for a while. Has there always been a sizable
amount of homeless people? Twenty years ago, they would have been called
bums or hobos with the negative connotations. But a lot of people say there
seems to be less of them or it has been growing throughout the past few years.
Do you see that?
C: There is a large number. There is a very large population in this county and this
city. I would not say the numbers are shrinking. I would say there are as many
people you say over the last twenty years I would say at the end of the
Vietnam War is when we saw such a large influx. There probably have not been
that many homeless people since the Depression days. The reason is a lot of
the vets that were returning from Vietnam were not assimilating into society like
they had in previous wartimes or in previous eras. So a lot of those people
turned to the streets, traveled from city to city, and basically lived off the land and
whatever else they could find. So that is why there was such a high increase
during the 1970s of homeless people. A lot of those homeless people who took
to the streets during that time are now getting up in age [they] are in their
forties and fifties and it is becoming more and more difficult for them to stay on
the streets, so they are turning to other places like shelters and trying to
assimilate. Of course, the hard-core street people will always be on the streets
until the day they die.
M: A lot of people talk of Gainesville as almost being a regional magnet for
homeless people.
C: I think there is something about this area that attracts the homeless people. It
could be the fact that we do not really mess with them. If they commit a crime,
or if they are involved in something, they are going to be the people that we
either turn to for information or suspects. It all depends on whether somebody
may have the appearance of a homeless or transient person. I think we have a
reputation of just not bothering them, so they kind of come to the area and stay.
M: We have interviewed a couple of homeless people, and they have said that the
Gainesville police are much more tolerant vis-a-vis other municipalities in the
area, as far as how they treat them. There is also [the factor] you talked about.
Since the Veterans' Administration Hospital is here, they are attracted to that.
C: Yes, and that would be another reason why they would come to Gainesville.
M: What is law enforcement's primary contact with the homeless? Are they victims
of crime, perpetrators of crime, or witnesses?
C: We get a little bit of everything. I think that we have a lot of homeless shelters in
the area as well. The St. Francis House is probably the main one in the city that
deals with a lot of homeless and transient people. The biggest problem that I
have seen in looking through reports and crimes that we have responded to is
that homeless people become victims when they have been drinking, or they get
in an argument with somebody. If you are drinking, and you pass out, there is a
thing called "rolling." You have heard "rolling the bums" or something of that
nature, which is a term they used to use, where, if you pass out, they go through
your clothes, and they take your wallet, your money, and your valuables. That is
just one of the ways they become victims. Another way is if a homeless person
is intoxicated, they become victims of robbery because someone uses force to
take advantage of them. The other side of the coin is they are not afraid to stand
up for themselves. Some of these people are pretty hardened because they
have been on the street, they have lived off the land, they live outside a good
percentage of the time, and because they are so hardened, they do not put up
with anything. You can only push them so far. When they get to that point, they
are going to strike back. Therefore, they become the suspect of a crime
because they have committed an act against somebody else. We get a lot of
things like aggravated batteries, thefts, and robberies where they are the
victims of the crimes, but they are also the perpetrators of the crimes. As far as
witnesses are concerned, they become very good witnesses because if
something happens in an area where they are available to witness a crime, then
they may be helpful for us or they may not be. It all depends on whether they
want to cooperate.
M: Is that difficult? I mean, if someone is homeless and you have them as a
witness in a major crime, how do you keep track of them?
C: There is no way you can, unless you list them as a confidential informant, and
then they do not have to come forward in court. But you have to be able to prove
their reliability as a confidential informant.
M: We were talking a little bit about the impact of law enforcement on the homeless.
Do you see homelessness as a problem afflicting every community? Do you
see it as a greater problem in Gainesville as compared to Ocala or other cities
around here?
C: I do not know much about Ocala. Other cities large, metropolitan areas all
have homeless people that live on the street, some in greater numbers than
others. I know for a fact that New York has a lot, Los Angeles has a lot, Houston
has a lot, Miami has a whole lot. I think for the numbers, we probably do not
have as many as they do, but again, Gainesville seems to attract people.
You do not see a lot of the street people here. A lot of them really do hold down
jobs. They are homeless, meaning that they do not actually live in an apartment
or a home or a hotel. They may live in a box or a shanty that they have built in
the woods, but they truly do hold down a job, and they earn money. So you
cannot say that they are indigent and living off the United States government or
something like that. A lot of them actually do hold down [jobs], whether it be
migrant-worker types of work or some type of labor where they are out humping
it from sunrise to sunset. But there are also a lot of people in town who are living
off the government, whether it be veterans or other people. Some of them do
cause problems. There are a lot of good people out there living in shanties and
tents in the woods who have never bothered anybody. It is really hard to
pinpoint any one problem that there might be. We do run across them
occasionally. I think I was pretty shocked to find out how many people actually
live in the woods, under bridges, in abandoned houses or tents right in the
Gainesville area in very influential neighborhoods where the people who live in
these neighborhoods probably do not even know these people are right on their
back doorstep.
M: We interviewed a homeless person. I heard the interview yesterday, and he was
talking about living in the lot behind St. Francis House. He was saying that you
guys were much more easy going than [the law enforcement in] Ocala, for
example. Do you have set guidelines or policy toward the homeless that kind of
evolved into this kind of tolerant attitude?
C: I think it is more of a "If you don't mess with us, we won't mess with you" type of
thing. You could call it a law of the street more than anything. There is not any
law that prohibits them from being where they are, with the exception of
trespassing on private property, but that cannot be enforced unless there is
someone who complains about them being there. There is no ordinance that we
know of in the city that prohibits them from being street people. I think that was
ruled unconstitutional many years ago. In reality, there is no policy that I know of
that pertains to how you deal with street people or homeless people. We treat
everybody like human beings.
M: Some homeless people camping in a place like a wooded area is not a problem
if they are not doing anything?
C: I do not know what the legalities of it are. We have a lot of people that live in
wooded areas. Gainesville is Tree City, USA, and it has millions and millions of
trees. If they are living there, and they are not bothering anybody, and nobody
has made a complaint about it, we do not have the resources to go out and
round all these people up and chase them out of town.
M: One of the criticisms of Miami's policy has been that they really only pay
attention to the homeless when there is a big event the Super Bowl or the NBA
All-Star game and then they kind of round them up for whatever infraction.
Gainesville never goes through something like that?
C: We do not have a problem with that.
M: Not Homecoming weekend or anything?
C: There are some statistics. Again, the numbers are so great for Homecoming or
Gator football games that you see the street people, but they do not mess with
anybody. The worse thing they may do is panhandle or ask for money. Now
they are violating a law. If we get a complaint about that, then we are either
going to make an arrest or cite the person and get them off the street, but I do
not know of that many incidences where that happens. We have people who
work in the areas where these people might be panhandling or asking for money,
and most of the time that is going to be handled by chasing them off.
M: What is the general character of the complaints you do receive about the
homeless? Are they mostly from businesspersons?
C: [There are] probably more from residents than businesses. The only businesses
that seem to get bothered are the businesses that might be close to the plasma
centers (where they go to sell their plasma to get money). If we get a complaint
from a business, it is because a person is panhandling in front of their business
and disrupting their business a restaurant, for instance, or something of that
nature [like] a service organization. It is not as prevalent as it is to a resident; a
resident will complain because they are in fear for their safety. And that is just
because of the unknown. They do not know what to expect from these people
because they look kind of bad a lot of times. The homeless people may be
without baths, have long hair, and may be unshaven. Their appearance is more
frightening. In those cases, we will make contact with the person and then just
kind of shoo them on their way, especially if they have not violated any laws or
ordinances. Of course, if they violate the laws or ordinances, they are going to
go to jail or be cited. They know that. They probably have a better grasp of
open container laws and things like that than we do because they know we do
arrest them for those things in the downtown area and anyplace they might be
publicly drinking or in violation of a city ordinance.
M: You may not know [the answer to] this. Are there more complaints around these
homeless shelters like St. Francis House?
C: The only complaints that we really get around St. Francis House are going to be
complaints from either the people who run the St. Francis House (because of a
problem that they have and they want this person taken off which does not
happen very often) or we get a crime that has been perpetrated against another
homeless person by a homeless person, and then we have to go down and
investigate that. But most of the time, they are very orderly around the shelters.
M: It is rather interesting. We came to understand it as a little conflict between the
business interests of downtown Gainesville and these homeless centers. It is
interesting to hear that it is actually residents that make [complaints].
C: There is a conflict going on between the Downtown Redevelopment Center (if
that is what you are referring to) and St. Francis House. They are, of course,
trying to fix up and redevelop the downtown area. They have some legitimate
concerns, I am sure. But as far as I know, we really do not get a lot of calls
about St. Francis House by the business owners.
M: We were led to understand that sometimes some of the homeless shelters will
send the homeless people here to get a clearance before [they can stay].
C: They all have to do that. That is a policy that the shelters have and that the
police department has worked within for years. They are required before they
check in to make sure they have a clearance that they are not wanted by police
and that they are able to stay in that shelter. So everyone that comes into town
from out of the area has to check in with the Gainesville Police Department. We
will run a warrants check on them at their request--if they come in and say they
need a clearance. If everything is OK, then we clear them. They have to have
some form of identification. We do not just arbitrarily take your name because
you could take a name off of a tombstone.
M: Do a lot of them not have identification?
C: Probably the ones that do not have identification are the ones who live in the
woods. But the majority of them that come into the department have some form
of identification.
M: Is a considerable amount of the contact that law enforcement has with the
homeless due to [problems with] alcohol or drugs?
C: We have some alcohol contacts. We do run across people who are suffering
from some type of [malady], whether it be a mental disorder or something else.
But very rarely is there any drug contact. [The contact] is mostly alcohol-related.
They get together in a certain location, and then they consume copious amounts
of alcoholic beverages. [They] usually stick to themselves. It is when they start
causing trouble that we have that negative contact that creates an arrest
situation where someone is going to go to jail. It is usually not us; it is them.
That does happen. But alcohol would probably be the most prevalent contact
that we have. Off the top of my head, I cannot think of any time I have ever seen
a homeless person really on any kind of drugs illegal or not in twelve years
[of working in law enforcement].
M: You were talking about the Vietnam era individuals who kind of slipped through
the cracks. We have heard a lot about younger men even families that are
homeless. Is this something that you see?
C: I see a lot of younger people whole families not just young females or males
coming out on the street. You see mothers with children [and] whole families
living out of a car, moving around. I do not know what the reason behind that is.
Either they cannot hold down a job, or maybe it is an education thing. I really do
not know why they are out on the street. Maybe they were kicked out. Maybe
they were put out. Maybe there is a criminal problem. There are still a lot of the
old-timers out there; I see more of them than I do anybody else. It is really kind
of ironic I traveled across the country a few years ago and on Interstate 10 in
Arizona, I saw a guy I recognized. I knew his name from Gainesville. He was a
person who travels the roads. It goes back to being drawn to Gainesville, but I
also saw this person in Arizona. So there are a lot of people that travel around.
I do not know how in-depth your studies have been, but there have been a lot of
statistics and studies done on homeless people and their incomes and such. It
was found several years ago that the average national untaxed income for
people who panhandle was like $15,000 to $17,000. That is an annual income.
That is not bad money for somebody who is living off the land or living in a
shanty or a tent someplace and not having to pay Uncle Sam any taxes. I am
not sure whether that statistic is true. People usually give money to someone
who is out panhandling money, even though it is a violation of the law, just to get
them away from them and be left alone. The panhandlers are living pretty well,
especially if you are living in a car and you have to travel or get gas. I do not
know if the Gainesville Police Department still gives gas vouchers, but we used
to give a certain dollar amount gas voucher that was paid for by a local church.
They may still do it; I am not really sure. People would come in, give some
identification, say that they were homeless, traveling through in a car, and they
needed gas. We would give them a voucher, and they would go to a local gas
station (that would bill the church), and they would get gas for their car and go on
to the next city or wherever they needed gas again. So there are people who
travel not only by foot or hitchhiking, but also by vehicle.
M: Could you put a number on the homeless in Gainesville a ballpark estimate?
C: I do not think I could even begin to guess.
M: It is an elusive number, and it is ever-changing.
C: I could not even begin to guess. If I said 1,000 there could be 500. There could
be 100. But I know there are quite a few.
M: Do their numbers change seasonally? Do they grow in the winter?
C: Actually, they shrink in the winter. Of course, we get an influx from the North, but
they have a tendency to go further South because it gets cold in Gainesville as
M: So this is kind of a stopping point.
C: Sure. Or they may go West. It is hard to say. We do get an influx prior to
winter. Once the winter hits in the northern states, they have a tendency to
move through the area and move further South. But in the summertime, it
definitely increases. Right now, we will start seeing people come in.
I used to never see anybody at the interstate sitting with a sign saying, "I'll work
for food," or "I'm homeless and I need money." But in the last few years, it
seems like you see more and more people at every exit on the interstate or [at]
major intersections with these signs. You used to never see those people. And
if you look at them, they do not look like they are starving or hungry, so it is kind
of hard to say.
M: It is a difficult problem. This has been a national problem for the past five or
eight years or so. It has come to national attention.
C: I would say that it has been very well-known for the past twenty-plus years
because of the Vietnam war ending in the early 1970s. I think it has come to
national attention, yes, but I do not know if there is a resolution or any solution to
it. A lot of people that are on the street are on the street because they want to
be on the street, not because it is out of choice or necessity. In some hard
cases, that could very well be true, but the majority of them, I would say, are
probably on the street because they have chosen to be on the street and maybe
cannot assimilate or blend with society or even other people. There are people
out there that do not like other people and do not want to be around them.
M: The alarming thing must be the growth [in numbers] of families that are on the
street. It is a lifestyle choice for an individual, but for kids out there ...
C: It amazes me that there would be kids out there because even affluent people
who do very well economically still have a hard time making ends meet when
they have children. Raising children and educating children is very expensive.
To think that there are children on the street who move from town to town that
are not getting education [astonishes me]. I wonder how the parents can afford
to keep them fed or clothed or educated, considering that the parents
themselves may not be educated. Again, that is hypothetical. But that is the
hard part of dealing with this, especially with the law enforcement profession.
What do you do in a situation where you find a family who is living in a car and
there are three kids in the car with them? Do you contact HRS and have them
handle it through their means, or do you turn the other cheek and let it go on?
M: Is it better that the family is intact?
C: It is the welfare of the children that you need to be concerned about. The family
is all fine and good, but if the family itself is not allowing the children to have a
quality of life that is good for them at least to help their future be brighter than it
is right now [something should be done other than] letting them remain in the
gloom of poverty. The whole country has a lot of poverty. Even people who live
in homes suffer from poverty.
M: As a person, what are you inclined to do in a situation like that?
C: I do not know. Personally and I would probably do it professionally as well I
would probably have HRS step in. They would have to prove to Health and
Rehabilitative Services that they can provide for their children and that they have
provided for their children. I do not believe that they would have the means of
doing that. I would hate to see the family broken up, but in reality, what do you
do? Either you stand by and just let children live in a car and have dirty clothes
all the time or you could probably provide for them in a foster home. I am not
saying that that is any better. Our system breaks down in a lot of areas. But I
am not one of those people that wants to stand by and see that. Who knows?
M: It has been twenty years, then. Have you seen any programs that you really
think are [helpful]? It seems that every couple of years, everybody has a new
program that is going to help the homeless, and it seems like after a couple of
years, it dies off. It is ebb and flow. That may speak more to what you were
talking about that for a lot of people, this is a lifestyle choice.
C: And I think that is a big part of it. I think it is a lifestyle choice. I think it is
something they want to do, and if you try to change that, [you are not
successful]. The last thing that they want is influence or contact with anybody
who is trying to change it or even help them. I think if you even spoke to a lot of
people who live on the street, you will find that they do not want any help. Now, I
do not know what your findings have been by interviews or such, but the people
that want help are the people who were forced to live on the street. If they do
not want help, do not help them. They have been able to survive. Especially if
they have been out there for twenty-plus years, [that says] they have survived
twenty years. That is more than some people can do when they are making
money. You have a greater chance of being run over by a car and not making
that twenty years than you do having to hoof it and bust your back every night to
make ends meet.
Most of the people that we have encountered who live off the land or live on the
hoof are hardened people who really do not want to be bothered by anybody.
The majority of them are not negative or nasty. They are human beings like
everyone else. A lot of them are very pleasant to be around. But they do not
want to be around people all the time, and that is their life choice. That is what
they have decided they want to do.
M: So how effective do you think St. Francis House and Salvation Army are?
C: I think they are effective to the degree that they provide meals and some security
from the weather. I think they are very effective in that St. Francis House
requires certain things from the people that stay there. Again, I do not know their
procedures because I have not ever been inside except on calls. That seems to
be a very positive thing in the community even though the community leaders
and other people do not look on it very positively a lot of times. It seems to help
them as far as meals.
I know an old man who basically lives in a box on SW 6th Street. He is so feeble
that he has a very hard time getting to and from St. Francis House. But I know
he takes his meals there every day. It is good for people like that. He cannot
fend for himself anymore, and he does not get any money from the government,
and he does not have any family. For him to be able to go there and get a meal,
that is a good thing. That is the positive aspect of that. There are a lot of people
that could go out and fend for themselves and get jobs and do what they have to
do to either support themselves or the other people in their families. But people
like him who cannot fend for themselves at least have a place to go.
M: But you do not envision some kind of program that can help get the majority of
people permanently off the streets? Job training?
C: No. I do not think it would do any good. Again, it comes back to people who do
not want to be a part of society. There is a good number of them I would say
probably better than half of them do not really want to be part of what we have
created for ourselves. In some ways, you really cannot blame them with the
trends and ways that we are going [laughter]. I do not think it would really make
a difference to them at all.
M: Is Gainesville a safe city for the homeless?
C: I would say it is safer than most. Plus, you do not find areas where there is a lot
of congregation. In other words, you used to see more people sleeping on
benches downtown. You do not see that as much anymore. I mean, they still
congregate at the downtown plaza and places like that.
M: If you see somebody sleeping on a bench ...
C: We usually will wake them and tell them to move on. There are ordinances
about sleeping in parks, and that is considered a park. They are not allowed to
stay in places like that. They do not have to if they have these communities that
are out in the woods. There are numerous communities where you can stand at
a tent and look across the woods and see another tent and another little shack
over here. They have built little communities where they all share. There is
probably some criminal activity that goes on. Occasionally we will run across
these camps, and we will find things that we know were stolen during a burglary
someplace, so we end up recovering some property. But the majority of them
just want to be alone and away from everyone else. I think it is safe from that
aspect in that they are not in alleyways or under bridges or living in vacant,
abandoned, [or] condemned buildings. They are able to go out in the woods and
stay separate, not only from themselves but from other people as well.
M: So most of them are loners. I mean, they do not group off.
C: Only for occasional companionship and drinking or smoking or whatever.
M: Well, thank you very much.
C: You are welcome.
AL 163 Interviewee: Terry Converse Interviewer: Juan Mena Date: April 1, 1993 M: The date is April 1, 1993. This is an oral [history ] interview with Corporal Terry Converse of the Gainesville Police Department conducted in his office at 721 NW 6th Avenue, Gainesville Police Headquarters. Corporal Converse, thank you for agreeing to this inte rview on the homeless situation in Gainesville. I would like to discuss the rol e of law enforcement as it impacts on the homeless situation in Gainesville and in g eneral. I also hope you can give us some insight on this problem, both as a police officer and [as] a Gainesville resident. C: OK. M: First I would like to get a little biographical inf ormation. When were you born? C: May 2, 1960. M: Where? C: In West Palm Beach, Florida. M: Oh, I am from down there. Well, [I am from] Dad e [County], but close enough. Did you grow up down there? C: Yes, until the age of ten. Then my father took a job with the University of Florida, so we moved to Gainesville. M: You have been kind of around Gainesville since then? C: In the general area, yes. M: Where did you go to high school? C: Santa Fe High School in Alachua. M: Did you go on from there? C: I have an associate's degree from Santa Fe Community College. M: In criminal justice? C: Business management. M: That is interesting. When did you decide to become a police officer?
AL 163 Page 2 C: I think it more or less happened, but it turned out to be very positive. I was a jewelry store manager in 1980 when I applied with th e Gainesville Police Department, and through a fortunate set of events, ma inly [that] the police department decided to hire people [laughter], I was e mployed in October of 1981. M: So that is twelve years. C: Almost twelve years. M: Are you still pretty excited? C: Oh, I love the job. M: Really? C: Yes. M: Were you out on the street? C: I have spent time on the street. I spent six and a half years in the training unit at the academy. M: That must have been interesting. C: Yes. It allows you to learn all aspects of the law e nforcement and corrections professions, as well as allows you to teach and know everyb ody in the department. M: So I guess you like Gainesville? You just settled her e. You like the size [and] kind of the intimacy. That is one thing – from being down South – that really strikes me is the intimacy of the city. C: I have lived in different areas. When I was manag er of the jewelry store, I spent two months in Houston, Texas. I have lived in South F lorida. There is an attraction to North central Florida because you get a ch ange of seasons [and] the population – in this city, particularly – seems to b e ever-changing. So there is always a lot of variety, not only professionally, bu t personally. I do not know what my future holds – whether I am going to stay in Gainesville or relocate to another area. But right now, it seems like every time I go away, something draws me back to Gainesville. M: That is true. I took a year off after my B. A., a nd I just love the city, especially when you come from a big city. I think Houston is the sa me way.
AL 163 Page 3 C: Oh, it is unbelievable. M: How does Gainesville in general rate with other cit ies of its size as far as crime rate? C: Gainesville kind of exceeds most cities its size. We comp ete with the big boys. We compete with Miami, Jacksonville, Atlanta, and New Yo rk, mainly because for the size of the populous of Gainesville, the crime rate seems to be a little higher. Some people attribute that to the fact that we have a lot of people moving in and out of the area, the fact that we have some major interstates and major highways that go through Alachua County, and fo r other reasons we do not know. But we seem to have a pretty high crime rat e. Over the last few years, it has been leveling off, but in 1992, we had an abrupt increase again. So it is hard to say. M: Is that across the board, or is that property crimes? There are violent crimes also. C: Both. We have had a drastic increase in homicides, sex ual batteries, robberies, and things of a violent nature. Property crimes are a lways real high, and we attribute that probably mostly to the University of F lorida; the students who are getting a start in life maybe do not have the experi ence. M: They make a vulnerable lot. C: Exactly. They allot the opportunity for the bad guys to take advantage of them. So that is why there is always such a high crime rate in the area. M: Coming from Miami, I think of this like paradise. C: Even in Miami, people take precautions because they e xpect crime, so it is not as big a surprise, probably, when it happens. But in G ainesville, there is almost an expectation that there will be no crime. M: [People] leave the doors open at night. C: Exactly. [They] leave their keys in the car. Stupi d things that you would never think about. M: That you would never do someplace else, but you fee l like this is an oasis. C: You are not an exception to the rule as far as bein g a victim of a crime. Gainesville is a small city, but has a big city crime ment ality. M: You have been in Gainesville for a while. Has the re always been a sizable
AL 163 Page 4 amount of homeless people? Twenty years ago, they wou ld have been called bums or hobos with the negative connotations. But a lo t of people say there seems to be less of them or it has been growing througho ut the past few years. Do you see that? C: There is a large number. There is a very large po pulation in this county and this city. I would not say the numbers are shrinking. I wou ld say there are as many people – you say over the last twenty years – I would say at the end of the Vietnam War is when we saw such a large influx. There probably have not been that many homeless people since the Depression days. The reason is a lot of the vets that were returning from Vietnam were not a ssimilating into society like they had in previous wartimes or in previous eras. So a lot of those people turned to the streets, traveled from city to city, and basically lived off the land and whatever else they could find. So that is why there w as such a high increase during the 1970s of homeless people. A lot of those ho meless people who took to the streets during that time are now getting up in age – [they] are in their forties and fifties – and it is becoming more and more difficult for them to stay on the streets, so they are turning to other places like shel ters and trying to assimilate. Of course, the hard-core street people will always be on the streets until the day they die. M: A lot of people talk of Gainesville as almost being a regional magnet for homeless people. C: I think there is something about this area that attr acts the homeless people. It could be the fact that we do not really mess with them. If they commit a crime, or if they are involved in something, they are going to be the people that we either turn to for information or suspects. It all dep ends on whether somebody may have the appearance of a homeless or transient perso n. I think we have a reputation of just not bothering them, so they kind of come to the area and stay. M: We have interviewed a couple of homeless people, an d they have said that the Gainesville police are much more tolerant vis-à -vis othe r municipalities in the area, as far as how they treat them. There is also [th e factor] you talked about. Since the Veterans' Administration Hospital is here, the y are attracted to that. C: Yes, and that would be another reason why they wou ld come to Gainesville. M: What is law enforcement's primary contact with the ho meless? Are they victims of crime, perpetrators of crime, or witnesses? C: We get a little bit of everything. I think that we have a lot of homeless shelters in the area as well. The St. Francis House is probably the main one in the city that deals with a lot of homeless and transient people. The biggest problem that I have seen in looking through reports and crimes that we have responded to is
AL 163 Page 5 that homeless people become victims when they have been drinking, or they get in an argument with somebody. If you are drinking, a nd you pass out, there is a thing called "rolling." You have heard "rolling the bums" or something of that nature, which is a term they used to use, where, if you pass out, they go through your clothes, and they take your wallet, your money, a nd your valuables. That is just one of the ways they become victims. Another way i s if a homeless person is intoxicated, they become victims of robbery because some one uses force to take advantage of them. The other side of the coin is they are not afraid to stand up for themselves. Some of these people are pretty ha rdened because they have been on the street, they have lived off the lan d, they live outside a good percentage of the time, and because they are so hardene d, they do not put up with anything. You can only push them so far. When t hey get to that point, they are going to strike back. Therefore, they become the susp ect of a crime because they have committed an act against somebody else. We get a lot of things – like aggravated batteries, thefts, and robberi es – where they are the victims of the crimes, but they are also the perpetrator s of the crimes. As far as witnesses are concerned, they become very good witnesses beca use if something happens in an area where they are available to witness a crime, then they may be helpful for us or they may not be. It a ll depends on whether they want to cooperate. M: Is that difficult? I mean, if someone is homeless and you have them as a witness in a major crime, how do you keep track of them? C: There is no way you can, unless you list them as a conf idential informant, and then they do not have to come forward in court. But you have to be able to prove their reliability as a confidential informant. M: We were talking a little bit about the impact of l aw enforcement on the homeless. Do you see homelessness as a problem afflicting every comm unity? Do you see it as a greater problem in Gainesville as compared t o Ocala or other cities around here? C: I do not know much about Ocala. Other cities – large , metropolitan areas – all have homeless people that live on the street, some in g reater numbers than others. I know for a fact that New York has a lot, Los A ngeles has a lot, Houston has a lot, Miami has a whole lot. I think for the num bers, we probably do not have as many as they do, but again, Gainesville seems to attract people. You do not see a lot of the street people here. A lo t of them really do hold down jobs. They are homeless, meaning that they do not actu ally live in an apartment or a home or a hotel. They may live in a box or a shanty that they have built in the woods, but they truly do hold down a job, and th ey earn money. So you cannot say that they are indigent and living off the United States government or
AL 163 Page 6 something like that. A lot of them actually do hold d own [jobs], whether it be migrant-worker types of work or some type of labor wher e they are out humping it from sunrise to sunset. But there are also a lot of people in town who are living off the government, whether it be veterans or other people. Some of them do cause problems. There are a lot of good people out th ere living in shanties and tents in the woods who have never bothered anybody. It is really hard to pinpoint any one problem that there might be. We d o run across them occasionally. I think I was pretty shocked to find out how many people actually live in the woods, under bridges, in abandoned houses o r tents right in the Gainesville area in very influential neighborhoods wh ere the people who live in these neighborhoods probably do not even know these peo ple are right on their back doorstep. M: We interviewed a homeless person. I heard the inte rview yesterday, and he was talking about living in the lot behind St. Francis Hou se. He was saying that you guys were much more easy going than [the law enforcemen t in] Ocala, for example. Do you have set guidelines or policy toward the homeless that kind of evolved into this kind of tolerant attitude? C: I think it is more of a "If you don't mess with us, w e won't mess with you" type of thing. You could call it a law of the street more tha n anything. There is not any law that prohibits them from being where they are, w ith the exception of trespassing on private property, but that cannot be enf orced unless there is someone who complains about them being there. There i s no ordinance that we know of in the city that prohibits them from being stre et people. I think that was ruled unconstitutional many years ago. In reality, th ere is no policy that I know of that pertains to how you deal with street people or h omeless people. We treat everybody like human beings. M: Some homeless people camping in a place like a wooded area is not a problem if they are not doing anything? C: I do not know what the legalities of it are. We h ave a lot of people that live in wooded areas. Gainesville is Tree City, USA, and it h as millions and millions of trees. If they are living there, and they are not b othering anybody, and nobody has made a complaint about it, we do not have the reso urces to go out and round all these people up and chase them out of town. M: One of the criticisms of Miami's policy has been that t hey really only pay attention to the homeless when there is a big event – the Super Bowl or the NBA All-Star game – and then they kind of round them up for whatever infraction. Gainesville never goes through something like that? C: We do not have a problem with that.
AL 163 Page 7 M: Not Homecoming weekend or anything? C: There are some statistics. Again, the numbers are so g reat for Homecoming or Gator football games that you see the street people, b ut they do not mess with anybody. The worse thing they may do is panhandle or ask for money. Now they are violating a law. If we get a complaint abo ut that, then we are either going to make an arrest or cite the person and get them off the street, but I do not know of that many incidences where that happens. We have people who work in the areas where these people might be panhandl ing or asking for money, and most of the time that is going to be handled by ch asing them off. M: What is the general character of the complaints you d o receive about the homeless? Are they mostly from businesspersons? C: [There are] probably more from residents than busin esses. The only businesses that seem to get bothered are the businesses that might be close to the plasma centers (where they go to sell their plasma to get mone y). If we get a complaint from a business, it is because a person is panhandling in f ront of their business and disrupting their business – a restaurant, for instance , or something of that nature [like] a service organization. It is not as prev alent as it is to a resident; a resident will complain because they are in fear for the ir safety. And that is just because of the unknown. They do not know what to expect from these people because they look kind of bad a lot of times. The homel ess people may be without baths, have long hair, and may be unshaven. Their appearance is more frightening. In those cases, we will make contact with th e person and then just kind of shoo them on their way, especially if they have not violated any laws or ordinances. Of course, if they violate the laws or ordi nances, they are going to go to jail or be cited. They know that. They probab ly have a better grasp of open container laws and things like that than we do beca use they know we do arrest them for those things in the downtown area and anyplace they might be publicly drinking or in violation of a city ordinance. M: You may not know [the answer to] this. Are there m ore complaints around these homeless shelters like St. Francis House? C: The only complaints that we really get around St. Francis House are going to be complaints from either the people who run the St. Fra ncis House (because of a problem that they have and they want this person taken off – which does not happen very often) or we get a crime that has been pe rpetrated against another homeless person by a homeless person, and then we have to go down and investigate that. But most of the time, they are ver y orderly around the shelters. M: It is rather interesting. We came to understand it as a little conflict between the business interests of downtown Gainesville and these homel ess centers. It is
AL 163 Page 8 interesting to hear that it is actually residents that m ake [complaints]. C: There is a conflict going on between the Downtown R edevelopment Center (if that is what you are referring to) and St. Francis Hou se. They are, of course, trying to fix up and redevelop the downtown area. They have some legitimate concerns, I am sure. But as far as I know, we really do n ot get a lot of calls about St. Francis House by the business owners. M: We were led to understand that sometimes some of the homeless shelters will send the homeless people here to get a clearance before [they can stay]. C: They all have to do that. That is a policy that t he shelters have and that the police department has worked within for years. They ar e required before they check in to make sure they have a clearance that they are not wanted by police and that they are able to stay in that shelter. So e veryone that comes into town from out of the area has to check in with the Gainesvill e Police Department. We will run a warrants check on them at their request--if t hey come in and say they need a clearance. If everything is OK, then we clear t hem. They have to have some form of identification. We do not just arbitrari ly take your name because you could take a name off of a tombstone. M: Do a lot of them not have identification? C: Probably the ones that do not have identification are the ones who live in the woods. But the majority of them that come into the d epartment have some form of identification. M: Is a considerable amount of the contact that law enfo rcement has with the homeless due to [problems with] alcohol or drugs? C: We have some alcohol contacts. We do run across people who are suffering from some type of [malady], whether it be a mental d isorder or something else. But very rarely is there any drug contact. [The contact ] is mostly alcohol-related. They get together in a certain location, and then th ey consume copious amounts of alcoholic beverages. [They] usually stick to themselves . It is when they start causing trouble that we have that negative contact that creates an arrest situation where someone is going to go to jail. It is usually not us; it is them. That does happen. But alcohol would probably be the most prevalent contact that we have. Off the top of my head, I cannot thin k of any time I have ever seen a homeless person really on any kind of drugs – illegal or not – in twelve years [of working in law enforcement]. M: You were talking about the Vietnam era – individu als who kind of slipped through the cracks. We have heard a lot about younger men – ev en families – that are homeless. Is this something that you see?
AL 163 Page 9 C: I see a lot of younger people – whole families – n ot just young females or males coming out on the street. You see mothers with children [and] whole families living out of a car, moving around. I do not know wh at the reason behind that is. Either they cannot hold down a job, or maybe it is a n education thing. I really do not know why they are out on the street. Maybe they were kicked out. Maybe they were put out. Maybe there is a criminal problem . There are still a lot of the old-timers out there; I see more of them than I do an ybody else. It is really kind of ironic – I traveled across the country a few years ago – and on Interstate 10 in Arizona, I saw a guy I recognized. I knew his name fro m Gainesville. He was a person who travels the roads. It goes back to being draw n to Gainesville, but I also saw this person in Arizona. So there are a lot of people that travel around. I do not know how in-depth your studies have been, but there have been a lot of statistics and studies done on homeless people and their in comes and such. It was found several years ago that the average national untaxed income for people who panhandle was like $15,000 to $17,000. Th at is an annual income. That is not bad money for somebody who is living off t he land or living in a shanty or a tent someplace and not having to pay Uncle Sam any taxes. I am not sure whether that statistic is true. People usually give money to someone who is out panhandling money, even though it is a vio lation of the law, just to get them away from them and be left alone. The panhand lers are living pretty well, especially if you are living in a car and you have to travel or get gas. I do not know if the Gainesville Police Department still gives ga s vouchers, but we used to give a certain dollar amount gas voucher that was pa id for by a local church. They may still do it; I am not really sure. People w ould come in, give some identification, say that they were homeless, traveling through in a car, and they needed gas. We would give them a voucher, and they w ould go to a local gas station (that would bill the church), and they would g et gas for their car and go on to the next city or wherever they needed gas again. So there are people who travel not only by foot or hitchhiking, but also by ve hicle. M: Could you put a number on the homeless in Gainesvil le – a ballpark estimate? C: I do not think I could even begin to guess. M: It is an elusive number, and it is ever-changing. C: I could not even begin to guess. If I said 1,000 th ere could be 500. There could be 100. But I know there are quite a few. M: Do their numbers change seasonally? Do they grow in the winter? C: Actually, they shrink in the winter. Of course, we g et an influx from the North, but they have a tendency to go further South because it ge ts cold in Gainesville as well.
AL 163 Page 10 M: So this is kind of a stopping point. C: Sure. Or they may go West. It is hard to say. We do get an influx prior to winter. Once the winter hits in the northern states, t hey have a tendency to move through the area and move further South. But in the summertime, it definitely increases. Right now, we will start seeing p eople come in. I used to never see anybody at the interstate sitting w ith a sign saying, "I'll work for food," or "I'm homeless and I need money." But i n the last few years, it seems like you see more and more people at every exit o n the interstate or [at] major intersections with these signs. You used to never se e those people. And if you look at them, they do not look like they are sta rving or hungry, so it is kind of hard to say. M: It is a difficult problem. This has been a national problem for the past five or eight years or so. It has come to national attention. C: I would say that it has been very well-known for th e past twenty-plus years because of the Vietnam war ending in the early 1970s. I think it has come to national attention, yes, but I do not know if there i s a resolution or any solution to it. A lot of people that are on the street are on t he street because they want to be on the street, not because it is out of choice or necessi ty. In some hard cases, that could very well be true, but the majority o f them, I would say, are probably on the street because they have chosen to be on the street and maybe cannot assimilate or blend with society or even other pe ople. There are people out there that do not like other people and do not w ant to be around them. M: The alarming thing must be the growth [in numbers] of families that are on the street. It is a lifestyle choice for an individual, but for kids out there . . . C: It amazes me that there would be kids out there beca use even affluent people who do very well economically still have a hard time m aking ends meet when they have children. Raising children and educating chil dren is very expensive. To think that there are children on the street who mov e from town to town that are not getting education [astonishes me]. I wonder ho w the parents can afford to keep them fed or clothed or educated, considering tha t the parents themselves may not be educated. Again, that is hypothe tical. But that is the hard part of dealing with this, especially with the la w enforcement profession. What do you do in a situation where you find a famil y who is living in a car and there are three kids in the car with them? Do you cont act HRS and have them handle it through their means, or do you turn the ot her cheek and let it go on? M: Is it better that the family is intact? C: It is the welfare of the children that you need to be concerned about. The family
AL 163 Page 11 is all fine and good, but if the family itself is not allowing the children to have a quality of life that is good for them – at least to h elp their future be brighter than it is right now – [something should be done other than] l etting them remain in the gloom of poverty. The whole country has a lot of pov erty. Even people who live in homes suffer from poverty. M: As a person, what are you inclined to do in a situat ion like that? C: I do not know. Personally – and I would probably do it professionally as well – I would probably have HRS step in. They would have to prove to Health and Rehabilitative Services that they can provide for thei r children and that they have provided for their children. I do not believe that they would have the means of doing that. I would hate to see the family broken up , but in reality, what do you do? Either you stand by and just let children live in a car and have dirty clothes all the time or you could probably provide for them in a foster home. I am not saying that that is any better. Our system breaks down i n a lot of areas. But I am not one of those people that wants to stand by and see that. Who knows? M: It has been twenty years, then. Have you seen any programs that you really think are [helpful]? It seems that every couple of yea rs, everybody has a new program that is going to help the homeless, and it seem s like after a couple of years, it dies off. It is ebb and flow. That may spea k more to what you were talking about that for a lot of people, this is a life style choice. C: And I think that is a big part of it. I think it i s a lifestyle choice. I think it is something they want to do, and if you try to change t hat, [you are not successful]. The last thing that they want is influence or contact with anybody who is trying to change it or even help them. I thin k if you even spoke to a lot of people who live on the street, you will find that th ey do not want any help. Now, I do not know what your findings have been by interview s or such, but the people that want help are the people who were forced to liv e on the street. If they do not want help, do not help them. They have been ab le to survive. Especially if they have been out there for twenty-plus years, [that says] they have survived twenty years. That is more than some people can do whe n they are making money. You have a greater chance of being run over b y a car and not making that twenty years than you do having to hoof it and bust your back every night to make ends meet. Most of the people that we have encountered who live off the land or live on the hoof are hardened people who really do not want to be bothered by anybody. The majority of them are not negative or nasty. The y are human beings like everyone else. A lot of them are very pleasant to be around. But they do not want to be around people all the time, and that is t heir life choice. That is what they have decided they want to do.
AL 163 Page 12 M: So how effective do you think St. Francis House and S alvation Army are? C: I think they are effective to the degree that they provide meals and some security from the weather. I think they are very effective in that St. Francis House requires certain things from the people that stay there . Again, I do not know their procedures because I have not ever been inside except on calls. That seems to be a very positive thing in the community even though the community leaders and other people do not look on it very positively a lot of times. It seems to help them as far as meals. I know an old man who basically lives in a box on SW 6t h Street. He is so feeble that he has a very hard time getting to and from St. Francis House. But I know he takes his meals there every day. It is good for peop le like that. He cannot fend for himself anymore, and he does not get any mon ey from the government, and he does not have any family. For him to be able to go there and get a meal, that is a good thing. That is the positive aspect of th at. There are a lot of people that could go out and fend for themselves and get jobs and do what they have to do to either support themselves or the other people in their families. But people like him who cannot fend for themselves at least have a place to go. M: But you do not envision some kind of program that ca n help get the majority of people permanently off the streets? Job training? C: No. I do not think it would do any good. Again, it comes back to people who do not want to be a part of society. There is a good nu mber of them – I would say probably better than half of them – do not really w ant to be part of what we have created for ourselves. In some ways, you really cannot b lame them with the trends and ways that we are going [laughter]. I do n ot think it would really make a difference to them at all. M: Is Gainesville a safe city for the homeless? C: I would say it is safer than most. Plus, you do not find areas where there is a lot of congregation. In other words, you used to see more people sleeping on benches downtown. You do not see that as much anymore. I mean, they still congregate at the downtown plaza and places like that. M: If you see somebody sleeping on a bench . . . C: We usually will wake them and tell them to move on . There are ordinances about sleeping in parks, and that is considered a park. T hey are not allowed to stay in places like that. They do not have to if they have these communities that are out in the woods. There are numerous communities w here you can stand at a tent and look across the woods and see another tent and another little shack over here. They have built little communities where they all share. There is
AL 163 Page 13 probably some criminal activity that goes on. Occasionall y we will run across these camps, and we will find things that we know were st olen during a burglary someplace, so we end up recovering some property. But t he majority of them just want to be alone and away from everyone else. I think it is safe from that aspect in that they are not in alleyways or under brid ges or living in vacant, abandoned, [or] condemned buildings. They are able t o go out in the woods and stay separate, not only from themselves but from other people as well. M: So most of them are loners. I mean, they do not g roup off. C: Only for occasional companionship and drinking or smokin g or whatever. M: Well, thank you very much. C: You are welcome.


Join us and our supporters Shirley Ballas and Beth Tweddle, plus guests from Gogglebox and Hollyoaks for a night to remember!
The Blue Monday event at Fazenda, Liverpool is on 15th January 2018 and the final few tickets are available now.
Walk up the Blue Carpet into Liverpool Town Hall (watch out for getting papped!) where the Lord Mayor will kick things off along with Liverpool Gin who are creating special Alder Hey cocktails for us. Then stroll across Exchange Flags into Fazenda for a warm Brazilian welcome! Enjoy the hospitality, with wine from Miolo Family Vineyards, authentic Brazillian beer and a selection of amazing grilled meats, beautiful sides and stupendous salads, all included in the ticket price. Then catch up with friends, sway to the brilliant Brazilian music and forget it's Blue Monday.
It's for an amazing cause, and there will be an opportunity to win some money-can't-buy prizes as well as to watch some of the surgeons as they bid to beat the ward chefs to create a starter especially for everyone there!
Thanks to Fazenda every single penny from ticket sales goes to Alder Hey Children's Charity.


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Q: Populating a min function in php with an array? I have been trying to get this to work and can't.
I have a string like pop.2,rundo.5,moti.3 and I am trying to get the pop, rundo, and moti into a min with an already populated associative array function.
The final result should look like or mirror,
$min = min($user['pop'], $user['rundo'], $user['moti']);

So far I have
$items = 'pop.2,rundo.5,moti.3';
// EXPLODE MINUS ITEMS
$minus = explode(',', $items);
// GET MINUS ITEMS AMOUNT
foreach($minus as $item) {
     $itemMinus[] = explode('.', $item);
}

This is as far as I got and am now stuck. I have tried several ways of doing it but to no avail.
I know I can get the values like so,
$itemMinus[0][0] // pop
$itemMinus[1][0] // rundo
$itemMinus[2][0] // moti

But I need to dynamically generate it as I could be putting in strings that have more values such as youdo.3,gate.3,hiya.4,moti.0,yellow.2.
Any ideas and thanks.

A: You're nearly there. Use list() to get the key and value:
$itemsMinus = array();
$items = 'pop.2,rundo.5,moti.3';
// EXPLODE MINUS ITEMS
$minus = explode(',', $items);
// GET MINUS ITEMS AMOUNT
foreach($minus as $item) {
    // Add to the array by key
    list($key, $value) = explode(".", $item);
    $itemsMinus[$key] = $value;
}

print_r($itemsMinus);
Array
(
    [pop] => 2
    [rundo] => 5
    [moti] => 3
)

A: As alternative to Michael post you can use sscanf method instead of list and explode
$items = 'pop.2,rundo.5,moti.3';
// EXPLODE MINUS ITEMS
$minus = explode(',', $items);
// GET MINUS ITEMS AMOUNT
foreach($minus as $item) {
    sscanf( $item,'%s.%d', $key, $value);
    $itemsMinus[$key] = $value;
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


The Newsletter is no longer published.
The overall purpose of these documents is to help Gallery exhibitors display their art and craft items with a minimum of paperwork, while at the same time benefiting from all that is available from the ShopKeep point-of-sale system.
I strongly recommend that each of these documents (attached in pdf format) be stored on the HAG website with descriptive links that can be readily located by existing and potential exhibitors. The "Exhibiting at the Gallery" document should be included in any "New Gallery Member" packet provided by the Membership chairperson.
As the self-designated ShopKeep Administrator, I intend to regularly communicate via email/text/phone with Gallery exhibitors about the status of their items displayed and sold at the Gallery.
Within a day or two of the sale of an item at the Gallery, I will email/text a pdf copy of the sales receipt to the exhibitor.
At least quarterly (approximately 10 days before art change-out), I will email a report to each Gallery exhibitor showing each item they have submitted for entry into the ShopKeep inventory. The report will include item description, department, category, artist/supplier, register status, price and quantity. The register status will indicate whether the item is "active" (currently on display for sale) or "inactive" (the item has sold out or been removed from display).
Especially at quarterly change-out time, having these documents on the website where they can be readily located for download and printing is important to facilitating smooth movement of items in and out of display at the Gallery.
If you have any questions, suggestions or comments, please contact me.


Our office is closed the period below for the Winter holidays.
From December 29 to January 6.
Shipping will be suspended during this period.
Orders accepted by December 26 will be shipped before the holidays.
Orders accepted on December 27 and during the holidays will be shipped after January 7.
We will reply the inquiries sent during the holidays after January 7.


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text:
Le suore ancelle del Sacro Cuore di Maria (in francese Sœurs Servantes du Saint-Cœur de Maria) sono un istituto religioso femminile di diritto pontificio: le suore di questa congregazione pospongono al loro nome la sigla S.S.C.M.

Storia
La congregazione fu fondata il 19 marzo 1860 a Parigi dallo spiritano François-Jean-Baptiste Delaplace (1825-1911) assieme con Jeanne-Marie Moysan (1864-1943).

Nel 1889 le suore fondarono le prime filiali negli Stati Uniti d'America e nel 1892 in Canada, dove migrarono in gran numero dopo la promulgazione delle leggi anticongregazioniste in Francia (1903).

L'istituto ricevette il pontificio decreto di lode l'8 luglio 1902 e le sue costituzioni furono approvate definitivamente dalla Santa Sede il 6 maggio 1932.

Attività e diffusione
Le suore si dedicano all'istruzione e all'educazione cristiana della gioventù e alla cura di anziani e ammalati.

Sono presenti in Argentina, Camerun, Canada, Cile, Cuba, Francia, Stati Uniti d'America; la sede generalizia è a Montréal.

Alla fine del 2008 la congregazione contava 548 religiose in 86 case.

Note

Bibliografia
 Annuario Pontificio per l'anno 2010, Libreria Editrice Vaticana, Città del Vaticano 2010. ISBN 978-88-209-8355-0.
 Guerrino Pelliccia e Giancarlo Rocca (curr.), Dizionario degli Istituti di Perfezione (DIP), 10 voll., Edizioni paoline, Milano 1974-2003.

Collegamenti esterni

Ancelle, Suore, Sacro Cuore Maria

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
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Expungements, Housing, and Finding Work in South Carolina
By Scott Morgan • Dec 10, 2019
What if the thing that's been holding you back was taken away? Expungement offers hope, but not every offense can come off your record.
Credit Scott Morgan / South Carolina Public Radio
You did something when you were younger. Something kind of stupid that got you busted, way way back when you were a different person. And now you can't seem to find a decent place to live or a decent job because of an arrest – not even a conviction! – that's still stuck on your record.
The first thing a lot of people in this position think of is a pardon, says Jamie Bell, managing attorney for South Carolina Legal Services' office in Rock Hill. But pardons are hard to come by. A much safer bet is an expungement.
An expungement is the erasure of an arrest or conviction from the permanent record. whereas a pardon actually stays on the record – it just shows you were pardoned for it.
Not everything can be expunged, of course. In fact, there are only eight categories of offenses that are eligible to even be considered for expungement in South Carolina. They are, accoring to SC Legal:
Dismissed or not-prosecuted charges, or not-guilty" verdicts
Charges dismissed after completing Pre-Trial Intervention or an Alcohol Education Program
A first offense
– misdemeanor conviction under the Fraudulent Check Law
– simple possession of marijuana/hashish
– that carries a maximum 30 days in jail and or $500 fine (excluding motor vehicle and wildlife-related offenses)
– under the Youthful Offender Act (excluding motor vehicle offenses)
– misdemeanor for failiing to stop for a blue light
Listen to the story … A production of South Carolina Public Radio
Even if an offense meets one of these criteria, certain conditions also apply. Most carry a time period of several years before they can be expunged, and in that interim, if you had another offense or a repeat of the one you're looking to get expunged, your request might be denied.
The frustrating thing for people with minor offenses committed long ago, says Tiffney Love, a staff attorney at SC Legal in Rock Hil, is that when an employer sees an offense on a crmiminal background check, there is no context.
Say, for example, you're trying to get a job in home care but an employer gets your record and sees the phrase "domestic violence" on it. If you only had a single Class-3 domestic violence charge (a misdemeanor) a decade and a half ago, an employer – or an education center offering certifications for nursing assistants – will not know that your offense was a lone, minor infraction, Love says. So getting that off your rcord would be smart.
Something to keep in mind, Love says, is that it's wise to pick the expungeable offense that's causing you the most trouble and get rid of that. People seeking to clear their names, remember, think of pardons first, which, also remember, are a serious roll of the dice. So if a pardon attempt fails, that nagging old misdemeanor can still keep you from finding a job.
Mark Fessler, SC Legal's head of housing in Greenville, says it can also keep you from getting a place to live. Not so much in buying a house – which someone who's unable to find work is unlikely to do anyway – but in renting an apartment from a landlord who does a background check.
And if you have an internet connection and a few dollars, you can do a background check on anyone. Like it is with employers, landlords will only see the type of crime, without context. If a private landlord has an internal policy of who to not rent to, or if a public housing entity sees a certain set of issues, an applicant can simply be passed over for the next in line, Fessler says. Because there's always a next in line for public housing, and it's extremely difficult to prove that a landlord has illegally overlooked you than to prove one illegally dismissed you.
Love says the consequences of people being unable to find work and housing are plentiful and serious. With no opportunities, there's not enough money heading back into the community and too much idle time for people living in a bad environment to find alternative ways to make their way through life.
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This product is PC power in the 1U form factor 190 × 100 × 41mm, which maximum output power is 300W and efficiency is 80%80%80%. The unit approved medical safety and certified EMC medical standard, and is designed for medical applications.


New standards require a reconsideration of product liability subrogation and possibly a revamping of expert witness contracts.
On Jan. 27, 2011, Wisconsin's governor, Scott Walker, signed into law 2011 Wisconsin Act 2, a tort reform law that became effective on Feb. 1, 2011. It amounts to a comprehensive rewrite of the state's product liability law. While the measure will undoubtedly be welcomed by the liability claims community, the changes in Wisconsin tort law will also have some ancillary consequences for subrogation professionals looking to maximize recoveries.
The following changes in Wisconsin law will have an effect on the insurance company when it goes to subrogate.
The new law requires for the first time that plaintiffs (including subrogating carriers) who want to hold a manufacturer responsible for a defective design must show that a "reasonable alternative design" could have been feasibly adopted by the manufacturer to reduce the harm claimed in the lawsuit. Most carriers utilize experts to investigate product defect cases from a small harem of reasonably priced experts who write reports and testify for a living. These forensic professionals are called on to testify that a defect existed which rendered the product unreasonably dangerous. They have not, however, been required to redesign the product and show that a better, safer design was cost-effective, was feasible, and would have prevented the injury. That has now changed.
The new law requires that all plaintiffs—including carriers seeking subrogation—must rethink whom they use as experts and what they engage them to do. The expert must now actually redesign the product, meaning that he or she must have product safety design experience and must be able to testify to the details of a safer design. Qualified consultants will probably be more expensive because product design experience is more difficult to come by. To contain expenses, carriers might share a product design expert with the injured victim's own attorney, opening up opportunities for stipulations and cooperative agreements which will benefit both.
Product liability cases involving manufacturing defects will not require a safer alternative design.
Insurers should immediately inquire about the age of any product involved in a loss because the new Wisconsin act includes a Statute of Repose that applies to all manufacturers, sellers or distributors of products. Under the act, a defendant cannot be found liable to a claimant under a theory of strict liability if the product alleged to have caused the damage was manufactured 15 years or more before the injury or damage occurs unless a manufacturer makes a specific representation that the product will last for a period beyond 15 years or the action is based on a claim for damages caused by a latent defect.
Insurance companies often must wear two hats—that of a defendant looking to limit liability whenever a liability claim is brought against one of its insureds, and that of a plaintiff when looking to enforce liability in a subrogation action filed against a negligent tortfeasor. Tort reform helps the former but hurts the latter.
The new tort reform act also brings Wisconsin into line with a growing number of states combating "junk science." Wisconsin has now adopted the Daubert "reliability" rule for the admission of expert testimony in all cases. No longer will courts in Wisconsin rely upon the "relevancy rule"; instead, Wisconsin judges will now take a more active gatekeeper's role in determining whether expert witnesses will be allowed to testify at the time of trial.
Previously, if a witness had scientific, technical or other specialized knowledge that would assist the judge or jury to understand the evidence or to determine a fact at issue, a witness—qualified as an expert by knowledge, skill, expertise, training or education—would be able to testify regarding that knowledge in the form of an opinion or otherwise. No longer.
The applicability of the expert's field of expertise to the claim.
The testimony is based upon sufficient facts or data.
The testimony is the product of reliable principles and methods.
The witnesses applied the principles and methods reliably to the facts of the case.
The new requirements mean that insurance companies engaging experts on subrogation claims—including those other than product liability cases—must be very careful in their selection of experts. This may require a reevaluation of expert witness lists and even standing contracts with specialty witness providers. Subrogation counsel should meet with the relevant carrier participants to iron all this out posthaste.
The Daubert standard sets rules of evidence for the admissibility of expert testimony in U.S. federal legal proceedings. It emanates from Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, a 1993 case that dealt with serious birth defects suffered by two children allegedly as a result of the mothers' ingestion of the morning-sickness prescription remedy Benedictin. The parents (plaintiffs) submitted evidence based on in vitro and in vivo animal studies and other research that indicated Benedictin could cause birth defects. Because the studies and methodologies were not generally accepted by the general scientific community at that time, trial and appellate judges found in favor of the defendant, Merrell Dow.
The case went to the Supreme Court, which weighed applicable rules of evidence and found that Rule 702 of the Federal Rules of Evidence provided a basis for a decision. While it didn't find that "general acceptance" should govern admissibility of evidence in federal trials, it did set forth juridical standards for expert testimony, which can be broadly categorized as (1) a grounding in scientific knowledge, (2) assistance to the trier in fact (the judge or jury or, sometimes, others), and (3) a "valid scientific connection to the pertinent inquiry." The Supreme Court also decided that the judge would make the determination on the second point—assistance to the trier.
Act 2 doubles down on the risk-benefit assessment a carrier must make before pursuing subrogation. It provides that a party or their attorney may be liable for costs and fees for actions that are pursued without a reasonable basis of law. If any party withdraws or corrects the improper conduct within 21 days of receiving the other party's motion for fees, the court can decide whether to award actual costs, taking into consideration the offending party's mitigating conduct. Under the new law, if the offending party does not make a timely withdrawal or correction of conduct, actual costs must be awarded by the court. If the decision is appealed and the appellate court affirms the award of costs, the offending party must also pay the actual fees incurred in the appeal. A carrier pursuing a $15,000 property loss does not want to become responsible for the payment of the defendant's attorney's fees and/or costs. Picking and choosing quality subrogation cases to pursue just became a joint venture between the carrier and its subrogation counsel.
Gary L. Wickert (gwickert@mwl-law.com) is a partner with Matthiesen, Wickert & Lehrer, S.C., and assisted state representatives in drafting portions of Wisconsin's tort reform legislation. Douglas W. Lehrer (dlehrer@mwl-law.com) is a partner with Matthiesen, Wickert & Lehrer, S.C.
Gary L. Wickert is a partner with CLM Member Firm Matthiesen, Wickert & Lehrer S.C. He can be reached at (800) 637-9176, gwickert@mwl-law.com, www.mwl-law.com.


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Santos unsure on voting to remove Omar from Foreign Affairs panel
Categories: News The Hill
Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) said he is undecided on whether he will vote to oust Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) from the House Foreign Affairs Committee, according to Insider, as Republican leadership attempts to toss Omar from the panel.
Santos told Insider on Wednesday that he still does not know how he will vote on the measure to boot Omar from the Foreign Affairs panel. Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) is set to hold a vote on the move in the coming weeks. Omar's service on the committee has come under fire after past comments about Israel have drawn the ire of both Republicans and Democrats.
Santos's indecision on the vote means Republican leadership may have a harder path to winning a resolution to get the Minnesota Democrat off the committee. With a slim majority, McCarthy can only afford to lose a few GOP votes. Rep. Victoria Spartz (R-Ind.) has said she will not support the move and Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) also said she is undecided. A small group of Democrats have not announced how they plan to vote.
Santos has admitted to lying about his background, part of which was a claim that he was Jewish, which he later walked back as saying he was "Jew-ish."
Omar is one of three Democratic lawmakers who have been pinpointed as candidates to be tossed from their committee assignments. McCarthy ejected Reps. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) from the House Intelligence Committee.
The White House came to the defense of Omar and her fellow Democrats who are in the sights of the new GOP House majority.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on Wednesday said all three members "bring a lot to the table when it comes to foreign policy and national security."
"We'll say that when it comes to that committee, it should not be politicized," Jean-Pierre added, speaking specifically about the Intelligence Committee. "It should be independent. And again, those congressional members bring a lot of expertise to that committee, and I'll leave it there."
Just In | The Hill Read More


"Aldrig du" is the first single from Verkligheten's upcoming EP that will be released in April 2019. The song describes the thoughts of a person in a state between hope and despair. The single is the first song with Verkligheten's Edwin Ekstedt as the main vocalist.
This track will tear you between the Scandinavian charm of the you-can't-help-but-fall-for-it-sound of Verkligheten that you're already familiar with and the clinginess of old-school Placebo hits like "Every You Every Me". And no matter how sketchy this description might sound like… It works.


Drops of pure liquids and mixtures on substrates with nanostructured porous coatings: Impact, imbibition and evaporation.
In: ECIS 2018 - 32nd Conference of the European Colloid and Interface Society, September 2-7, 2018, Ljubljana.
Breakup Behavior of a Capillary Bridge on a Hydrophobic Stripe Separating two Hydrophilic Stripes.
Gas phase induced Marangoni flows causes instable wetting film during drop merging.
In: 16th Multiphase Flow Conference & Short Course, November 13-16, 2018, Dresden.
This list was generated on Sun Apr 21 01:19:28 2019 CEST.


text:
Healthcare // Analytics
Nicole Lewis
FDA Revamps Medical Device Approval
The 510(k) program overhaul aims to facilitate innovation, streamline the review process, and protect patient safety.
(click image for larger view)
Slideshow: Health IT Boosts Patient Care, Safety
The Food and Drug Administration unveiled Wednesday a plan to revamp its 510(k) program that medical device manufacturers use to clear their products before they can be marketed and sold to the public.
Many medical device manufacturers see the efficient running of the 510(k) program as pivotal to stimulating U.S. innovation, investment, and job growth in the medical device industry. The FDA's Center for Devices and Radiological Health (CDRH) uses the program to clear some 3,000 new medical devices for patients each year.
"Facilitating innovation is a critical part of the agency's responsibility to promote the public health, but this can happen only if the U.S. can support a robust, innovative, medical device industry," Jeffrey Shuren, director of FDA's center for devices and radiological health, said in a statement. "The steps we are announcing today remove roadblocks to innovation while protecting patient safety."
To facilitate innovation in medical devices, the FDA will:
-- Streamline the review process for innovative, lower-risk products, called the "de novo" process;
-- Publish guidance for industry to clarify when clinical data should be submitted to increase predictability and transparency;
-- Develop a network of external experts who can use their knowledge and experience to help the agency address important scientific issues regarding new medical device technologies; and
-- Establish a new Center Science Council of senior FDA experts within the agency's medical device center to assure more timely and consistent science-based decision making.
The FDA also announced that it will strengthen its capacity to examine and monitor the safety of medical devices once they are on the market and being used. It will establish a public database of important device information, such as medical device labeling and summaries of the basis for the FDA's decision to clear specific devices. It will also require a brief description of scientific information regarding the safety and effectiveness known to the manufacturer for select higher-risk devices on a case-by-case basis through device-specific guidance.
Annual Global State of the WAN