Tampa Bay: Highest Homeless Rate in US

Facts About Homelessness and our Homeless Neighbors 2011

Homelessness in Hillsborough County

The Homeless Coalition of Hillsborough County's 2011 homeless count in Hillsborough County, conducted on January 27, 2011, found:

• 17,755* men, women and children are homeless in Hillsborough County on any given night

7,336 are living on the streets, shelters and/or other places not meant for human habitation

10,424 are living doubled up with family and friends because of loss of housing and/or economic hardship 

•  23 percent are children
•  65 percent are male; 35 percent are female
•  44 percent are Caucasian
•  55 percent are African-American
•  14 percent are Latino
•  5 percent are veterans**
•  65 percent have a source of income
•  Of the 65 percent with income, the top five income sources reported are:

SSI/SSDI (19%)

Employment (17%)

Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (11%)

Unemployment Compensation (8%)

Panhandling (7%)

•  35 percent have a disability
•  90 percent were residing in Florida at the time they became homeless
•  51 percent are experiencing homelessness for the first time
•  16.5 percent have been homeless at 4 or more times
• The Hillsborough County Public Schools reported there were 3,109 homeless students enrolled on the day of the 2011 homeless count.

* Florida definitions of homeless, s. 420.621, was changed in July 2009 and includes persons who lack a fixed regular nighttime residence including those living on the streets, in shelters, places not meant for human habitation, living doubled up with family/friends, in motels and campgrounds due to loss of housing and economic hardship.

** The percentage of homeless veterans is believed to be inaccurate as many of the reporting agencies did not provide data on veteran status as well as an unusally low answer rate by individuals surveyed.  This situation is dcoumented by the 2010 Annual Homeless Assessment Report to Congress, which states, "there is anecdotal evidence that homeless veterans sometimes do not divulge their veteran status to homeless program staff."

 Homeless Coalition of Hillsborough County

(CBS News)TAMPA BAY, Fla. - As Republicans gather for their national party convention in Tampa, they will be aware of the stormy weather but may not see another issue clouding the city.

The Tampa-St. Petersburg metropolitan area has the highest rate of homelessness in the nation, according to the National Alliance to End Homelessness in a report issued earlier this year - 57 homeless for every 10,000 residents.

There are about 16,000 homeless people in the Tampa area, and one in five of them are children. 

Tallahassee, Anal Crevassee of Nation

Light goes on at the Tampa Tribune.

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Study ranks Florida No. 1 in government corruption

By WILLIAM MARCH | The Tampa Tribune 
Published: May 31, 2012

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TAMPA --

An upcoming study by the new Integrity Florida watchdog group says Florida leads the nation in government corruption.

The study will be the second major production of Integrity Florida, a public interest watchdog group in Tallahassee.

The study, to be released in about a week, will show that Florida had 781 federal corruption convictions from 2000 to 2010, the most of any state, executive director Dan Krassner told the Tampa Tribune editorial board.

In five of the last 12 years, the study shows, Florida led all states in at least one category: It had the most criminal convictions among people in government.

Florida's lead is partly because of its size, Krassner said, but the numbers are still disproportionate.

"We're the fourth-largest state, soon to be the third-largest, and it makes sense that we'd be up there," he said.

But the two largest, California and Texas, each led in only three of the last 12 years, compared with Florida's five.

Zealous prosecution doesn't explain the numbers, either, Krassner said, noting the state Commission on Ethics doesn't have authority to launch its own investigations.

Ethics commission executive director Virlindia Doss said she can't judge whether the figures mean Florida is the nation's most corrupt state.

"I wouldn't be able to interpret the meaning of those numbers any more capably than anybody else who reviewed them," Doss said. "It's like any kind of data — it's hard to know what's causation and what's just correlation."

In other words, it's not clear whether the numbers are a result of ethics problems specific to Florida or simply coincidence.

The study looked at convictions won by the Public Integrity section of the U.S. Department of Justice, a data source that allows for state-by-state comparisons.

The cases included elected and appointed officials and staff, and most involved local government officials, who outnumber state government officials.

The recent conviction of former Hillsborough County Commissioner Kevin White on bribery and corruption charges is an example but isn't included in the study results because it was too recent, Krassner said.

The figures do include the convictions of four Palm Beach County commissioners on corruption charges from 2006 to 2010 — events that earned the county the title of "capital of Florida corruption" from Time magazine.

A University of Illinois study recently ranked Florida fourth in corruption from 1976-2010, but there's apparently been an upward trend, Krassner said.

The Penile State Penile Operator par excellence

Let's have a loud round of nasty PenileState applause for this corporate Penile Operator:

GEO Group of Boca Raton, Fla., the nation's second-largest for-profit prison corporation, ... posted a profit of $284 million last year. The Mississippi Department of Corrections pays GEO to manage this prison:

Jonathan Smith is chief of special litigation in the civil rights section at the Justice Department, which spent two years looking into conditions at Walnut Grove.

npr news investigations

Town Relies On Troubled Youth Prison For Profits

by JOHN BURNETT

"To have a prison that's chaotic, poorly run, dangerous, didn't provide services, highly sexualized and highly violent really limits the ability of the state to turn those folks around, and to ensure public safety upon their release from prison," Smith said.

Among the conditions described in the report released last month:

• Prison staff had sex with incarcerated youth, which investigators called "among the worst that we've seen in any facility anywhere in the nation."
• Poorly trained guards brutally beat youth and used excessive pepper spray as a first response.
• The prison showed "deliberate indifference" to prisoners possessing homemade knives, which were used in gang fights and inmate rapes.
• Some guards had gang affiliations — a finding confirmed to NPR last year by former inmate Justin Bowling.

"A lot of times, the guards are in the same gang," Bowling said. "If an inmate wanted something done, they got it. If they wanted a cell popped open to handle some business about some fighting or something like that, it just pretty much happened."

Pecksniff, anyone? Florida S&M in the Schools

Florida is one of 19 states, mostly in the South and Mountain West, that still allow public schools to paddle, according to the Center for Effective Discipline. Most Florida school districts have opted out of using corporal punishment, but almost every county in the state's rural North has policies that allow schools to paddle students.

Do they allow cornholing too?

http://www.npr.org/2012/03/13/148521155/spanking-lives-on-in-rural-florida-schools

In which much is explained

Congrats Penilers!

You're in the top 10 states of the US of Fucking A!

You are not just fat, you are obese!

Thank the media - instead of feeding your heart and mind, it fed your face and your arse!

Scott and Koch with your Poverty?

In Seminole County, near Orlando, Fla., so many kids have lost their homes that school busses now stop at dozens of cheap motels where families crowd into rooms, living week to week.

American families have been falling out of the middle class in record numbers. The combination of lost jobs and millions of foreclosures means a lot of folks are homeless and hungry for the first time in their lives. more

Mr. and Mrs. Penilestate go to the beach

Florida land of penile uteruses

Florida House Republicans have introduced at least 18 bills aimed at restricting women's control over their own uteruses— more

Faces of Penility

Rick Scott's policies favor his family business?
Jones burns Koran.

Generations of Macks Insist on being Illiterate!

Representative Connie Mack of Florida plans to propose an amendment to Congress that would eliminate the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA)

http://don411.com/don411/blogs/entry/Representative-Connie-Mack-of-Florida-plans-to-propose-an-amendment-to-Congress-that-would-eliminate-the-National-Endowment-for-the-Arts-NEA-

Dude, read a book, broaden your torpid mind.

Hail Miami, leading edge of worstness

Let us count the ways:

http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=miami+worst+in+nation

More Penile State Genius

Man Tied to Housing Scheme Arrested for Grand Theft

Investigators say McNair is running a business called Homes for Americans that finds houses in foreclosure and leases them to unsuspecting victims. These victims pay a membership fee to his company and pay monies to McNair to lease property that he does not own. See more here.

Penile Freedom

mysuncoast ABC 7 News Sarasota

63 small dogs abandoned on rural Florida road shar.es/XnQMu

3 minutes ago Favorite Retweet Reply

Let's hear it for Rick Scott

Would anyone have any objections if we stipulate that he's a scumbag? (That's our interpretation - not necessarily that of the sender of the message that follows)

Republican Rick Scott announced two policy proposals if he is elected. One is to allow Citizen's Insurance to raise rates to encourage more private companies to get back into the Florida's insurance market. He believes that if we raise the rates of 1.2 million Florida households, more private insurance companies will be interested in coming back to Florida. This plan will allow insurance companies to raise rates without almost any limits or regulations (details here).

His second plan is to save money by gutting the prison budget by a billion dollars. Law enforcement, prison, and union officials warn that a billion dollar cut would force some prisons to close and some dangerous inmates to be released. Scott wants to model our prison system after Texas. This coming from the Scott who touts he will add 700,000 jobs to Florida's economy when he is actually planning to cut thousands of jobs. (details here)

As if this is not enough, HCA and the lobbyists for US Sugar Corp are hosting a fundraiser for Rick Scott at Yankee Stadium on Sunday at the Yankees-Red Sox game. Yes, the same HCA that was fined $1.7 billion for Medicare fraud under Scott's watch. And yes, the same US Sugar Corp that poured millions in ads trashing Rick Scott during the primary. All this fundraising for Rick Scott who was on TV every twenty minutes during the primary calling himself the "outsider" who could be counted on not to take lobbying money. Hah! (details here)

Penile State is Number One

At Powerball:

Florida Stiffs: #47

Trends and Highlights for Civic Engagement in Florida:

• In Florida, 3 million adults volunteered with an organization (20.9%) - ranking them at number 47 among the 50 states and Washington, DC.
• 1.1 million residents in Florida worked with neighbors to fix a community problem (7.2%).
• 45.9 percent of Florida residents donated money, assets, or property with a combined value of more than $25 to charitable or religious organizations.
• 58.7 percent of residents in Florida voted in the 2008 Presidential election- ranking them at number 31 among the 50 states and Washington, DC.
• The first two bullets average data from 2007 to 2009; the third bullet averages data from 2008 to 2009; and the last bullet on voting reflects single year data from 2008.
• Please visit the glossary at www.serve.gov/civic for more information on the terms listed within this profile.

Been there, done that, Mr. Jones?

Never Underestimate the Insanity of Floridians

Dateline Gainesville, FL - home of UF, prestigious bastion of learning:

We met with the Fire Marshal and agreed to all their stipulations. There was no legal reason to turn us down. It was strictly a political move. We will on 9/11 still burn Korans. Dunceworld Outreach Center

Breaking Stupidity...

Dunceworld embeds a video of hard-to-beat loonytunity:

Weimar Election Parallel Strikes Penile State

Florida Land of Ersatz Genius.

The German federal election, March 1933 in the Weimar Republic was held on 5 March 1933. Thanks to the success of the Nazi Party and its allies in the poll, its leader and Chancellor of Germany, Adolf Hitler, was able to pass the Enabling Act, which effectively gave him the power of a dictator.

The Nazis performed best in Eastern Germany.