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Florida Couple Fined, Threatened with Jail for Feeding Homeless
Key Excerpts from Article on Website of NBC News


NBC News, May 12, 2014
Posted: June 2nd, 2014
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/florida-couple-fined-thr...

A Florida couple who retired from their management jobs to care for the poor vowed ... to wage a tenacious legal fight days after being fined more than $300 each for violating a local law. Debbie and Chico Jimenez openly admit committing the act that earned them two citations apiece: feeding more than 100 people who are homeless in Daytona Beach. Police in Daytona Beach also threatened them with arrest and incarceration, if they offer any more of their home-cooked meals at Manatee Island Park, a gathering the Jimenezes say theyve hosted every Wednesday for the past year. Debbie Jimenez, 52, a retired auto parts store manager ... and her husband, 60, a retired construction manager, operate [the] New Smyrna Beach-based ministry called Spreading the Word Without Saying a Word. We were given 10 days to either pay the fine or tell them we're going to court. Were going to court. The police dont like it. But how can we turn our backs on the hungry? We cant, [Debbie Jimenez said]. In all, police officers ticketed six people, including four volunteers who helped the Jimenezes on Wednesday one of them, a man in a wheelchair who recently escaped homelessness and participated to pay it forward, Debbie Jimenez said. The fines levied by authorities total $2,238. Daytona Beach is not alone among cities that formally and legally restrict non-governmental individuals who seek to share food with homeless people in public or private spaces, according to a report co-released by the National Coalition for the Homeless and the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty.

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