Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jun 13, 2014 21:17:38 GMT -5
I am wondering what your opinions are on this situation and who might be a good place to start contacting...
We have a woman in my area who is panhandling with her young children. Today, she had the kids standing in the roadway intersection with the parking lot, on the pavement not the sidewalk, holding up signs.
This has been a problem and I know local PD was called and CPS has also been called. The woman is not destitute and she apparently has a hearing loss issue but doesn't want help.
The PD will not respond unless a store owner calls when the kids are panhandling. So, today as I swerved to not hit one of her kids with my car, I decided to ask the store manager to call. I insisted actually. And, she did. No one came, but she called.
It cannot possibly be legal for this to go on? Who should be doing something and what if you know law/CPS know and have done nothing?
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sesfw
Junior Associate
Today is the first day of the rest of my life
Joined: Dec 21, 2010 15:45:17 GMT -5
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Post by sesfw on Jun 13, 2014 21:57:10 GMT -5
Don't know where you live but here in AZ the CPS is so overburdened they can't keep up with the cases they have.
I stay away from panhandlers but the ones using kids make me very sad. They are raising their kids to know all they have to do is hold up a sign and receive funds.
I'm sorry to hear about this and I hope something is done. What ......... I don't know.
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milee
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Post by milee on Jun 14, 2014 8:33:47 GMT -5
It is sad and it's not a good life for the kids, but unless your area has laws against panhandling (and many places don't because they're tough to write so that they're Constitutional and not depriving people of their First Amendment right to free speech), it's not illegal. So unless the kids are otherwise being abused, not being fed, not receiving medical care, missing school, etc, CPS and the police probably won't do much because the mom's not not doing anything illegal.
Sesfw's right about CPS in AZ. Even 10 years ago, they had just under 10,000 kids in foster care in Maricopa county alone. And considering things have to be very serious to remove a child from his/her home and place him/her in foster care, you can imagine how many other children CPS was having to monitor that were still living at home.
And speaking of "home", being homeless in and of itself isn't considered enough of an issue to remove a child from his/her family, at least in Maricopa County. As long as the child was being fed, receiving at least minimal medical attention and attending school, not being physically abused, etc., CPS would leave a homeless family together and not remove the children. Again, the problems have to be very severe to remove a child and unless there are other things going on, panhandling in and of itself probably isn't going to rise to the level of severity to remove the kids.
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