“The most common law that targets homeless people is some version of a panhandling law, whether it's aggressive panhandling or saying you can only panhandle in certain areas of a city.”
“They (Sarasota) could have been taken off the mean list if they would have just done away with that ordinance. They continue to push and push and push, and push homeless people out of the city.”
“I'm not surprised by Mayor Goodman's reaction. I respect the mayor. I think he's a good guy, but he has always had an anti-homeless bent and he revels in name-calling. We didn't delight in ranking Las Vegas as a mean city again. We're just trying to put the spotlight on the city and let the mayor know that Las Vegas will never get off the list as long as he continues to declare war on the homeless.”
“We have been tracking and documenting what has been going on in Las Vegas since 2002. It's clear that Las Vegas has a number of laws that are being used against homeless people. It has a sorry history of criminalizing the homeless. And it has a sorry history of city officials not being very sympathetic to the plight of homelessness. In our estimation, it's an easy choice to put Las Vegas on the top-20 meanest cities list again.”
“The videotape is our dream come true. It's putting a face to the issue. What happened in Fort Lauderdale will happen again in other parts of the country, and we know that it will happen again.”
