MILFORD, Del. - In the Milford City Council meeting, a vote of 7-1 passed an ordinance that would keep panhandling from occurring at Milford intersections.
According to most of city council, this was necessary to ensure the safety of pedestrians at intersections and maintain the flow of traffic, "Actually people falling in a median or sleeping within a median, all of those issues really pose an issue for the pedestrian themselves." said City Manager Mark Whitfield.
If pedestrians linger at an intersection as opposed to crossing it, they could be fined anywhere from $100 to $500 following a warning.
Holly Cooper is homeless and relies on donations from passing drivers to get essentials, "That's how we eat and that's how we maintain our life. Yes I understand we should all get a job but it's hard for us felons to get a job or when we don't have social security cards or we need help with IDs and stuff like that - Like that is going to mess a lot of people up."
Others from the community say that while they see a need for guidelines, the real issue is in addressing the homeless population, "I think what we have to do is direct our attention to the homeless population whether its tiny homes like in Georgetown or some type of solution such as that to help." said long time Milfordian Judy Baksamy.
For more information on origins of this ordinance you can visit the article on the workshop that led to this decision.
