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I live in Orlando and this story, like most, has multiple facets (most of them not what I would call attractive facets in regards to my city faire).
Orlando has an ongoing decades long struggle with the reality of homelessness. As in it struggles to deny the reality of its existence in Orlando. Especially in the downtown areas which, when I was in junior high and high school, was almost exclusively the domain of drunks, drug addicts and what, in the old days, one might affectionately call hobos. Today we might call them transients. And Central Florida has a lot of them...for various reasons relating to geography and infrastructure. But about 20 years ago or so, the city of Orlando tried to "reclaim" its downtown areas for economic reasons (of course) and has been attempting to systematically rid the area of homeless people ever since by closing down "transient hotels," enacting and heavily enforcing laws against loitering and panhandling, forcibly "evicting" groups of homeless people who gather under bridges and abandoned housing, squelching the feeding programs in Lake Eola Park and generally harrassing anyone downtown who is not there to spend money or walk their dog. All true. Personally, I think a well-established and important city is almost defined by the richness and vibrancy of its homeless culture, but that's just me. It's important to understand the suffocating influence Disney and its insistence on everything being "perfect" and "clean" and "beautiful" has had on this community.
Second facet, and I'm running out of time so I'll say this quick. Parking around Lake Eola is a bitch. You are very lucky if you find a spot on the street directly around the park. I've lived here a little more than 20 years and could probably count on one hand the number of times I've parked in a spot that borders the park. Not only that, but like someone said earlier, most the streets are one way (and one lane!) and traffic is normally very heavy. If someone parked their car on the street and blocked traffic I can completely understand them getting a ticket for it. I'm sure I would! I would think it would behoove these folks to park in a legal spot somewhere off from the park and invest in a trolley to wheel the food up the park with. But, eh, I'm a solutions kind of person.
And all of that said...I would like to keep Lake Eola and downtown beautiful, as they truly have become so. But I don't think not providing for people who are just simply not going to disappear as much as some people would like for them to is making Orlando more beautiful. I tend to think that beauty comes from the heart.
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Most people go through life dreading they'll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They've already passed their test in life. They're aristocrats. - Diane Arbus
PESSIMISM, n. A philosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his scarecrow hope and his unsightly smile. - Ambrose Bierce
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