Tales of hope and caution as Florida looks to create legal camps for homeless people
TALLAHASSEE
Angela Martin’s slide into homelessness started when she was 9.
That’s when she was first admitted to a mentalhealth facility. Suffering from a plethora of mental and physical ailments, including schizophrenia, she became a daily user of intravenous methamphetamines and ended up homeless, living in a tent, she said.
But as she emerged from that tent one morning last week, she received a helping hand — from Joe Pondolfino, the program director for Pinellas Hope in Clearwater.
Martin, 47, is one of hundreds of homeless people living in the facility’s tents, part of a complex of apartments, showers and a kitchen run by the Catholic Diocese of St. Petersburg.
“Pinellas Hope has given me a second chance at life,” Martin said.
State lawmakers are preparing to pass sweeping legislation that would require counties to remove homeless people from public spaces, such as parks and sidewalks.
Where counties would place them is up to county officials. But under House Bill 1365, counties could designate public land, away from neighborhoods and businesses, for “public camping or sleeping.” Security, sanitation and behavioral-health services would have to be available.
The idea has been condemned by critics as an out-of-sight, out-of-mind approach that will lead to further criminalization of homeless people.
But places such as Pinellas Hope offer an example of how such a system could function.
“Based on what we’ve done for the last 17 years, this model works,” said Maggie Rogers, executive director of Catholic Charities of the Diocese of St. Petersburg.
Gainesville, on the other hand, offers a cautionary tale of a tent camp that had to be shut down due to violence and drug use.
“We have seen the vision that you are trying to portray here today,” Rep. Yvonne Hinson, D-Gainesville, told Republicans on the House floor on Friday.
“That didn’t work.”
GAINESVILLE’S EXPERIENCE
The idea for the legislation came from Rep. Sam Garrison, R-Jacksonville, who said communities have to take back their public spaces. Florida cities can’t become like San Francisco and Los Angeles, he said.
At the same time, he said his heart breaks for homeless people, and keeping them on the streets to “fend for themselves” is “unacceptable.”
“I have no illusions whatsoever that when my Lord returns, he’s not hanging out with me,” Garrison said. “He’s going to be with those folks, serving their needs.”
Democratic lawmakers and advocates have raised practical and philosophical concerns. Communities might not have land available or be able to afford the cost of maintaining such a camp. Moving people off the streets could lead counties to choose between forcing people into camps or arresting them, neither of which is considered best practice.
In 2014, Gainesville tried an approach to a tent camp. The city had an unsanctioned, 200-person homeless camp near downtown. When it forced residents out of it, the city said they could set up their tents near a new emergency homeless shelter offering meals and showers.
At first, the new camp worked, according to a paper about Gainesville’s experience published in The Georgetown Journal on Poverty Law & Policy last year.
The city offered clean water, bathrooms and trash pickup, and residents showed pride in their surroundings. But the city had no strategy to move people into permanent housing, according to the paper, and the camp swelled to several hundred people. Drug use and violence increased despite police being assigned to the camp, and there were rumors of human trafficking.
Permanent housing is considered the best longterm strategy, and it’s how cities such as Miami have been successful in reducing homeless populations. Garrison said he doesn’t disagree but said communities can’t wait years for housing to be built.
How much communities spend on homeless services adapting to the legislation will “make or break” how successful they are, said Jon DeCarmine, co-author of the Georgetown paper and executive director of the nearby homeless shelter, Grace Marketplace. The shelter worked with the city to end the encampment.
Lawmakers so far are budgeting an extra $10 million across the state to help counties adapt to the changes. But under the legislation, the state’s 29 “fiscally constrained” rural counties don’t have to provide the sanitation, security and services required under the bill.
“What problem are we trying to solve? If it’s visible homelessness, this might make some impact,” DeCarmine said of the legislation. “If it’s ending homelessness, I don’t think this gets us there.”
About 230 people sleep at Pinellas Hope’s 10-acre campus each night, in either its apartments, tents or cottages converted from shipping containers, Rogers, the Catholic Charities director, said. It has an annual budget of $2.1 million, from donations and funding from cities.
The shelter screens out sexual offenders but otherwise admits anyone. Drugs and alcohol aren’t allowed. It does not have security, just staff with deescalation skills, Rogers said.
“They want it to be their safe place,” Rogers said.