Mobile showers for the homeless halted

Mobile showers being offered to the homeless in Fort Lauderdale have been turned off after city code officers said “using a portable shower outside of a structure” was not permitted.

Hope South Florida officials, who have been offering weekly showers to the homeless at two Fort Lauderdale and one Pompano Beach locations since April 2017, were surprised by the city’s Aug. 1 notice because they said the city had been aware of the program all along.

Ted Greer, CEO for Hope South Florida, said his organization had no permit for the activity because it operates the showers on church property. The group has been told it will need a $200 “special events” permit that will only be good for 90 days. Hope South Florida would have to continually file lengthy, new applications.

“I knew nothing about this,” Mayor Dean Trantalis said when contacted Tuesday. “That’s insane.”

Broward commissioners also found the situation ridiculous. They unanimously passed a resolution urging the city to allow the homeless showers to continue “without requiring an extensive application and approval process.”

"The city should provide you

some funds to help you, not take away from the good work you’re trying to do," Commissioner Dale Holness said. "I don’t understand the logic at all."

Commissioner Michael Udine said what the group is doing is nothing different from opening a locker room so people can take showers.

“To invite people to a church to take a shower, to discourage that is crazy and is not what we should stand for as a society,” Udine said.

City spokesman Chaz Adams said the city was responding

to a complaint it received.

“The City looked into the matter and, upon review, determined that this is not a permitted activity on the property. We did not cite Hope South Florida, but rather, informed them that the activity was not permitted and asked them to cease operations. They complied with our request,” Adams said.

Once the organization completes a special event application, it will have to go before the City Commission for review and action, Adams said.

Greer said the weekly showers — set up in a customized

trailer — have been serving about 75 to 125 people each week. They are offered at Hope South Florida’s offices at the former New Life Methodist Church on North Andrews Avenue, St. Christopher’s Episcopal Church on Northwest Sixth Avenue and in Pompano Beach at Christ Community Church on McNab Road.

“This is frustrating and hurts those we are serving, particularly in the summer months,” Greer said.

Hope South Florida has stopped all its shower programs — including the one in Pompano Beach — while officials try to work out the situation, Greer said.

“We didn’t want to take a chance” of running into more problems, Greer said.

The North Andrews location is already permitted as a feeding center for the homeless and a food distribution center, but Greer was told those permits wouldn’t cover the showers.

Jeff Weinberger, a homeless activist, was at a July 28 event at the North Andrews site that city online records indicate may have been the reason for the complaint. Both showers and free haircuts were being offered.

“I saw homeless guys and homeless women coming out of the shower and they were so happy to take a

shower and feel all nice and clean,” Weinberger said. “A shower is a way of giving people a little sense of dignity.”

The homeless situation and the city’s reaction to it has created much bad publicity. City officials talk about money they have allocated to homeless programs, but they have also taken actions that critics called “homeless hate laws.”

In 2014, the city passed a series of regulations that restricted outdoor feedings and that prohibited people from sleeping on public property or storing there items there. Police cited then-90-year-old Arnold

Abbott and others for conducting outdoor feedings.

In 2017, the city raided the homeless camp in downtown Fort Lauderdale, bringing in a front-end loader to haul away belongings. In July, the city agreed to pay $40,120 to 10 homeless people who had their belongings destroyed in the raid.

The encampment next to the Main Library, where a man was shot Aug. 7, continues to grow as city and county officials look for a solution.