Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
City: Homeless can stay in hotel for now
After spending $500K on hotel rooms, Fort Lauderdale has run out of money
The hotel rooms for the homeless, paid for on the city dime, aren’t going away –— but the free ride may end this week.
Fort Lauderdale needs an infusion of money to keep the program going. The city has already spent more than $500,000 on hotel vouchers for the homeless, a program that got underway in May to help curb the spread of COVID-19. But the money has run out.
The state’s Emergency Management czar Jared Moskowitz, who earlier promised an infusion of state money, is now directing city officials to seek help from the county.
Broward officials have agreed to pay the bill for
extending the hotel stay just two more days, Fort Lauderdale Mayor Dean Trantalis said late Monday.
For dozens of homeless people, the Rodeway Inn and Suites in Dania Beach has become a safe refuge in the middle of a pandemic.
Under the county’s plan, all 72 homeless hotel guests will be tested for the coronavirus, Trantalis said.
“If they test negative they will be put in shelters — if there is room,” he said. If the shelter is out of beds, they’d be on their own.
“I’m more focused on these poor souls who are going to be put back on the street,” Trantalis said. “And we’re at the doorstep of the hurricane season. We are the only city that’s stepping up to the plate.”
To date, Fort Lauderdale has spent $530,000 on the hotel voucher program and helped 110 people who were living on the streets, City Manager Chris Lagerbloom said. Fort Lauderdale is getting reimbursed by federal and state grants tied to the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act, or CARES Act.
The hotel’s homeless guests have been on red alert since Sunday morning. A memo delivered with breakfast told them they’d need to pack up and leave. Checkout time would come at 11 a.m. Monday.
By 11 p.m. Sunday, a new memo arrived saying they could stay put, for now.
“Last night we got word to our clients and told them we’d found additional dollars and did not have to end the program today,” Lagerbloom said. “It won’t end today or tomorrow.”
That was welcome news to the homeless guests staying at the Rodeway Inn. But they still worry about being forced to check out, especially with coronavirus cases on the upswing.
Shaunta Cain, 49, complained that they’d only been given 24 hours notice.
“It was devastating to get that note: OK, we want you guys out, you gotta go,” she said.
On Monday, Lagerbloom said the hotel’s homeless guests had been told a week ago that their stay was coming to an end.
Alexis Butler, an organizer with the Fort Lauderdale chapter of Food Not Bombs, says the group will help fight any future orders to leave the hotel.
“We’ve got four pregnant women, a blind person, and someone with Stage 2 cancer,” Butler said, adding that she’s worried for their safety. “We don’t know how long the eviction is postponed for. They need to help these people actually get housing.”
Shana Cartwright, who is pregnant and suffers from seizures, has been homeless since March.
After getting a hotel voucher from the city, she moved into the Rodeway Inn with her friend, who suffers from chronic lung disease and needs four breathing treatments a day.
“We’ll go back to the streets” if the voucher program ends, Cartwright said. “All we’re saying is help us out.”
The hotel stays were never intended to last forever, Lagerbloom said. They were initially meant to last 30 days but were later extended.
The city’s contract with the Extended Stay America motel on the 17th Street Causeway in Fort Lauderdale ended two weeks ago, Lagerbloom said. Some of the homeless people who were staying there were relocated to the Rodeway Inn.
The fact that Fort Lauderdale made a deal with a Dania Beach hotel to house the homeless caused a rift between the two cities.
Dania Beach officials accused Fort Lauderdale of “dumping” homeless people in their town and said they should have been alerted ahead of time. Fort Lauderdale officials said they had no idea the hotel was in Dania Beach.
Dania Beach Mayor Lori Lewellen said Monday that Fort Lauderdale didn’t let her city know about the 24-hour notice telling hotel guests to leave.
“Fort Lauderdale hasn’t told us anything,” she said. “I have heard nothing from them. If they brought them here, I would presume they would be the ones to get them to wherever they need to go to when the time is up. If there is a plan, it has not been shared with us.”
Lagerbloom told the South Florida Sun Sentinel there is no plan to bus the homeless guests back to Fort Lauderdale when their hotel stay ends.
“I hope to transition them into housing throughout the community,” he said. “To the extent we can’t, we will encourage them to work with the local homeless assistance centers to pursue services. I don’t intend on transporting anyone to any certain location unless it is to housing.”
On Monday, the hotel’s homeless guests gathered outside with protest signs and urgent pleas to let them stay put.
Homeless advocate Jeff Weinberger said he got an email from the mayor Sunday night telling him to chill out after he sent emails asking the city to halt the eviction.
“We are not going to chill out,” he said. “We’re not going to stop fighting this. We’ll be back tomorrow if we have to.”