As Super Bowl crowds grow, advocates look out for homeless
MIAMI — The deluge of visitors who accompany Super Bowl 54 can expect to be steered to the area’s most tempting amenities — South Beach, nightlife, upscale dining and luxe parties. The downtown waterfront has been lit up each night for visitors to Super Bowl Live, a fan event at Bayfront Park. Yachts carrying the wealthy and famous are docking at marinas.
The flip side to Miami’s luster is a facet of everyday life in the city’s urban core, a population of homeless individuals who live in downtown’s margins. Those margins are thinning as the area sees more real estate developed and redeveloped, stoking concerns from condo dwellers and business owners over downtown’s cleanliness and residents’ quality of life.
The people who find themselves on the street come from varying backgrounds — some have lost their jobs and housing in a market that has a major affordability crisis. Some suffer from addiction or mental illness.
Now, with an influx of tourists, the question arises: How will the city care for the homeless during an event as massive as the Super Bowl?
City administrators insist it’s business as usual, even though that baseline is not enough for many advocates. The city’s behavior will be watched closely by homeless-rights activists.
Attorney Benjamin Waxman, who has represented the homeless for the American Civil Liberties Union, said Super Bowls and other large events have significant impacts on homeless people. They are often moved out of public spaces to make way for special events — in Miami’s case, several dozen who slept in Bayfront Park had to leave when organizers set up the Super Bowl Live fan event.
“It’s the exacerbation of a condition that already exists in Miami and other large municipalities,” Waxman said.
The attorney has worked on homeless issues in Miami for more than two decades. He argued on behalf of a class of 5,000 homeless people who sued the city of Miami in 1988 over the police practice of sweeping people off sidewalks and throwing out their belongings, a practice the homeless contended was unconstitutional.
A decade later, both sides agreed to a federal consent decree that established the principle that homeless people are entitled to quality of life, in the sense that people living on the street should not be imprisoned or harassed for loitering or other “life-sustaining activities” such as sleeping on the sidewalk or urinating in public.
The deal became known as the Pottinger Agreement, which affords Miami’s homeless people protection from undue police harassment In February 2019, U.S. District Judge Federico Moreno terminated the agreement after a series of hearings over the city’s treatment of the homeless, issuing an opinion that Miami’s government had become a more humane steward of the unhoused.
City Hall’s attorneys insisted the police had adjusted attitudes and established better practices for interacting with people living on the street. Homeless individuals and their attorneys disagreed, pointing to “street cleanups” where city workers removed the personal property of people sleeping on sidewalks, in some cases discarding important documents, food and clothing.
Attorneys for the American Civil Liberties Union representing Miami’s homeless appealed Moreno’s decision. The matter is pending in the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.
In the meantime, a top Miami administrator told the Miami Herald the city has not changed its philosophy since the federal judge’s opinion. There were no reports of police sweeping people off the streets as of Friday.
“We are still acting as if the Pottinger agreement is in place because there is an appeal,” said Milton Vickers, director of the city’s department of human services.
Advocates who have monitored the conditions on the street said that while it appears the situation has not worsened, it has not necessarily improved either.
“I’m seeing some sort of gradual, even if reluctant, compliance with the Pottinger protocol,” said David Peery, an advocate and plaintiff in the federal settlement. He said in the year since Pottinger’s legal restrictions were deemed unnecessary in court, other crucial needs for the homeless remain unmet.
“It hasn’t gotten worse,” he said. “Do we have more shelter beds, more affordable housing and more services? No. What we really need are case managers, and more transitional and permanent beds.”
The Super Bowl, one of the most viewed events in American sports, is billed as a major economic boon for any region that hosts it — even though those hosting duties certainly come with their own costs to taxpayers. Will any of that money go to programs to help the homeless?
The National Football League and the local Host Committee committed $100,000 to provide temporary shelter for a few dozen people who were sleeping in Bayfront Park before a fan event took over the park. The money will pay for shelter for 60 to 80 individuals for up to 60 days, covering capacity for additional beds, meals, street-level outreach and case workers.
The money is being steered to the Miami-Dade County Homeless Trust, the tax-funded agency that partners with local shelters and social service providers that work with the homeless. The Trust’s chairman, lobbyist Ron Book, said the goal is to connect people with resources that can eventually lead them to a more permanent housing situation.
Another goal: to work toward standards for large, profitable entities such as the NFL when they stage major events that displace homeless people. Peery and Book said they hoped organizers of any large-scale event that comes to the town will consider the social impacts of their presence.
“While I don’t know that this is going to create a best practice model, I think it demonstrates a commitment from the NFL, demonstrates a commitment from our host committee, that recognizes that when you host large events, you’ve got at least some social responsibility,” Book said.
One aspect of a complex issue is where unhoused people can relieve themselves in the absence of shelter and public facilities.
Jose Goyanes owns Churchill’s Barber Shop downtown, near where many homeless sleep on Southeast First Street. He’s witnessed a persistent problem with urine and feces from homeless people who relieve themselves in public because they don’t have accessible options.
“We need more bathrooms in downtown Miami,” Goyanes said.
His opinion is echoed by the people sleeping on the street, who recently told the Herald they don’t want to urinate or defecate in planters, doorways, corners or the sidewalk.
“We’d rather use a toilet. We don’t want to be nasty and dirty,” said Kesia Hollins.
Goyanes and other business owners are calling for more public bathrooms that would not only benefit the homeless but provide facilities for pedestrians. City leaders are discussing funding options. Not all are supportive.
“Bathrooms and showers do nothing but sustain homelessness,” Book recently told Miami New Times. “It keeps folks out on the streets. It does nothing to end it.”
In September 2018, the city debuted a permanent freestanding toilet at the corner of West Flagler Street and Northwest First Avenue, near the Main Library. The facility is staffed by a formerly homeless attendant through a program run by the Downtown Development Authority, a program city leaders wish to expand. The construction of the facility, though, turned into an expensive project for the taxpayers, with a price tag of $312,976. The city would likely have to explore cheaper options for the bathrooms to get political support.
Placing them in the right locations would make a big difference, Goyanes said, suggesting bathrooms at Metromover stops. Even a few toilets would help.
“Is it going to curb all the feces in downtown and all the urine? No,” he said. “But it’s going to drastically reduce them.”