Hurricane floods homeless housing in historic St. Augustine

ST. AUGUSTINE, FLA. >> Days after Hurricane Matthew sent floodwaters surging through historic St. Augustine, the county’s director of homeless services was panicked.

County officials had ordered people to stay indoors because of evening pesticide spraying to control a post-hurricane mosquito scourge. Yet the town’s only homeless shelter was inundated with water. With the autumn air turning chilly, there was no place for homeless people to go.

“I know we’re close to Disney, but we only have so much magic,” said Kassy Guy-Johanessen, who during the spraying handed out hospital masks and water so people could wash themselves off if they were worried about being exposed.

Homes in many coastal counties in the Southeast sustained flood damage, but the loss of homeless facilities used by dozens of working poor appears to have hit this vulnerable population much harder here than in other areas. Besides the loss of shelter, the hurricane also knocked out businesses where some homeless people worked, leaving them even poorer.

The storm eliminated nearly a third of St. Johns County’s shelter capacity of 327 beds: 88 beds lost in the main homeless crisis center and five more when a falling tree took out a bungalow that housed a homeless family, including three children.

A few blocks from City Hall, outside the multicolored Victorian-style St. Francis House that serves as the city’s homeless crisis center, dozens of people gathered recently at a makeshift kitchen for lunch. St. Francis’s beds were always full, but now yellow caution tape was strung across the porch and handwritten signs warned people to keep out.

“Right now, we have no shelter,” said Judy Dembowski, St. Francis’ director, standing in a room with a 4-foot-high band of muck on the walls.

The county boasts the state’s second-highest median income, but before the storm, St. Augustine also had a busy homeless shelter used predominantly by people who rely on the city and county for lodging and food while working lowwage jobs in the tourist industry.