HOMELESS CAMPS
Homeless haven: Old City Hall But tent dwellers will lose site when West Palm erects fence for hotel developer.
WEST PALM BEACH — They don’t want to fight cit y hall. They just want to live there.
About three months ago, a camping ground of tents started popping up in an unusual outdoor setting — downtown against the outside concrete walls of the old West Palm Beach Cit y Hall.
Homeless people say the tents were donated to them by people they assume are members of St. Ann Catholic Church, which is just north of old Cit y Hall.
Police officers have run off most of the tent dwellers, but a handful of holdouts remain.
“Welcome to my humble abode,” David Velazquez said after crawling out of his 4-foot-high tent, a Cooper 2 model tucked in a corner stoop against the shuttered glass doors outside the main entrance to old Cit y Hall.
At the northeast corner of Banyan Boulevard and Olive Avenue, the building has been empty since 2009 when the city government headquarters moved around the corner to the 400 block of Clematis Street.
It’s destined for the wrecking ball, probably later this year, to make way for a trendy new hotel. Cit y officials this summer plan to erect a chainlink fence around the propert y, which will allow the devel- and about a dozen other homeless people want to take advantage of the inviting perks offered by the five-story building’s unique design.
The top floor juts out 15 feet from the lower floors in all directions — a design statement by architect John Marion, who drew up plans for the building before it opened in 1980.
But the overhang also offers protection from the sun and rain, something enjoyed by cit y officials and residents who used the building for nearly 30 years — and by homeless people for the past six years.
“If it’s raining, this is the
“If it’s raining, this is the only safe spot we’ve got,” said Jennifer Cartwright, 33.
Adam Myles, 27, said he is an Army veteran who suffers from epilepsy. “Stress and sun and bright light bother me,” he said while standing under the facade. “I’m doing everything I can to get off the streets because I don’t want to die out here.”
Some homeless people often return at night and set up their tents on other sides of the building, then take them down in the morning, according to Velazquez.
“We are somewhat like a family,” he said.
Velazquez’s tent is the only one that stays up all day. He said he purposely set it up in the corner to keep it out of public view.
“All we want is shelter,” said Alicia Davenport, 25, who has shared Velazquez’s tent for the past few weeks. “Some people see us. They make faces like they’re disgusted, but they don’t know our situation.’’
Davenport said she and Velazquez sometimes press their faces against the shuttered glass door of the main entrance and gaze into the empty lobby, imagining the bustle of business inside Cit y Hall from 1980 to 2009.
Velazquez said some police have been respectful, stopping by at least once a day to ask him to remove the tent. He said the fire department has been polite, too, giving him a warning several hours before they use the building for training exercises.
Mayor Jeri Muoio said she sympathizes with Velazquez and the others, but the old Cit y Hall building is not the best way for them to find a permanent home.
“We have been trying to move them on,’’ she said. “They’re not going to be able to stay there for long because soon it will be a construction site.’’
Cit y officials have reached out to St. Ann church officials about asking their congregation members to stop providing free tents.
“Some people are helping them too much and it’s becoming an attractive place to be down here,’’ Muoio said. “While we want to help them, we want to help them get a home; we don’t want to help them to be homeless.’’
But St. Ann officials said the tents were not donated by anyone from their congregation but from a good Samaritan whom the homeless people assumed was a congregation member.
Church officials said they asked the cit y to remove the tents earlier this month.
“The lack of restrooms and proper sanitation at the Cit y Hall site is a major concern for our parish,” John Pescosolido, executive director of St. Ann Place, said in a letter to the Downtown Neighborhood Association.
St. Ann Place, about a mile north of the church at 20th Street and North Dixie Highway, provides homeless services. The St. Ann church campus, next to old Cit y Hall, includes the church, parish offices, parish rectory and an elementary school.
Muoio said the city helps homeless people through services such as the Vickers House. And she said the cit y recently turned over the keys to a duplex near Tamarind Avenue to the Lord’s Place, a nonprofit that helps the homeless.
Diana Stanley, Lord’s Place director and chief executive officer, said the situation outside old Cit y Hall offers a snapshot of the larger issue of homelessness.
“There are services in the community where homeless can reach out and they can obtain help. The question is, are they ready to?” Stanley said.
Standing in front of the entrance to old Cit y Hall, Cart wright said the cit y should scrap its plans for the hotel. “They should turn this into a homeless shelter,” she said.