Florida is giving its citizens a way to fight cities that have surrendered their streets to homeless encampments and aggressive panhandlers.
Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, signed legislation last month that empowers residents to sue local governments for standing by as makeshift shelters take over public spaces.
The law, which addresses “unauthorized public camping and public sleeping,” allows residents to sue their county or city governments for allowing makeshift shelters to remain in parks, along roads and on sidewalks.
The law calls on local officials to set up secure drug- and alcohol-free encampments if no alternative shelter is available.
Shifting responsibility for homelessness to elected leaders is a novel approach to tackling the proliferation of tent cities nationwide. Lawmakers in Florida think residents will embrace the idea.
“I believe that people will take legal action because there are hotbeds of homeless activity that are egregious and affect people’s quality of life,” Kristen Rosen Gonzalez, a member of the Miami Beach City Commission, told The Washington Times.
The federal estimate of 650,000 homeless in the U.S. last year was the highest ever. Encampments crowd urban centers, and hostile, drug-abusing transients regularly harass or even attack passersby.
California, with the nation’s largest population and a generally moderate climate, has more homeless people than any other state. Lax attitudes toward vagrants have allowed “tent cities” to sprout up in major cities.
That permissiveness can breed lawlessness, including a deadly stabbing and two shootings at an Oakland encampment last month.
In Texas, the nation’s fourth-largest city has found success with taxpayer-subsidized rentals.
Houston has reduced its homeless population by two-thirds over the past dozen years with an approach that has caught the eye of officials in Illinois, New York and even California.
Leaders in Florida say they have an answer of their own.
Mr. DeSantis said last month that homelessness dropped 11% in Florida from 2019 to 2022 while increasing 3% nationwide. Still, homelessness is a nagging problem in the state’s major population centers.
According to preliminary data, the number of homeless people in Jacksonville jumped from 2023 to 2024.
The Tampa area, Gainesville and the Big Bend region, anchored by the state capital of Tallahassee, reported significant jumps from 2022 to 2023. Miami-Dade County and Orange County, the home of Orlando, reported more modest increases.
The state law will target problematic pockets once it takes effect in October, though Ms. Gonzalez in Miami Beach called it “no panacea.”
The city commissioner said she and her colleagues supported the legislation in a resolution this year but government-run institutions must improve treatment of the mental illness that accompanies chronic homelessness.
Miami Beach won’t need to build an encampment, Ms. Gonzalez said, because the city is on a small island and Miami-Dade County has the resources to shelter people.
The same can’t be said for Gainesville. City Commissioner Bryan Eastman said shelter demand exceeded supply even after the city added more beds to an emergency location.
Gainesville leaders have not considered a location for a potential encampment, the commissioner said, and the city is preparing for litigation once citizens can begin suing municipalities early next year.
Mr. Eastman said he expects the new law to face its own challenges.
The Supreme Court has ruled that homeless people can’t be removed from their encampments unless a shelter is available. That precedent will be reviewed on April 22 when the high court hears oral arguments in Grants Pass v. Johnson.
Mr. Eastman said the homeless have Fourth Amendment rights, so courts are skeptical about targeting them for “acts of daily living” such as eating or napping in a park.
Mr. Eastman doesn’t support the Florida law but agrees that homeless people shouldn’t live on sidewalks. He said more state funding for mental health treatment and housing would pay dividends.
The problem worsens when authorities remove encampments without anywhere for the inhabitants to go.
“Frequently, they’ll go to private property, which could be a dilapidated building in a neighborhood or, in our case, along our creeks,” Mr. Eastman told The Times. “You create a less controllable situation by just saying, ‘Get out of here. The sidewalk is not for you.’”
Veteran lobbyist Jennifer Green knows all too well about the problem.
Ms. Green said surveillance footage captured a homeless man sleeping outside her Tallahassee business last summer with what appeared to be a gun. The man left before officers arrived, she said, but police called the next day to say they found the man, who had a broken pellet gun.
Ms. Green said she was grateful that police cited the man for trespassing so he could be arrested if he returned to her property, but the event unnerved her about the rising homelessness in downtown Tallahassee.
“My office is a block from the state Capitol and two blocks from Florida State University’s campus,” she said. “It’s not a good mix.”
Still, the longtime lobbyist said she wasn’t the type to sue the city over its homeless problem.
Some Jacksonville locals question the willingness to take City Council or the mayor to court over the encampments.
Brian, who works at a popular convenience store in the city and agreed to share only his first name, said he thinks people are more likely to call police on the local homeless, especially the panhandlers downtown.
He is skeptical about claims that most vagrants suffer from mental illness.
“Most of the homeless I encounter are really not mentally ill as the popular opinion out there is,” he said. “It’s really just lazy folks that don’t want to follow any rules and would rather just beg for change, go into a convenience store, buy a beer and maybe steal a doughnut to eat when they think the clerks aren’t looking.”
Jacksonville Mayor Donna Deegan, a Democrat, said in a statement that her administration has been working with the predominantly Republican City Council on ways to help people on the streets and keep people from becoming homeless.
“These plans will, of course, be compliant with the direction provided by [the new law],” Ms. Deegan said. “I look forward to sharing those details soon.”
Dawn Gilman, the head of the outreach organization Changing Homeless, told Jacksonville Today that she likes how the new law brings more attention to homelessness but says it does little to protect people from the surprise medical bill or job loss that can force them onto the streets. Nearly half of Americans have $500 or less in their savings accounts, leaving them unable to handle any major unexpected financial problems, according to a November survey by GOBankingRates.
An unexpected leasing decision put Orlando, who declined to share his last name, out of his Miami home for six months last year.
The 40-year-old professional driver said he became homeless when his landlord decided to sell during a high point in the real estate market. With only $1,000 in savings, Orlando said, he didn’t have the money to cover the security deposit and the first month’s rent a new place would require.
He continued to work while living on city streets and said he met many people who also ended up homeless because of hard luck.
Orlando said he understands why people don’t look kindly on vagrants who badger residents and openly urinate. He said he felt the same before living through it himself.
Moving people to government-run camps away from the city, he said, would make it harder for the temporarily homeless to work jobs that help them get back onto their feet.
The camps must have running water and restrooms and be located where they won’t affect property values. They are also required to have security. Orlando said he doesn’t have faith in the safety.
“That sounds nice on paper, but the reality is shelters currently also have these same policies. Theft and fights still happen,” Orlando said. “You’re safer just finding a place in the public to sleep, and the smarter of the homeless try to avoid leaving any signs that they were there when morning comes.”
• Matt Delaney can be reached at mdelaney@washingtontimes.com.
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