DeSantis supports push to move homeless people off streets and into monitored camps

By LAWRENCE MOWER HERALD/TIMES TALLAHASSEE BUREAU

Miami, Beach, Florida, February 2, 2024- Florida Governor Ron DeSantis speaks during an event at the Rum Room in Miami Beach. JOSÉ A. IGLESIAS jiglesias@elnuevoherald.com

Gov. Ron DeSantis on Monday endorsed a statewide strategy for dealing with homelessness that Republican lawmakers say is the first of its kind.

In short, put homeless people in camps.

Legislators in the last week advanced bills that would require counties to ban people on the street from sleeping in public places, and instead allow them to stay in designated camps with security, sanitation and access to behavioral health services.

Although DeSantis said the legislation is still a “work in progress,” he endorsed its goal of moving homeless people off the streets. He also said he was open to assigning money to help local governments treat and house people without homes.

“We feel that if the Legislature is willing to lean in on this, that we want to be there to be able to offer support, but it’s got to be done right,” DeSantis said during a news conference in Miami Beach.

“It’s got to be done in ways that is focused primarily on ensuring public order, ensuring quality of life for residents, ensuring that people’s property values are maintained,” he added.

What sounds like an unusual — and to some people, mean-spirited — idea to address the growing number of people experiencing homelessness has divided lawmakers and homeless advocates alike.

To Democratic lawmakers and most homeless advocates, it’s a clumsy, one-size-fits-all approach that will lead to more arrests of people experiencing homeless. It could also run counter to federal best practices, which encourage moving people off the streets and into transitional or permanent housing.

The fact that the bill has the support of a Texas venture capitalist’s think tank, which advocates for tent cities instead of permanent housing, is another red flag, they say.

But the legislation has the notable support of Ron Book, the longtime chairperson of the board of the Miami-Dade Homeless Trust, widely praised for its success in eliminating homelessness.

Book, who is also a powerful Tallahassee lobbyist, acknowledges the idea is not perfect. Tent cities don’t work, he said, and Miami-Dade County will never do mass encampments.

But he’s in favor of the legislation because it’s a good start, and because of who is sponsoring it: Rep. Sam Garrison, R-Fleming Island, a future speaker of the House of Representatives who could become a lifeline for future homeless efforts.

“You have leadership tackling the issue of homelessness. We haven’t had that before,” Book said.

He acknowledged that he’s heard from advocates who strongly disagree with the proposal.

Sen. Rosalind Osgood, D-Tamarac, condemned the idea during a Senate committee. Once a homeless young mother struggling with addiction, she said the bill would have caused her to worry about being arrested and separated from her children for simply taking a nap somewhere.

“I just keep thinking about being out there with my babies,” she said.

“THE FLORIDA MODEL”

House Bill 1365 and Senate Bill 1530 would prohibit local governments from allowing sleeping or camping on public property and rights of way.

However, counties and municipalities could designate some land — in a location that does not “adversely and materially” affect nearby residential or commercial properties — for camping and sleeping.

To ensure counties are obeying the law, the legislation would allow a person or business to sue the county, with the county picking up the legal fees if the lawsuit is successful.

Dubbed “the Florida model,” the idea is intended to get local governments to help the unhoused while clearing them out of public spaces, Garrison told a House committee last month.

“We are not going to allow the public space that we all enjoy, that is essential for a thriving community, to be lost,” Garrison said. “We’re just not going to do it.”

The Senate bill sponsor, Sen. Jonathan Martin, R-Fort Myers, called it a “cutting edge” solution to the growing number of people experiencing homelessness.

A lack of affordable housing has caused more and more Americans to become unhoused, sleeping in public parks, campgrounds or their cars. Some homeless people stay with family and friends or, if they can afford it, motels. School districts and colleges are reporting thousands of homeless students.

Tampa Bay coalitions and nonprofits, funded by federal and local sources, employ a range of strategies to address homelessness, from buying and refurbishing shelters to helping homeless people defeat addiction.

In the face of increasing homelessness, however, some local governments around the state have struggled to come up with solutions. Several have banned panhandling. The City of West Palm Beach blasted annoying songs such as “Baby Shark” to keep people from sleeping in its waterfront park.

Miami Beach last year allowed people experiencing homelessness to be arrested if they declined placement in a shelter, a strategy DeSantis lauded on Monday. Miami Beach police arrested 20 people under the ordinance late last year, most of whom were sleeping on the beach, according to police reports.

Garrison said his legislation is targeting the chronically homeless, who often are mentally ill, are suffering from substance abuse or who can’t be persuaded to move into housing. He said his legislation could change as he talks to people, but the current status quo of letting people sleep anywhere outside is “inhumane.”

“I’m open to any number of ideas, as long as the status quo is not an option,” he said.

One of the supporters of the legislation is the Cicero Institute, a think tank created by the Austin-based venture capitalist Joe Lonsdale, who supported Gov. Ron DeSantis’ failed presidential campaign.

The institute believes that the federal strategy on homelessness — to eliminate it by eventually getting people on the street to live in permanent housing — is a failure. Building housing supports “cronyism,” its website states. It has pushed other states to criminalize homelessness, but has also supported efforts to make it easier to build affordable housing.

“The public is not willing to deal with the status quo on homelessness any more,” said Bryan Sunderland, who leads the institute’s government efforts. “Let’s get people off the streets and get them the help they need.”

The organization has registered to lobby for the bill, but both Garrison and Sunderland said the idea for the legislation came from Garrison. Some lawmakers have cited their association as a reason to vote against the legislation, however.

“This is drafted from probably a think tank somewhere as a good idea, for people who have never experienced homelessness, who don’t live here,” said Sen. Jason Pizzo, D-Miami, before voting against the bill last month.

QUESTIONS AND ALTERNATE STRATEGIES

The legislation has also run up against practical concerns, such as how such tent communities could be kept safe and how homeless people could be forced into them.

The legislation also isn’t tied to any additional funding, although the House’s proposed budget includes $20 million for additional homeless services.

Most notably, creating tent encampments runs counter to the federal “housing first” approach, which focuses on eliminating homelessness by getting people housed. Unlike past strategies, it doesn’t require recipients with substance abuse disorders from becoming sober before being housed.

Garrison’s proposal would require those in tent sites to abstain from drugs and alcohol.

That strategy has been successful, particularly in Miami-Dade County, long considered the state’s model for how to eliminate homelessness. In 1992, it created the nation’s first dedicated funding source for homeless services in the form of a 1% food and beverage tax.

The county’s Homeless Trust has bought an assisted living facility to house homeless seniors, and it sends outreach workers into the community to give medications to homeless who haven’t yet moved into housing.

Since the early 1990s, the county has since gone from more than 8,000 homeless people to less than 1,000 in Miami-Dade County Homeless Trust’s most recent count, from August last year. (Garrison said the county has done an “amazing job.”)

Legislation that could upend communities’ current homeless strategies is concerning, said Annie Lord, executive director of Miami Homes for All, which works to create and preserve affordable housing.

“It just could have a lot of potentially unintended consequences,” Lord said.