FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – Starting Tuesday, Florida’s homeless became banned from camping on city streets, sidewalks and parks.
After three months, beginning on Jan. 1, individuals and businesses can sue cities and counties for failing to uphold the new state law.
Local 10 News has explored how a number of South Florida cities — and Miami-Dade County — are reacting to the new rules.
On Tuesday, we spoke to leaders with Broward County, including Nan Rich, the county’s mayor.
She said the county is trying to implement the new law “as humanely as possible.”
“You don’t want to put anyone in jail and you want to give them an opportunity to fix their lives, hopefully, and give them services and an opportunity to get a job and then get into affordable housing,” Rich said. “That is the goal for us.”
Rich said the county is taking a multi-pronged, multi-million dollar approach.
“Overall we are putting $26 million into our homeless budget from the general fund and another $17 million we have from HUD and from DCF, so altogether we have $43 million and then we have an additional $25 million to build affordable housing.”
The county is also expanding shelter bed capacity with state dollars and investing more county money into its existing eviction prevention program.
Patrice Paldino, the director of Broward’s Housing Options, Solutions, and Supports Division, said the county is getting roughly $667,000.
“We are trying to find additional ways to add beds to our shelter capacity with those dollars,” she said. “An additional million dollars from the county and part of that program is not only funding the Legal Aid attorneys but giving them dollars to pay the arrears so the landlords are made whole and the tenant can remain in the property because if we can stop an eviction that is one less family or individual on the street.”
The county is also identifying landlords with vacant units, with a landlord recruitment effort called “Project Home Again.”
“We have over 500 landlords that we pay them rent to place people.,” Rich said.
Paldino added, “As a matter of fact, just today I was talking to a landlord who wants to provide the county with some units when they become vacant. So we have a great partnership with landlords in the county that want to, when they have vacancies, make them available to the people we serve.”
Rich said some of the landlords are “immigrants who came here with nothing and now they are making it and want to give back.”
The county is also working with developers to build affordable housing. Rich said the county has put another $25 million in its budget for financing to incentivize affordable housing construction.
Paldino called the affordability crisis the county’s “biggest hurdle.”
“We are going to have to look at it from a new creative approach,” she said.
Rich said the county is working with Fort Lauderdale to build a palette shelter. Paldino said the county commissioners have earmarked $750,000 for the proposal.
“We have not identified a site for them yet or what they will look like yet because there are different models, some are for families, some for individuals, some have onsite bathrooms and so forth but with land it is a solution so if we can find somewhere to put that it does provide transitional housing,” Paldino said. “It is not a permanent option, but it will expand bed capacity, with the end goal of moving them into affordable permanent housing.”
Rich said the county is working to obtain land.
“These things can go up like that,” Rich said, as she snapped her fingers. “There are a lot of people who won’t go into a shelter but we actually interviewed people in the streets, asking if they would want to go into one, and all but one said yes because it is private, it is safe, they can walk into it and close the door.”
Next Tuesday, county commissioners are set to discuss a new related ordinance giving civil citations to violators.
“It doesn’t put you in jail, if you violate it a few times, I think two, you could end up in jail, but our focus is on providing services,” Rich said.
Padrino added, “We need an approach that is a collaborative effort everyone needs to look at with compassion and humanity and come with their best ideas, maybe some of their dollars.”
And while the mayor of Fort Lauderdale, since April, has pitched an idea of using a former Broward Sheriff’s Office jail at 5400 Powerline Road — owned by the county and known as the “stockade” — as a shelter, Rich dismissed the proposal.
“We are not putting anyone into the stockade. The stockade is the original jail for Broward County. It is 50 years old, I went to see it, spent over two hours there, I met with BSO, they rent some of the space to do training there and I have to tell you it is horrendous and that is not what my colleagues and I have in mind of how to deal with this program,” she said.
She said some areas she toured there were “filled with mold and mildew. This is not where we are putting the people. And they know in Fort Lauderdale, because we have met with them, and explained to them that this is not how we are going to solve this problem, we are not going to put people in the stockade.”
In the meantime, in Fort Lauderdale, commissioners are set to vote on their related anti-camping ordinance during Tuesday night’s city commission meeting.
A spokesperson for the Miami-Dade Police Department released a new statement Tuesday outlining how it plans to enforce the law:
“Our priority is protecting public safety, and the Miami-Dade Police Department will continue to address these sensitive issues as we have in the past. We will continue to partner with the Homeless Trust to provide homeless people with resources and available services and will undertake enforcement efforts focused on specific crimes committed. We are also coordinating with municipal law enforcement to share resources to assist individuals experiencing homelessness.
House Bill (HB 1365) does not create a criminal or civil offense for any law enforcement agency to enforce. However, Miami-Dade County Ordinance Section 21-286, Prohibition on overnight camping, authorizes a trespass after warning arrest when an individual fails to leave after being warned by a county official or a law enforcement officer.”
MDPD statement