FORT LAUDERDALE — In just weeks, a new law will begin impacting people struggling with homelessness in South Florida.
Though the goal of the new legislation is to keep people off the street, it’s easier said than done, with cities like Fort Lauderdale trying to help those living in one of its tent cities.
A compound for homeless residents, complete with a generator, tarps and discarded furniture is located in a wooded area off Blount Road north of Copans Road.
Rebecca, 43, said she’s lived there for 12 years and that a combination of her mother’s death, leaving an abusive relationship and ill health brought her to the woods. She said at least 20 unhoused residents live in the tent city at any one time.
” We used to have a dumpster but they took it away,” she said, surrounded by mountains of trash, old blankets, and filthy clothes.
Rebecca said she bought a lot of the tents that the tenants call home.
“I do roofing panhandling me and another are the only ones who work here,” she said.
But these types of encampments may be history on October 1 when a new Florida law starts.
House Bill 1365 is billed as keeping streets safe and will outlaw camping on streets, sidewalks or parks. As a result, cities and counties are supposed to provide temporary shelter where people struggling with homelessness are to get drug and mental health treatment.
Fort Lauderdale commissioners and the mayor looked at the implications of the new law this week at a city meeting because the city is the site of the county jail where released inmates sometimes have nowhere to go. It’s feared the city will be disproportionately impacted by the new Florida law.
Mayor Dean Trantalis said he doesn’t want to criminalize homelessness but expressed frustration at the burden the state is putting on cities
“It’s the Legislature’s knee jerk reaction and an unfunded mandate,” he said. “We are being forced to respond and this is an unfunded mandate.”
Acting Assistant City Manager Chris Cooper, who is spearheading the city’s response to the homelessness issue, said there are currently over 750 unhoused residents in Fort Lauderdale.
For people found sleeping on the sidewalk, Cooper said “it has the potential to result in an arrest but we can’t arrest our way out of homelessness.”
Instead, he said they’ve added outreach staff to steer people into programs and permanent housing.
“We are working to identify sites and funding,” Cooper said.
A suggestion to put pallet homes, a form of temporary housing on Fort Lauderdale property, at broad view park was met with extreme pushback. However, Broward County said it is still looking at pallets and an undetermined location as a solution.
Rebecca doesn’t see that as an option if she’s forced out of tent city.
“I have nothing but these woods and animals I’ve been with these people for years” she said.
