Leon County Commission backs away from law on homeless camps, solicitation

Karl Etters, Tallahassee Democrat
·3 min read

Leon County commissioners have decided not to go ahead with a local law that could result in the homeless getting fined. Instead, they're banking on a half-million-dollar investment in street outreach deputies.

Commissioners unanimously walked away from a proposal to craft the ordinance, following the urging of Leon County Sheriff Walt McNeil to delay it. The hope was that their $491,000 investment in more staff for LCSO’s Homeless Outreach Street Team may be more effective.

And ahead of Tuesday’s County Commission meeting, there were concerns from the community that passing such an ordinance would amount to criminalizing people for being poor.

Read more from the Tallahassee Democrat:

“I don’t believe that we are criminalizing homelessness. I do believe there are behaviors that are expected from all of us,” County Commissioner Jimbo Jackson said. “If we’ve got $491,000 invested on this at this time, we deserve to see a return on that pretty quickly.”

At their Dec. 14 meeting, commissioners OK'd funding to hire two street outreach deputies to focus on connecting individuals and families with housing and social services, such as mental and substance abuse counseling, veterans programs and act as a liaison to the Big Bend Continuum of Care.

LCSO is in the process of hiring for the positions and commissioners asked for a progress update six months after they began work.

Long walks during the pandemic have revealed a numer of interesting things.
Long walks during the pandemic have revealed a numer of interesting things.

The proposed ordinance would have included fines for soliciting, urination and defecation. And camping or sleeping in certain areas without a property owner's permission could have resulted in jail time and a misdemeanor violation.

McNeil expressed concern to the board about what the ordinance could mean to the increasing population numbers at the Leon County Detention Facility. Currently, the facility, which is nearing its population cap of 1,200, is sending inmates to neighboring county jails because of overcrowding.

'Grossly overcrowded': Leon County jail nears capacity amid COVID surge, inmates sent to neighboring counties

Also: Backlog of court cases in 2nd Judicial Circuit exasperating attorneys, defendants

County Commissioner Kristin Dozier said she would never be in support of such an ordinance but noted flaws in it, such as targeting soliciting in medians but not on sidewalks, that make it less effective.

Fining people who are already struggling is counterproductive, she added: “Asking someone who doesn’t have a home and is need of other services to pay a fine ... is perpetuating this cycle.”

Over the last year, significant resources have been devoted to addressing homelessness, including:

  • Expanding shelter options.

  • Establishing the street outreach team with the Big Bend Continuum of Care.

  • Dedicating more than $8.4 million in support to homeless services and more than $27 million to rent and utility assistance.

In addition, an entire category in the biannual Community Human Service Partnership funding was devoted to homeless services.

County Commissioner Brian Welch made a motion to move forward with the ordinance but did not receive a second. He called it a “reasonable approach to setting some guard rails or a line in the sand for what we consider an acceptable quality of life.”

Supporting crafting an ordinance isn’t cold-hearted, he said. “This is not criminalizing homelessness. This is standardizing an acceptable quality of life. This is standardizing dignity.”

He added: “What we’re saying is, we’re not going to let you put yourself in danger. We're not going to let you put the public in danger.”

Contact Karl Etters at ketters@tallahassee.com or @KarlEtters on Twitter.

Never miss a story: Subscribe to the Tallahassee Democrat using the link at the top of the page.

This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Leon County Commission backs away from law targeting homeless