'Tent City' heats up homeless debate

[GraceAbounds]

'Tent City' heats up homeless debate

Tension over the fate of Gainesville's largest homeless camp erupted Friday as advocates blasted a city plan to crack down on communities of tent-dwelling residents in a letter to the Gainesville City Commission.

City officials have discussed the fate of the campsites behind the scenes for months, with a particular focus on the 100-acre "Tent City" east of S. Main Street that has been a source of complaints by Gainesville Police and other city departments.

But Friday's letter is the first public response by homeless advocates to plans that could lead to the eviction of between 80 and 150 people from the property, which includes a mix of public and private land, as well as those living in other wooded areas around the city.

"A citywide ban at this time, a time of increasing deficiencies in available, affordable housing, seems mean-spirited at best," read the letter, signed by Theresa Harrison, chair of the Alachua County Coalition for the Homeless and Hungry.

The coalition, an umbrella group that includes representatives of nearly every homeless service organization in the county, endorsed the letter, which calls for a public discussion of the fate of the campsites while denouncing the city's plans as insufficient to handle the problems that would be caused by displacing so many people.

Though it's unclear exactly how many residents live in Tent City, the encampment's population could include as many as half of the about 318 people the Gainesville/Alachua County Office on Homelessness reports sleep on the streets or in the woods each night. In total, about 950 people are homeless in the county, according to a survey conducted earlier this year.

About a month ago, Gainesville officials began working to address issues at Tent City, following complaints on a variety of issues involving the campsite, said Gainesville's Assistant City Manager Lee Ann Lowery, who has led the city's efforts to deal with homeless issues. GPD has raised public safety concerns about the campsite, pointing to allegations of assault and rape as well as issues with prostitution and drug crimes. In March, a woman's body was found near Tent City and police canvassed residents for evidence in the as-yet unsolved case.

Lowery said public health issues related to trash dumped on the site - about three tons were picked up during a recent cleanup - and human waste also spurred the city to look into the issue.

GPD Lt. Keith Kameg said the area is well known by GPD, though the more serious offenses committed in Tent City seem to be homeless-on-homeless crimes.

"Has it spilled out to other areas of the city? Not yet," Kameg said. "But the potential's always there."

While Lowery said the city intends to move forward with plans to clear the campsite, she said the city will not move until a "comprehensive, coordinated and compassionate" solution can be developed.

City officials are still working on such a plan, though they have scheduled a "resource fair" for Thursday designed to help homeless residents connect with services, Lowery said.

But homeless advocates and the coalition have said the "resource fair" would do little to help the residents of the campsite, particularly in light of how thin existing resources are stretched.

"Absent significant increases in resources available, whether from the city of Gainesville or other sources, neither the City Commission nor the community at large should expect that the service providers in our area are going to magically discover previously unknown assets, funding or capabilities," according to the coalition's letter. "We pray that the city and its administrators are not so deluded as to assume that such powers of prestidigitation exist."

Lowery responded, "I think there are services that are available and that we can connect these clients with. Whether they're sufficient or not, whether they'll be taken advantage of - those are questions that are difficult to answer."

Jon DeCarmine, director of the Gainesville/Alachua County Office on Homelessness, declined to comment on the "resource fair" but said there are only about 350 beds available for homeless residents in Alachua County on any given night, and most of those are taken or directed to specific populations.

"We're aware right now that tent cities provide a service that gives people a place to stay that exists nowhere else in the city," DeCarmine said. "Until we can come up with a suitable replacement for those, I don't think we recognize the role tent cities play in keeping people off the streets and alleyways and sidewalks of Gainesville."

City commissioners have few solutions to the issue, though City Commissioner Jack Donovan has said the board should discuss the matter and the fate of campsites in the city. Donovan has called on the city to find a solution that includes finding places for Tent City's residents without impacting other neighborhoods.

"If we just precipitously remove people from that location we could create a much bigger problem," Donovan said, noting that spreading the campsite's residents throughout the city could create more crime.

Gainesville Mayor Pegeen Hanrahan said she also hoped for a solution, but noted budget cuts that might be caused by changes to the state's property tax system might make funding such endeavors difficult or impossible. Already, city departments have proposed eliminating the city's funding of the Office on Homelessness and a proposed one-stop homeless service center.

While the focus is on Tent City for now, the city will address other communities in the future, Lowery said, including those which may spring up if the camp's residents are displaced.

"If they move to other encampments we'll address that situation as we become aware of it," Lowery said.

'Tent City' heats up homeless debate | Gainesville.com | The Gainesville Sun | Gainesville, Fla.