The Homeless problem in Pinellas County continues to
grow. If you would like to look at the numbers you can go the Pinellas
County Health and Community Services web site and look at the most recent
surveys and reports.
The City of St. Petersburg has been at the forefront of
the homeless crisis. City Council Member Amy Foster is taking a lead role in
developing approaches and solutions for the homeless community.
My Conversation with Amy Foster Continues.
My questions are
in bold.
"How do you
feel about the Sheriff's most recent call for more participation from cities in
funding homeless programs," I began?
"I certainly feel like it's a County wide
problem-and the numbers prove that, but I would argue that it is actually a
regional problem." "For example, we see people coming down from Pasco
because they are without the same resources. The nature of the problem is it's
a transient population." "I do think all of the cities should be
providing funding for Safe Harbor and I was glad to see Mayor Kriseman and
Mayor Cretekos send a letter to the 22 other cities asking them to step
up."
"Where do
you think the biggest homeless issue lies here in Pinellas County and St.Pete,
families, veterans, youth?"
"Those are all the major areas" Amy replied.
"We also have a problem with chronically homeless who turn to the system
and probably turned to the system with their parents when they were
youths." "They did not
necessarily develop the keys to independence as youth."
"There is lot of data that supports that the
family issue is growing." "I can tell you that the Point In Time
Count does look at the number of homeless families enrolled in Pinellas
County." "I want to say the number is over 2000."
"One of the things that we know is that number
only includes elementary school." "So if you have family members in
middle school or high school many people are actually scared to report their
living status because they are worried they may have an interaction with the
Department of Children and Family Services." "So we know those
numbers are much higher than they are actually being reported." “The
Homeless Leadership Board has a goal in our strategic plan this year to get to
virtual zero homelessness for Veterans and that is a pretty exciting prospect.
Virtual zero means if a Vet walks in the door for services there will be a
place to go and the funding and resources are available to support that
homeless Veteran. The fact that we believe we can accomplish that goal this
year is a BIG deal.”
"When
people think of homelessness in St. Pete the two issues that most likely to
come to mind are panhandling and Williams Park." "What do you think
we should do about these two issues?"
"Speaking to these two issues, I know a lot of
people feel the Panhandling Ordinance should be a lot broader and not just
include the downtown core." "We are at the limits of legal
constitutional validity with the Ordinance we currently have." "I don't see us expanding the Ordinance
anytime soon although I know a lot of people would like to see that."
"One of the things that we know about in Williams
Park is that not all of those people are homeless." "When you see
people in Williams Park a lot of them are coming from assisted living
facilities and that's a very hard area to regulate." "A lot of the
people in Williams Park are from other areas in the County and they are dealing
in illegal drugs whether it is Spice or other things."
"I hope by some of the things we are doing here in
St. Pete our officers of the Downtown Deployment Unit, as well as the Homeless
Outreach Team, will be able to refocus their energy on Williams Park and we are
going to take some of the pressure off law enforcement because of some of the
other things we are doing."
"There are folks working right now to help address
the Williams Park issue without building a new inter-modal facility and that
will be a big help. If we are able to move the buses off the Park that is an
important first step."
In the next Post
Council Member Foster talks about what the Kriseman Administration can do and
provides some thoughts on homeless children.
E-mail Doc at: dr.webb@verizon.net. Or
send me a Facebook (Gene Webb) Friend request. Twitter@DOCONTHEBAY. Please
comment below, and be sure to share on Facebook and Twitter. See Doc's Photo
Gallery at Bay Post Photos
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