The Senate has passed a House bill creating a new financial obligation on localities by banning homeless people from sleeping in public, setting the stage for a Gov. Ron DeSantis priority becoming law.
The measure from Rep. Sam Garrison (HB 1365), passed by a 27-12 vote after being substituted for the Senate version, would ban counties and municipalities from permitting public sleeping or public camping on public property without explicit permission, compelling these localities to round up the homeless and put them somewhere.
Under the legislation that was sponsored in the Senate by GOP Sen. Jonathan Martin, counties would be charged with setting up encampments that ban drugs and alcohol and include rehabilitative social services as a way of enforcing the prohibition against rough sleeping as part of what the sponsor calls a “compassionate response to the shortage of shelters.” The camps could only be in one place for 365 consecutive days.
Those conditions, funded by the counties, include clean restrooms, running water, security on premises and bans on drugs and alcohol. They must also be located in places that don’t impact the value of nearby properties.
“This provides a framework for local governments, specifically counties, to house those who are living illegally on public property,” said Martin on Tuesday’s third reading.
For the second straight day, outnumbered Democrats pushed back against the bill.
“This isn’t the way to do it,” said Senate Democratic Leader Lauren Book, noting the bill had many holes and “no answers” when it came to specific logistical questions.
“This is an unfunded mandate,” remarked Sen. Linda Stewart. “If there were money, that would make it easier to support.”
Sen. Geraldine Thompson said the focus of the bill was “not wanting to see the failure in our society that has brought about homelessness.”
“I don’t understand what we’re doing to human beings,” Thompson said. She estimated this plan would cost localities $500 million a year to impose.
Sen. Rosalind Osgood wondered how localities would handle the housing of sex offenders, given residency restrictions requiring them to be separate from children.
In the Senate hearing Monday setting up the bill’s passage, Democrats questioned the bill sponsor about the logistics of this proposal, an interrogation that revealed some significant issues the sponsor either didn’t contemplate or didn’t see worthy of putting into his legislation.
Democratic Sen. Jason Pizzo, who contended Tuesday that a “think tank” wrote the legislation, wondered on Monday why Martin didn’t try the concept out with a local pilot program rather than imposing the conceptual scheme on the entire state at once.
Martin said it would be “unfair” for his home of Lee County to be the sole beneficiary of this “great bill,” suggesting that some homeless people would “leave Lee County” rather than get this “help.”
Also on Monday, Book asked if animals would be allowed in the camps, and Martin said his bill left that question wide open as well.
The same vagueness held true for how a homeless person would get a permit for outdoor camping.
If an interred homeless person has a mental health episode in the camp, meanwhile, the sponsor said that person could simply be Baker Acted or Marchman Acted “until they’re able to leave.”
Martin noted Monday that the Department of Children and Families and other state agencies would offer support in the camps, being “able to do their job much more efficiently” than now, and that law enforcement was already dealing with the homeless problem anyway, so his bill would “save money.”
The legislation accords with a stated desire of the Governor to have camps with restrictions on what occupants can do and “help” available, in efforts to include what he has called “judicial scrutiny.”
The Governor, who has suggested institutionalization should be brought back, said mental health help for the unhoused is “important,” but that he didn’t want “Sodom and Gomorrah” style homeless camps.
To that end, the legislation includes “behavioral health services, which must include substance abuse and mental health treatment resources.”
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