Pensacola considering setting up low-barrier homeless shelter
Pensacola is assessing what it would take to create a low-barrier homeless shelter that Pensacola Mayor D.C. Reeves said could be an "Opportunity Center" to help people out of homelessness.
Reeves said Tuesday that he's in the "analysis mode" of determining what it would cost to set up and operate a shelter, as well as finding a community partner who would be in charge of running it.
A low-barrier shelter that provides access to people without requiring payment or participation in sobriety or any other type of program has long been cited as a need by homeless advocates, but no non-profit or local government has stepped forward to create one.
Escambia County received $4.1 million in American Rescue Plan Act funding last year, and its initial plan included funding the creation of a low-barrier, non-congregant shelter, but the shelter plan was scrapped in favor of using the funds for affordable workforce housing.
Meanwhile, there have been recent high-profile complaints and evictions of homeless camps, along with the closure of the area's largest women and children's homeless shelter.
"Certainly, when something closes, we see an increase in homeless presence and panhandling," Reeves said.
Reeves said as mayor, his current focus is on addressing panhandling.
"I've been around a lot of advocates for helping the homeless my entire life, and I can tell you what we all agree on — I don't care if you're the biggest advocate for the homeless or the biggest adversary to the homeless — what we all agree on is panhandling isn't good for a community," Reeves said.
Reeves said people panhandle in downtown Pensacola because they see a benefit to being there.
"I think we need to have a conversation as a community about what's the best way to help the people who really need help and the people who want help and there are a great number of those people in this community, Reeves said. "But sitting unsafely at a street corner, going out in the middle of an intersection ? and the people in our community or the visitors in our community who are helping enable that ? is a significant problem for us. And it's something that we need to address.
Escambia County is considering an ordinance that bans panhandling in roadway medians.
Similar laws have been challenged on First Amendment grounds, with courts often striking them down. Jacksonville is the latest Florida city to pass a ban on panhandling, similar to Escambia County's proposed ban.
Daytona Beach is fighting a lawsuit in which a federal judge suspended the city's panhandling ban on First Amendment grounds.
Reeves said he hoped creating an "Opportunity Shelter" that would provide a low-barrier shelter in combination with a central place for other services to help people find housing would give people an alternative to supporting people panhandling.
"I think that the general idea of that, when you put $1 on your window, that that is somehow helping create opportunity for people, it's quite a misnomer," Reeves said. "We have to understand that there's a better way to help people who really need it."
Reeves said the city is still searching for a community partner who could operate the shelter, and there is interest in the idea from local non-profits.
"We feel comfortable enough that there'll be organizations or multiple organizations that would entertain it," Reeves said. "But they're going to ask the questions that we are asking right now, which is, what's the support going to be, and what's the long-term viability of this project? And so I think the city and the county need to be prepared to answer that before we get into a serious conversation with an operator."
Reeves said it would take more than just the city to tackle the issue, and help will be needed from the county and the designated homelessness Continuum of Care organization, which is Opening Doors of Northwest Florida.
Opening Doors of Northwest Florida is currently undergoing a restructuring in response to advice from officials from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development who were brought into town by Reeves.
"The reason we brought Dr. Joe Savage in is so we can all get our arms around this issue and try to come up with the best path forward," Reeves said. "So I continue to be committed to that. I get the sense sometimes that not everybody's committed to that, but I certainly am. I don't have any enemies in this situation. I don't have any adversaries. Anybody in this community who thinks there's something that we can do that makes better outcomes for our quality of life and better outcomes for people who need help; I'm all ears."
Reeves said he's discussed the idea with county officials and would like to work with the county in coordinating a shelter along with its efforts on affordable housing.
"If (people coming into the shelter) don't have any opportunity to get out and live anywhere, we're going to really be back in the same choke point and the same problem we have now. I don't think you can really do one without the other," Reeves said. "And even though one is kind of a city project, and one is kind of been adopted as this county project with their $4 million, I certainly hope that we are jumping into that hand in hand."
This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Pensacola considering setting up low-barrier homeless shelter
