Alachua County Commission Chair Ken Cornell: Alachua County’s homeless children need us all at the same table
OPINION
BY ALACHUA COUNTY COMMISSION CHAIR KEN CORNELL
I appreciate School Board Chair Thomas Vu taking the time to address my letter at the School Board’s April 29 workshop. While I respect his candor, it is important to respond respectfully but firmly to the characterization of our request and, more importantly, to reaffirm that action on behalf of the more than 930 children in our community, who lack a stable home each night, cannot wait.
Editor’s note: Chair Vu’s comments can be found at this link.
The School District Is Already a Partner in This Crisis
With respect, this is not a matter of the County asking the School Board to “solve the homelessness issue.” It is a recognition of what federal law already requires. Under the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act, the Alachua County Public Schools district is legally obligated to identify, enroll, and support every homeless child in our community, transport them to their school of origin, remove barriers to their education, and designate a liaison to serve their families.
The district’s own McKinney-Vento program has identified more than 930 such students. That program exists precisely because homelessness is already a school district responsibility under federal law, not a burden newly imposed by the County.
The question before us is not whether the school district has a role. It does, by law. The question is whether we will coordinate that role effectively with other agencies or continue to address a shared crisis in isolation.
What the County Actually Asked
It is important to be precise about what the County Commission requested, because the characterization that we asked the school district to serve as a homeless shelter was inaccurate. Our letter asked for three things:
First, that the School Board send representatives to a multi-agency meeting within 60 days, which would also include the City of Gainesville, the Children’s Trust, the Keys to Home Continuum of Care, and the County Commission.
Second, the School Board reviews its underutilized and vacant facilities to determine whether any could better serve students and families experiencing homelessness.
Third, participating entities work collaboratively to improve access to services, increase housing stability, and ensure educational continuity for impacted students.
A request to come to the table, review the facilities, and work together is not “insulting.” It is what coordinated local government looks like.
Regarding Vacant School Facilities
It was notable that Superintendent Patton acknowledged the district is actively seeking to “get schools off our books,” and that School Board members expressed a desire to transfer vacant properties to other governmental entities for community use, with appropriate protections to ensure the properties remain in the public domain.
That is just the kind of conversation our letter was designed to initiate. We are not asking for a gift. We are asking for a conversation about whether publicly owned, vacant buildings could be used for the public good while the district reduces its insurance and utility exposure.
On the Children Themselves
Nine hundred and thirty children in Alachua County go to school each day, not knowing where they will sleep that night. Many of them are the very students the district’s McKinney-Vento liaisons are already working to support. The closure of St. Francis House has created a genuine crisis in our community’s shelter capacity.
This is not a turf dispute. These are children, and they deserve every institution in this community — the County, the City, the School Board, and our nonprofits — to be at the same table.
The school district faces its own resource constraints and operational pressures. The County Commission respects that. But we do not believe that being asked to participate in a single multi-agency meeting constitutes an unfair burden, and we do not believe that declining to do so sends the right message to the families and students who are watching.
A Path Forward
The Alachua County Commission remains committed to this effort and to working collaboratively with the School Board. Our door is open, and we hope the School Board’s door is as well.
We respectfully renew our invitation for the School Board to send representatives to a coordinated meeting of community stakeholders within the requested 60-day window.
The children of this community deserve no less from any of us.
If their parents can pay a small mortgage it’d help their credit scores. Just don’t rent school space, sell it. Otherwise parents with low pay would find better opportunities in a non-college town. Less competition for low wage jobs and housing elsewhere.
We do NOT need to be converting underused or vacant schools into homeless shelters.
When are we going to see some REAL leadership and not a clown begging for a tee shirt?
The City of Gainesville can’t properly manage their homeless population which they have invited into the City for decades. Now they are going to ship them into other Cities and rural areas in the County. It won’t stop with SBAC facilities, the County will also consider its facilities too. Wait and see…!
These people are unable to stay in their own lane. Why? They want to morph all government entities into a single beast. Same with this ecumenical religious push we’re seeing. Don’t be deceived. 👁️
Just a note for the Lil Kenny guy in reference to his comment ‘transport them to their school of origin.’ Think very carefully about what you just said. That may entail gathering illegal immigrants and putting them on a boat or a plane back to their country of origin. That’s not going to go over very well with your constituents.
For the Chronitards out there: the Federal legislation that requires the County to help homeless kids was signed into law in 1987 by the radical leftist, Ronald Reagan.
You are correct. But the law clearly states Federal Surplus Property not county, city or school property.
The laws are to ensure “homeless kids” have access to education, not housing.
The problem is, it won’t be children and families occupying these spaces. It will be drug addicts, alcoholics and the mentally ill.
“The closure of St. Francis House has created a genuine crisis in our community’s shelter capacity.”
Ken Cornell is a hypocrite whose disastrous pro-homeless, pro-criminal, and anti-citizen stand on every single issue led directly to the closure of St. Francis House.
By diverting funds to the willful, criminal homeless drug addicts that use GRACE Marketplace as their base of terrorism, SFH was forced to close.
How many homeless families have you taken into your home, Ken? Hypocrite. You don’t give a damn about any of these people, you are just trying to exploit the law for your own personal gain as usual.
Why don’t you stay out of politics and spend all day calling your boyfriends down at the jailhouse?
As reported it sounded like the county and city were going to coerce the SBAC into giving away assets.
The homeless family problem appears very real.
A larger community effort should also include discussion of the vacant Ronald McDonald house next to the Stake n Shake on SW 16 Av, going into neglect and disrepair. The vacant Shands Hospital Rehab facility on SW 13th St and the vacant hotel (Hilton) in that same corridor. Have the Homeless activist groups looked there too?
Also an accounting of St Francis budgets and collapse even after the County stepped in with relief by buying the dilapidated Sunrise properties would help one better understand what the heck is going on.
For me the solution is rentals assistance for families with children facing displacement rather than vacant units and classroom disruption for children in school. Is eviction data collected, other causes data?
Let’s not lose site of the fact that we are talking about homeless children and families in this discussion. A thousand (some estimates say many more) children and in many cases their single parent mothers.
There are many empty offices in the County Admin building, as well as in other county spaces. Instead of buying lots of greenspace and easements, spend those funds housing them on your property. Until then, be quiet with your virtue signaling or use some of your salary providing housing assistance for them.
Alachua county: let’s not lose site of the fact that rubbers are cheap! Ever heard of personal responsibility?
“Alachua County” REALLY? Come on Ken and grow a pair and stop trying to hide behind your stupidity and foolishness.
I paid $16,000 to ACSB to provide children a free education in Alachua County last year and I have no children…I should be exempt!
It’s a big personal responsibility when you bring a child into this world and it’s the parents’ job to feed and educate their children.
The state constitution reads that children deserve a free education…maybe it’s time to change the state constitution and parents should pay half and the taxpayers can pay the other half..
. Maybe these 950 homeless children should be adopted by families that can take care of them..maybe we need to dissolve the ACSB and have the department of education in Tallahassee run everything from the state…
I’m tired of the racists and face masks here on the ACSB…I’m tired of the bums and their trash in street medians…
essential services for government is police, fire, parks, & roads…
these idiots in local government here have been corrupted by United Nations one world government ideology… they’re communists!
…they are trying to implement “great reset”…
End world hunger, end homelessness, cO2 regulation, stop climate change, end private property rights, universal basic income, CBDC, Diversity, equity, inclusion, zero waste by 2050..
They are for vax passports . Less population on the planet means less climate change. Don’t take anymore
mRNA poison…there’s nanotechnology in there …do you know what the 5th Industrial Revolution is? They want technology in your body by 2030 that can determine your carbon footprint…
Things will be changing real quick with AI and nanotechnology …
The devil is hiding behind the environment…don’t worry about climate change..the planet 🌎 is fine!
Now you know…C19 was a goebellian
“Big lie”… c19 has a 99.7% survival rate. What does that round up to? 100% survival rate…” oh, people are dieing!”…they use fear to control us..
Why was Jesus Christ put on the cross? Because if you don’t do what we say, the collective will nail the individual on the cross as punishment if you don’t do what they say. Step out of line, and you get nailed to the cross…that’s what government did 2000 years ago…
Little Kenny, it’s about time you put your money where your mouth is you want to help the homeless children how about bring a couple home with you feed them cloth them with your own damn money then post pictures and show us what you’ve done prove to you do care about them
Such a disappointment that greater respect & consideration wasn’t shown to the children and families living in Stephen Foster neighborhood BEFORE you disrupted OUR LIVES & LIVELIHOODS by shutting down our school ! Many more than 930 kids now uprooted & scattered to other areas! You now can fund Foster for the homeless, but NOT for our kids & staff who’ve been here for YEARS!
Who closes a beloved neighborhood school? Only to salivate over the real estate and “get some of these schools off our books”“…Closing St Francis House finally achieved the McGurns’ vision of no social services in the re-invented Downtown. Just transfer that eternal population to a struggling working class part of town that is neglected and already underserved & overtaxed. Mission accomplished: bureaucrats get their gentrified Streetery… and we get the Bowery.
The more you send on Homelessness, the more you GET! Stop. Sell the buildings and use the money to fix the roads, which is your responsibility!