City of Gainesville addresses safety on SE 4th Place, guides people toward resources

Press release from City of Gainesville
GAINESVILLE, Fla. – The City of Gainesville is bringing together a multidisciplinary team to address safety issues on SE 4th Place. The short stretch behind St. Francis House, a private shelter downtown, recently has seen an increase in houseless residents sheltering in tents along the sidewalk in the public right-of-way.
The conditions have generated concern from neighbors and nearby business owners, several of whom spoke at the Gainesville City Commission meeting on February 15. Comments focused on the growing collection of tents that began appearing approximately six months ago and now includes more than a dozen.
“Until recently, this was a quiet street with adequate space for on-street parking by our clients and their pets,” said Dr. Kathryn Williams, who has volunteered at St. Francis Pet Care for more than five years. “Just yesterday, a pedestrian client was afraid to walk through the settlement, and she called the clinic from Main Street. So I walked down to the corner and walked with her back to the clinic.”
Due to similar stories and reports of criminal activity, the City has worked for several weeks to coordinate a response. The effort is designed to provide assistance to unhoused neighbors and restore access to the SE 4th Place sidewalk.
“The Gainesville City Commission recognizes this is an issue of critical importance,” said Gainesville Mayor Harvey Ward. “That is why last week we approved reallocating $700,000 in unused funds from the American Rescue Plan Act to provide additional support for people who are experiencing homelessness.”
The action along SE 4th Place is happening in accordance with City of Gainesville Code of Ordinances Chapter 23, Article 5 on Public Rights-of-Way Obstructions and the Americans with Disability Act.
The team on-site will include staff from Code Enforcement and the Gainesville Police Department, who will inform those staying along the sidewalk that belongings must be moved out of the right-of-way. Responders from Gainesville Fire Rescue’s Community Resource Paramedicine (CRP) program will speak with houseless neighbors individually, hand out pocket guides with information, and help connect them with local services and resources.
The CRP responders guiding this operation are trained to provide additional information and mental health support. Notices will be posted in English and Spanish. Belongings that remain on the sidewalk in violation of City ordinance will be stored by the Public Works Department for their owners to pick up within 90 days.
Oh yes, the perfect solution – a committee to discuss what was discussed at the meeting the other day so they can submit their committee meeting notes back to the other committee so they can meet and decide what to do with the other committees notes. Dumb arses….
Ward, leading the circle jerkers again.
Bet they won’t be giving out his address.
This encampment should have never became an issue.
We must acknowledge how code enforcement and police will not enforce the laws and ordnances on the book. These enforcers, both law and codes, are paycheck chasing bootlickers who only do their jobs when the coward Mayor and Manager order or allow them to. What’s the point of even having laws and codes on the book if someone as a mediocre as Harvey Ward has the ability to override everything? The city commissioners are cowards too— every damn one of them.
Remember when the police arrested the lawyer for not wearing a mask in a commission meeting? That’s the police we have here in Gainesville! Those bitch police officers should have been publicly and privately shamed to death. Don’t give them a pass …by acting as private security and personal enforcers for the mayor and manager they allow and cause just as much chaos as the politicians do.
They’ll waste no time showing up in your yard if you start cutting down a tree though. Shows where their priorities are.
Meanwhile Florida Credit Union and North Florida Hospital are clear-cutting acres of woods around Bear Archery because they can. “Tree City” yay.
And it’s clear-cut on 53rd Ave near Waldo Road.
And no peep from the greenies when acres were cut down next to the airport.
“What’s the point of even having laws and codes on the book if someone as a mediocre as Harvey Ward has the ability to override everything?”
This is so true! It is very hard to understand how so many law enforcement officers just lay down like a dog as soon as a politician blows the control whistle.
Let me rhetorically ask: Do these officers of the law not have a moral compass? Are they truly this subservient?
I know you said ‘rhetorically’ but.. From my conversations with the cops I know they say they gotta pay their bills. Unfortunately, that’s where we are currently at…That seems to be the mindset of the enforcers right now. But let’s keep applying the pressure. Maybe some will wake up. Maybe not
Not
Sad
https://www.change.org/p/make-law-enforcement-fully-investigate-shots-fired-calls-to-911-dispatch
I have a vacant lot on Waldo road where 2 people squatted for 6 mos…the sheriffs office was called who is equally useless…animal control was called for the 3 or 4 dogs on the property who are equally useless and did nothing…the people cut a hole in my fence to the vacant adjacent lot and are there now…the lot next door is owned by an investor who doesn’t know the squatters are there…there’s a bum, and his new guest bum buddy under the 8th Ave bridge @ NW 13th St…there was also a few other bums living in the woods there…law enforcement needs to just collect these people
And bring them to the equally useless Grace Marketplace bum magnet…we have reached the point of no return. The city manager has the authority to clean up the city…Russ Blackburn was a good city manager…he wouldn’t have let this happen…we need zero
Tolerance for vagrancy, trespassing, & panhandling. Close Grace Marketplace boondoggle…Gainesville needs to be #1 @ being unfriendly to bums now and make our streets & sidewalks safe for the taxpayers. Every bum needs to give back by cleaning up the streets…put them to work cleaning up the fast food trash everywhere…”don’t be a panhandler, be a canhandler”…if you
take the public $, you should have to give back with public service! Zero tolerance! Work or bus ticket back to where you came from…these equally useless tax exempt churches need to be running this canhandler program to help their fellow man.
So sad
https://www.change.org/p/make-law-enforcement-fully-investigate-shots-fired-calls-to-911-dispatch
Maybe the business could set their sprinkler systems to water at different times if the day. Soak them down with reclaimed water. A 3 AM shower in 30-40 degree temperatures may help them move along. I am glad I dont have a business there. They are on a right of way and need to move. A boat horn blasted at one hour intervals can also be effective too. Nicey Nicey doesn’t work.
Just wait until they go out by town of Tioga or somewhere over where the bugs shots live
You’ve got to be kidding! The “resources” are literally walking distance. That’s why they’re camping there! 👹🤡💩🥺🍦🍦🍦D🤑
“Unhoused neighbors”
Another progressive gem. I suggest “unhinged neighbors”.
Aren’t they in the sanctioned booze district so they can drink from open containers all day? That worked out as expected.
They aren’t booze districts. They are “Sip & Stroll Areas.”
https://www.gainesvillefl.gov/Community-Pages/Community/The-Sip-and-Stroll-District
Yes, they are (or were?) right in the middle of the larger Sip & Stroll Area.
Is there any way we can guide the influx of homeless to Poe’s house? He initiated all of this and he’s no longer in office. His address is public record.
Well, as far as the St.Francis house and Se 4th is concerned, all the crack dealers and dope hustlers are down in that neighborhood just on the other side of the park. So if the dope is there, the homeless dope addicts ain’t gone go too far away. That one lady who tried to put the pillow over the baby’s face inside the St. Francis shelter all but admitted she “done it because she was on dope”.
What the COG Commission, GPD, ASO, and probably SWAT too, needs to go into that neighborhood and take down the dope dealers, and if possible, go after the slum lords that rent those houses and apartments to these dope hustlers.
Another disaster of their own making – GRU customers and taxpayers paying the price.
I served on the homeless task force in 2003 and many of us recommended the Gainesville City Commission model our homeless shelter after the Sulzbacher shelter in Jacksonville – because they had a PROVEN record of returning more homeless people back into independent living than most shelters throughout the country – by having appropriate public health and safety rules in place to protect their homeless population and their residents – along with an appropriate auditing system.
Unfortunately, Members of the Gainesville City Commission created Grace Marketplace, a costly and dangerous enabling center for the homeless, a so-called “Low Bar” approach allowing homeless people to receive FREE taxpayer funded services WITHOUT undergoing a police clearance for outstanding warrants for VIOLENT crimes, creating a magnet for homeless people to come to Gainesville from all over the state and country.
Unlike the St. Francis House homeless center downtown that requires Police Clearances – Grace Marketplace has been FRAUGHT with problems since the day they opened their doors in 2014 – with questionable oversight – Police and Fire reports speak for themselves.
Our homeless population and residents deserve better from the City Commission.
Sorry, they’re useless bums. They need to be responsible for themselves. It’s a lifestyle. You think you can house nomads! Ha!
Lock em up or ship em back to where they came from. Zero tolerance for panhandling, vagrancy, trespassing, and the crime these POS have brought on our community!
Thank you for your efforts. You were a voice in the wilderness, and everyone would have been better off if your wisdom had been heeded.
More ignorant bleating from the comments crew here. Can we get them relocated?
https://www.wcjb.com/2024/02/20/gainesville-officials-clear-homeless-sidewalks-near-st-francis-house/
Just get a dump truck and a front end loader and throw this stuff away.