Local homeless policies fail to protect businesses and citizens

OPINION

BY LEN CABRERA

Frederick Bastiat’s seminal work, The Law, summarized the work of Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and our Founding Fathers. It states that the purpose of government is to protect life, liberty, and property. By that standard, both the Alachua County Commission and Gainesville City Commission are abject failures. Not only do they fail to protect the life and property of their respective citizens, but they openly encourage homeless and drug-addicted people from other areas to flock to Gainesville, and they push the myth of mass incarceration to neuter the police and create a revolving door at the county jail that gives career criminals ample opportunities to disrupt the lives of others.

Attracting vagrants

It seems you can’t go through an intersection in Gainesville these days without seeing panhandlers. That may be an expected sight for people moving here from out of the area, but it was not the norm prior to 2016, when the destructive duo of Lauren Poe and Harvey Ward accelerated the Gainesville-to-Portland conversion program. They managed to exacerbate a problem that was supposed to be already solved by the Gainesville Region/Alachua County Empowerment (GRACE) for the Homeless 10-year plan to end homelessness that was announced in 2005. (We’re seeing similar “success,” by the way, with the school board’s 10-year plan to close the black-white performance gap.) 

Despite the best intentions of GRACE Marketplace and the millions of dollars poured into resources for the homeless in this county, the homeless problem in Gainesville is getting worse. It’s a basic economic principle that you get more of what you reward. Reports may claim the number of homeless people is lower, but the 42% increase in GRACE Marketplace’s operating costs between 2019 and 2021 suggests otherwise.

I’m not blaming GRACE Marketplace. I’ve toured the facility and think they do great work for those who genuinely want to be helped. GRACE is a “low-barrier” shelter, but there are some people who can’t or won’t give up the drugs. These people congregated in the lawless “Dignity Village,” which has since been cleared and re-cleared–so now they’re roaming our streets.

Many of these people are harmless, but a lot have mental health issues and/or suffer from addiction problems that prevent them from being able to care for themselves. Many are a nuisance to local businesses: loitering, trespassing, stealing, leaving trash, battering employees, and pestering customers. There are also some who are genuinely dangerous. Just last month, there was a rash of crimes committed by people from GRACE Marketplace. These three reports on January 28, January 30, and January 31 cover 12 different people arrested at GRACE Marketplace. This diverts police resources from other parts of town and drives some homeless away from GRACE, which explains why we seem to have tent cities forming on every vacant lot in Gainesville.

Ignoring crime

It doesn’t help that officials frequently refuse to charge the homeless for any crimes–or drop charges after they are arrested. For example, when five people were found squatting in the County’s empty “supportive housing” complex at the old Budget Inn, Alachua County spokesman Mark Sexton said the County chose not to pursue criminal charges on the trespassers because “If we can avoid it, we don’t want homeless people to go to jail.” The crime in this case was not homelessness, but trespassing and property damage that will be repaired with taxpayer money. Rather than put them in jail (by definition, temporary housing), the County would rather these five find another property to vandalize.

This growing homeless population, mixed with our elected officials embracing the national fads of simultaneously defunding the police and implementing “criminal justice reform,” is making Gainesville streets more dangerous than ever before.

Elected officials from the school board to the county commission have been looking for excuses to avoid incarcerating criminals because of perceived “institutional racism” and the “school-to-prison pipeline.” They want the demographics of students and criminals being punished to mirror the demographics of the population, without regard to the demographics of people actually committing acts worthy of punishment.

Eliminating punishment incentivizes bad behavior, so we should expect more bad behavior. The school board’s misguided equity plan in 2018 called for reducing the suspension gap between white and black students, which was accomplished by simply not referring black students for suspension. As predicted, this has resulted in a massive discipline problem in schools that is affecting teacher retention. The problem is bad enough that Diyonne McGraw made a special presentation during the school board’s workshop on February 8. 

Defunding the police

June 2020 seems to be the major turning point in implementing policies that make life easier for criminals. That month, the City of Gainesville voted to eliminate funding for school resource officers (SRO) and the Joint Aviation Unit, although the vote to end funding for SROs was just for show, since they are still funding them. They also signed a Memorandum of Understanding for a pre-arrest deflection program. The following month, the commission voted to consider reducing the use of sworn officers at the Gainesville Police Department (GPD). This year, GPD effectively eliminated its K-9 unit, possibly pressured by the City Commission’s response to public outrage over the Terrell Bradley apprehension (GPD just announced that the K-9 unit has been reinstated, but it only has two handlers, down from five in November 2022).

Criminal Justice Reform = Prison Break

The City of Gainesville originally used COVID-19 as an excuse to try to empty the jails of non-violent prisoners, and now some County Commissioners want to let criminals out because of manpower shortages. At a Special Meeting on February 7, County Commissioner Marihelen Wheeler said, “If we can have a whole look at keeping people back out in the community rather than in the jails, that will address the fact that we don’t have enough staff to take care of people either.” (Search the transcript here for the seventh occurrence of “jail” or watch the video here at the 3:40:15 mark).

There always seems to be some kind of excuse to let prisoners out. Sometimes the argument is that people are only there for administrative issues like violating a court order or failing to appear. Others claim that there are massive numbers of people in jail for minor drug offenses, but that is simply not true. Of the 6,742 individual bookings at the Alachua County Jail in 2022, only 4 of them were an individual whose only charge was marijuana possession under 20 grams. 

Since we publish the booking logs daily, we see the revolving door of the same criminals being arrested over and over. In 2022, there were 18 people who were each booked more than 5 times. We frequently see days like February 8, 2023, where 15 of the 17 individuals booked were repeat offenders (violations of probation or pre-trial release) or were arrested for failing to appear at a hearing for previous charges.

The results of these policies are clear. The number of total bookings only increased 1% increase from 2021 to 2022, but GPD data shows a 3% increase in crime (based on the 10 crimes listed in their annual report to the city). GPD also reported a 17% increase in stolen firearms and a 36% increase in “shots fired” incidents.

Stop repeat offenders

Simply eliminating diversion programs and dropped charges would make a big difference in the number of crimes committed by preventing repeat offenders. Last year, 25.9% of all jail bookings (26.7% of all charges) were people being arrested for a second time in the same year. That’s based on data from our 2022 Jail Booking Log Summary: 6,742 individuals booked (some multiple times) with a total of 14,014 charges; removing additional bookings for the same individual drops the total to 4,999 bookings with 10,271 charges. Our articles about arrests frequently point out previous dropped charges and violations of pre-trial release or probation conditions; the implication is clear that these crimes would not have been committed if the defendant had been held accountable for the previous arrests.

Obviously, people are innocent until proven guilty, so holding them in jail until trial would be a tough sell, but there is no escaping the conclusion that removing repeat offenders from the streets would greatly reduce crime in our community. It should be fairly simple to revoke bond for anyone who fails to appear at a mandatory hearing. They have demonstrated no intent to obey the law, so they should be held in the county jail until their trials. Also, anyone arrested on a violation of probation should not be released on bond to await a new trial or simply have probation reinstated with the same terms. These are repeat offenders who have already been convicted of crimes; the privilege of pre-trial release should be reserved for non-violent, first-time offenders.

Discourage dependency

Solving the homeless problem is a tougher issue, but clearly the current plan is a complete failure. Rather than incentivizing more homeless people to flock to the area, we need policies to discourage the migration and to actually help them rather than encourage repeated criminal and destructive behavior. All social services should require drug testing. Rather than funneling money to drug dealers through homeless addicts, we should invest that money into a residential rehabilitation facility. That way, we can genuinely help those who want to be helped and stop the endless funding wasted on addicts who don’t want to help themselves. It is not compassionate to simply “allow” those who are unable to support themselves for reasons of addiction or mental illness to live on the streets or in the woods.

Getting the homeless off the streets is not rocket science. A 2013 Brookings Institute report found that 98 percent of people who complete three simple steps live above the poverty level: (1) finish high school, (2) get a full-time job, (3) wait until age 21 to get married and have kids. A program to get people sober is the first step in getting them ready to be productive members of the community. Those who don’t want to get sober, don’t deserve to keep living off the taxpayers.

Treat the mentally ill

For the mentally impaired, the County needs a way to house and treat them (this will require State financial support and new legislation). Currently, people can only be involuntarily hospitalized if they are a threat to themselves or others. We need a new hospital to house those who are unable to take care of themselves but are not necessarily a threat. This is not an inexpensive solution, and it is one of those things that will likely be opposed by both the right and the left, for different reasons, but it is better for the community than the revolving door of people committing crimes, going to jail, transferring to a local rehabilitation hospital or the state mental hospital, and then being released to commit more crimes after completing a 30-day stay or being found incompetent to stand trial.

GRACE Marketplace, a “low-barrier” shelter, attracts people to our area who are unable or unwilling to follow rules at other facilities that provide homeless services. A substantial number of people are later trespassed from GRACE for various offenses and then move onto someone else’s property. Cities like San Francisco that have long welcomed homeless people and refugees are changing course and pledging to hire more police and crack down on drugs as downtown fills up with tent cities and a “rampant fentanyl crisis.” We don’t have to let Gainesville get that bad before changing course.

If our local elected officials want to actually defend the life, liberty, and property of law-abiding citizens in Alachua County, they need a new approach. Virtue-signaling platitudes on helping the poor and “criminal justice reform” that defunds police and coddles criminals have made our community less safe. It’s time to actually get tough on crime (including “minor crimes” like petit theft and battery that harm businesses and citizens) and tailor assistance programs to those who want to help themselves while cutting off those who refuse to get sober or who pose a threat to the community.