“This troubles my spirit”: Gainesville City Commission passes public camping ordinance on second reading

BY JENNIFER CABRERA

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – At their December 5 meeting, the Gainesville City Commission passed a public camping ordinance 6-1 on second reading, with Commissioner Desmon Duncan-Walker in dissent.

Ordinance is required under new state statute

The ordinance, which passed 6-0 on first reading on November 21 with Duncan-Walker absent, is required by Florida Statute 125.0231, which provides that Florida counties and municipalities may not authorize or otherwise allow any person to regularly engage in public camping or sleeping on any public property.

The ordinance modifies Article V of the City Charter (Public Rights-of-Way and Obstructions), which currently makes it illegal for any person to obstruct any right-of-way, including temporarily obstructing vehicular or pedestrian traffic; the changes add “public property” to “right-of-way” in that section of the Charter. The ordinance also adds “public camping or sleeping on any public property or right-of-way” as an illegal activity. The penalty would be a fine of $25. 

The state statute provides that property owners can file civil lawsuits starting on January 1 if they notify a local government in writing that someone is sleeping on public property and the local government does not address the issue within five days.

Commissioner Reina Saco: “I think that criminal enforcement is the very… last option. Our folks are more empathetic and better-trained than to start with the arrest.”

After the ordinance was introduced for its second reading, Commissioner Reina Saco asked for clarity on whether the ordinance has criminal sanctions, and City Attorney Dan Nee said it could be enforced through civil citations or municipal ordinance violations with “criminal-type penalties. It allows for the arrest of a person if necessary, but a civil citation is generally the method used in law enforcement… in enforcing ordinances such as this.”

Saco said, “And I think that criminal enforcement is the very… last option. Our folks are more empathetic and better-trained than to start with the arrest.”

Nee said, “The idea is to keep public property and the public right-of-way free of camping and overnight sleeping.”

Mayor Harvey Ward: “I would hope that anyone with concerns about this would not stop at the City of Gainesville… but that you would speak to your legislators, because that is where the money is.”

Mayor Harvey Ward pointed out that the City has budgeted $2.05 million in the current fiscal year for homeless services and “millions more” for affordable housing. Speaking to members of the public in the audience, Ward said, “There’s a long way to go with affordable housing, and I would suggest that what many of you are here to talk about doesn’t even relate to housing so much as it relates to mental health services and addiction support services. Those are things that, frankly, are outside the budget of the City of Gainesville. I would hope that anyone with concerns about this would not stop at the City of Gainesville and stop at City Hall, but that you would speak to your legislators, because that is where the money is.”

Public comment

Ten people spoke during public comment, many of whom said they were students; all of them opposed the ordinance, saying that it criminalizes homelessness. Many speakers urged the City Commission to defy the state and refuse to pass an ordinance aligning with the statute.

Saco: “I hate that I voted for it last time. I hate that I have to vote for it today.”

After public comment, Saco said she didn’t disagree with the speakers: “I hate that I voted for it last time. I hate that I have to vote for it today.” She said the City is putting its resources toward connecting homeless people with services and added, “We can put our resources and our funding there, or we can put our funding to paying out a lot of lawyers to defend us when a business or an individual sues us because they walked by and saw someone be homeless. I think the first one’s a better use of our tax dollars.”

Saco said the ordinance does not criminalize homelessness, but “it may lead to criminal prosecution if there is a series of choices made… We are trying to get everyone who wants and can accept help off the street because no one should be sleeping on the sidewalk. No one here thinks anybody should be sleeping on the sidewalk… This [ordinance] is far from perfect. This is far from palatable, but I’d rather do this and try to shield the City and keep our resources where they actually help people than store that cash away for a lawsuit.”

Commissioner Desmon Duncan-Walker: “This troubles my spirit… This puts us back into the cycle of arrest, debt, and living on the street”

Duncan-Walker said, “From a political perspective, you know, it’s clear what the state wants to require us to do. This troubles my spirit… This puts us back into the cycle of arrest, debt, and living on the street, and while we are doing everything that we can,… we don’t have enough… All over the city, we see homelessness and its effects… I can’t leave my house without it being one of the first things I see… I’ve come to work on some weekends and literally had to step over people to get into my office – or sleeping on the steps of City Hall… The fight has to be waged at the state, it absolutely does. I’m not going to vote for this ordinance today because for me, just in my spirit, the cycle has to be broken… I did not sleep last night.”

Commissioner Bryan Eastman: “You have to govern in the world as it is, not how you want it to be.”

Commissioner Bryan Eastman thanked the public for coming to the meeting because “the folks that are really impacted by it are dealing with things that don’t allow them to come sit through a City Commission meeting and speak to a bunch of politicians about the issues that are coming before them… We still, at the end of the day, have the responsibility for our police officers to work with our co-responder team to get folks the resources and to treat people with some level of dignity… You have to govern in the world as it is, not how you want it to be. But, you know, I would like to see a lot of thought and effort put into how we’re doing this in a humane and thoughtful way… So I guess I’ll be reluctantly voting for it and trying to see how we can find a way to set up enforcement that won’t force people that are already at their lowest point to go into a lower point.” 

Commissioner Casey Willits said they needed to follow state law and protect the City from lawsuits, which he said could be “an organized effort, because I think some of the people pushing this have real mal-intent in their heart. They’re not trying to fix a problem; they are trying to get a pound of retribution out of something they just don’t like.”

Commissioner Casey Willits: City’s goal is “to make sure that the first person that our homeless neighbors experience is not someone with a badge and a gun.”

Willits said the City’s homeless outreach efforts are “us using discretion to make sure that the first person that our homeless neighbors experience is not someone with a badge and a gun… I’m a very, very hesitant yes on this.” He asked the City Manager to bring data regularly to the Commission about how many people are fined.

First motion

Willits made a motion to adopt the ordinance on second reading.

Commissioner Ed Book: “The manner in which we interact and treat people is probably the most important aspect of what we do, even when we may have to take sometimes adverse actions.” 

Commissioner Ed Book said, “The first thing that we do currently is we reach out. I don’t know that probably most of the audience knows this, but we use our GRACE outreach team to do that first… in an effort to try and provide support services and resources that will get people on their feet,… whether it’s addiction help, whether it’s counseling, whether it’s mental health resources, whether it’s into a home for those – there are some who don’t take that option, but we have also provided monies to provide additional housing and bed space so that we try and allow the support services to work. Those are the first lines of things that we do… The manner in which we interact and treat people is probably the most important aspect of what we do, even when we may have to take sometimes adverse actions.” 

Ward: “You’re gonna go through about eight different levels of ‘Would you please move? Can we help you?’ before a citation gets issued.”

Ward said the Gainesville Police Department could include reporting about the ordinance in their quarterly report, but he said he expects few violations because “the first thing that’s going to happen is, somebody’s gonna say, ‘Hey, would you please move now?’ Then they’ll call the City to say, ‘Hey, would you move these folks?’ And when we send somebody out, the first thing we’re gonna do is send out a team to try to make a connection to folks and to try to get them some help. You’re gonna go through about eight different levels of ‘Would you please move? Can we help you?’ before a citation gets issued. I don’t think any officer wants to spend half their shift issuing a citation, because that’s what that ends up being. So I don’t anticipate there being a large number of those.”

Ward said the word “homelessness” frustrates him because “what we’re actually talking about, if we’re being honest, is chronic homelessness,… something far deeper that requires far more help from the community and far more responsibility from the community, and I hope everyone who is involved today will be involved in that larger conversation… What we’re doing today is a mechanical piece that allows us to be in compliance with a state statute…  [The] law is agnostic to how whether we comply with it or whether we just get sued out of existence. We’re not going to get sued out of existence because we’re going to implement the mechanics that allow us to be in compliance.”

The motion passed 6-1, with Duncan-Walker in dissent. 

Second motion

Willits made a second motion to ask the City Manager to provide quarterly data on any fines or actions pursuant to the ordinance, and Duncan-Walker seconded the motion. The motion passed unanimously.