By Barrington Salmon
During the current legislative session, Gov. Ron DeSantis and some members of the Florida Legislature have put forward bills and proposals or expressed support for approaches they assert will strike a blow against homelessness.
Homelessness is not new or unfamiliar. It is an often-intractable issue that has been with us for decades. Various laws, protocols and other prescriptions have had varying levels of success. DeSantis and lawmakers are likely reacting to a shift in the way communities across the U.S. view homelessness from compassion to penalties and restrictions.
Unfortunately, but true to form, DeSantis didn’t offer a palette of humane solutions to the homelessness problem. Instead, he spoke of the issue in stark, unsympathetic terms characterizing homelessness in purely negative terms, blaming them for contributing to the erosion of the quality of life of others lucky to not be sleeping on the street.
Punishing the tens of thousands of human beings living in Florida without shelter or a roof over their heads appears to be the Republican way to go.
“We cannot allow any city in Florida to become like San Francisco, where homelessness, drugs, and crime have decimated the quality of life, hurt the economy, and eroded freedom. In Florida we will continue to enact policies that promote accountability and community safety, unlike in California where they are promoting dangerous policies that harm their communities and economy,” DeSantis said in a recent press release.
To his credit, the governor did announce that he would increase funding for homeless shelters and for substance abuse and mental health treatment, but he also proposed the proverbial stick – in the carrot and the stick analogy – by forbidding those allowed to stay in homeless shelters from using drugs and requiring them to “utilize workforce services.”
On March 1, the Republican-heavy House approved a measure 82-26, prompting outrage from Democrats who contend that it is not the right approach to address homelessness in the state.
“What I would like to see in legislation is robust investment in transitional housing, in shelters, but no,” lamented Orange County Democratic Rep. Anna Eskamani. “Instead, we want to designate a location that’s probably going to be really hard to identify, because at the end of the day we’re requiring the public to agree to a camping site.”
The bill’s sponsor said the legislation is not funded, but money may be added in this year’s budget.
Dramatic increases
The United States experienced a dramatic 12% increase in homelessness to its highest reported level as soaring rents and a decline in coronavirus pandemic assistance combined to put housing out of reach for more Americans, federal officials said. More than 653,000 people were homeless, the most since 2007 when the United States began using the yearly point-in-time survey. The total in the January count represents an increase of about 70,650 from a year earlier.
Closer to home, according to a 2023 report from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development on homelessness, at least 60% of Florida residents experiencing chronic homelessness lacked shelter on any given January 2023 night.
Florida reported 15,482 unsheltered people or 6% of the national total of people living in places not meant for human habitation, the report found, and the Sunshine State also had some of America’s largest increases of families with children and veterans experiencing homelessness between 2022-23.
No single cause has driven the troubling trend of increased American homelessness, though experts cite several prominent factors. An unequal financial recovery, a shortage of affordable housing, limited access to critical healthcare, the cessation of COVID-era aid programs, and an immigration influx all bear a share of the blame.
Notably, the national rise in homelessness has affected nearly every cross-section of society. The numbers have risen for all types of population centers and across genders, ethnicities, and age groups. Some communities are more vulnerable than others.
A burgeoning crisis
Further investigation into homelessness brings us to Archstone Behavioral Health, which unwraps the unsettling reality on the ground on its website where it explains that “homelessness and substance abuse in Florida are two interconnected issues that have been plaguing communities for years. The situation is so dire that detox clinic Florida facilities are often overwhelmed, struggling to meet the demand for services.”
Nowhere in DeSantis’ comments did the governor identify some of the core reasons why thousands of Floridians and more than 600,000 Americans are homeless.
The causes of homelessness are many and varied, including severe shortages in affordable housing; recent changes in the rental housing market; the cessation and non-renewal of pandemic funds, protections and programs which halted evictions and the loss of housing.
American renters and homeowners have also had to contend with spiraling rents and interest rates, housing costs that are far out of the reach of ordinary Americans and evictions that are increasing now that federal protections or money disbursed by the Biden administration has dried up.
Matthew Desmond, a Princeton University sociologist and the director of the university’s Eviction Lab, said America has a poverty problem with lack of housing, food insecurity and poverty deeply intertwined.
He said housing assistance and food stamp programs are “effective and essential, protecting millions of families from hunger and homelessness each year,” he said in a 2023 New York Times column. “But the United States devotes far fewer resources to these programs, as a share of its gross domestic product, than other rich democracies, which places America in a disgraced class of its own on the world stage.”
Like many of those in the housing insecurity/homelessness/
To break this cycle, Desmond said, Americans must commit to becoming poverty abolitionists.
“Like abolitionist movements against slavery or mass incarceration, abolitionism views poverty not as a routine or inevitable social ill but as an abomination that can no longer be tolerated,” he said. “And poverty abolitionism shares with other abolitionist movements the conviction that profiting from another’s pain corrupts us all.”
Some solutions: tackling the housing crisis which forces most poor and low-income renting families to devote at least 50% of their income to rent and utilities; immediately expanding housing vouchers to reduce the rent burden; pushing for “more transformative solutions” like scaling up the country’s public housing infrastructure; creating and expanding community land banks; and providing on-ramps to homeownership for low-income families.
“Ending poverty in America will require both short and long-term solutions: strategies that stem the bleeding now, alongside more enduring interventions that target the disease and don’t just treat the symptoms,” said Desmond.
And in the end, all Americans will benefit.
Journalist Barrington Salmon lived and wrote in Florida (Miami and Tallahassee) for almost 20 years. He is a 2017 Annenberg National Fellow (University of Southern California) who currently freelances for publications, including the National Newspaper Publishers Association/Black Press USA, Trice Edney Newswire and The Washington Informer. Salmon lives in the nation’s capital and can be heard on his video blog “Speak Freely with Barrington Salmon and NNPA’s “Let It Be Known.”
KT says
Ok, compassion can only go so far. As a prior FL homeless person I can speak on this matter from personal experience and exposure to the homeless lifestyle, it is a choice that most FL homeless people choose. There are many ways out of this and there are 3 or 4 maybe 5 or 6 chances given to homeless people. Most are on drugs and want to continue the drugs so they go to shelters, get kicked out and then go back to the street or woods. They CHOOSE this life. So stop feeling so sorry for every homeless person in FL, the help is there but they have to be willing to except it and TRY.
St Johns County, FL X homeless person.
Pierre Tristam says
It helps to read the article before blurting. Nowhere does it refute (or address) the “lifestyle” trope, which unquestionably exists to some degree, though not nearly to the all-encompassing degree that the ex-homeless above pretends, or that the homeless-deniers like to claim, to salve the conscience of a nation that prefers to keep its medians nice and green rather than spend some of that beautification money on substance abuse and rehousing programs—matters Salmon does take up. The ex-homeless above will surely get sympathy and the usual I-told-you-saw orgasms from reactionaries applauding bills like the one the house just passed. But anecdotal, even first-person, evidence is no more reliable, or analytically sound, than the accounts of soldiers in battle, who don’t know anything beyond their perimeter. 653,000 homeless people in America are not out there because they like the “lifestyle.” Our local social service agencies and non-profits aren’t out there breaking their backs with ridiculously limited sources, helping the homeless, because the homeless “don’t want help.” Impossible rents, substance disorders, unaffordable home ownership aren’t without consequences. There but for the grace of who knows what go all of us. Shoveling the homeless out of sight because we don’t want to be bothered, because we don’t want to be reminded, because we would rather piss fertilizer on green lawns than see a human being sleep there (or do our part as a society to pay for a stronger social net) won’t do more than add to the atrocity of “lifestyle” exaggerations and to the homeless’ numbers. It dehumanizes the homeless, and worse, it makes the homeless-deniers less than human. At least they’re in Florida, where inhumanity (see the comments below) is the petals on the state flower. So the comment above surely has the seal of approval of the Florida chamber of commerce. The Beatitudes, as always, are for another world.
Kt says
I must have offended you with my experience in reality. As I did read this and I do think a large number of people are choosing to “remain” on tbe streets and in the woods in Florida due to wanting to continue their addiction and not staying or continuing treatment that is offered in many communities as I personally have experienced this and I have had several conversations with many many homeless people, have you? The woods where the homeless live are disgusting and Palm Coast specifically can attest to the large tons of feces one community honestly experienced so yes placing a charge or ordiance against this type of behavior is ok. Have you been to Oregon lately?
Deborah Coffey says
Exactly, Pierre. I do remember that when George W. Bush crashed the economy in 2008-2009 (trickle down economics coupled with deregulation…same causes of the Great Depression of 1929), a family of four lost their home and were living in their car in Holland Park. They used the bathrooms there to wash and get water and so their two children could get to school every day in a clean manner. No one on planet Earth chooses that! Where are The Beatles telling us that “All We Need is Love?”
Laurel says
Deborah: And your family got out of it. That was a recession, the economy now is much better.
My great grandmother, grandmother, my mother, her husband and her son sold a large, beautiful working farm in Wisconsin, during the great depression, for 4K, and all piled into one car and headed for Miami. My grandmother started a business on Lincoln Road, in Miami Beach, and worked her way to a business on Los Olas Blvd, in Ft. Lauderdale and worked it there for more than 39 years.
You do what ya gotta do!
Laurel says
I hit 39 years instead of 30 years, where she owned her business, and the rest is history.
Red house says
PT, I suppose that you don’t have a lawn? or if so it is as dry as the sahara? remember grass and trees put off oxygen that we need to live! homelessness is terrible and so is cutting the O2 from our earth,
Kt says
If you would like to view a homeless camp in FL in the woods. Please take the time to read this, they don’t have to be nasty and homeless, there is a lack of any type of caring. It’s not like other states. It is a very different situation, there are mostly no children or families in these camps. Here, it is a Lifestyle choice. You can deny it all you like. I do agree for better shelters, access to care, and resources, but they are there, maybe not the best and we can improve, however the homeless person must be willing as well.
Laurel says
Kt: One of my favorite quotes was by George Hamilton: “I’ve been broke many times, but I’ve never been poor!”
Again, I cannot speak for all situations, that would be unreasonable, but I am a firm believer that people get mindsets that set their destinies. I’ve seen it many, many times. Some are good friends whose minds cannot be changed over their personal beliefs about themselves.
Laurel says
PT: So many things! First of all, I believe in humans helping humans to get out of situations that really don’t belong in this wealthy country. There are untenable situations like health care bankrupting people. That should never happen. There are unfortunate circumstances, some of which may not be avoided.
That being said, Florida is one of the “End of the world” states, like California. Like in the song from Midnight Cowboy “I’m going where the sun keeps shining, through the pouring rain. Going where the weather suits my clothes.” If it were me, I’d go to Salvation Army, get some of their used clothing, use their address, get a job and put up with their bible thumping until I could get a place. I hope that never happens, but if it does, you’ll know where to find me.
When you see people standing in the intersections, with signs begging for handouts, which demographic do you rarely see? Black women! I’ve seen tons of white men in my 70+ years, but only two black women. Why do you figure? Black women were at the bottom of society, by simply being black and simply being women. They had only one way to go, and that was up. For white men, it was exactly the opposite. So, yes, I believe some folks are where they chose.
You blame it on “impossible rents” and unaffordable housing. Au contaire mon ami. We have a booming economy, and I know young, regular, working people who are searching for, and purchasing 500K “starter homes” on coastal Florida. You know, walk to the beach. Now, if something goes wrong, if the economy goes into a recession and they lose jobs, will they be able to sustain these homes? Probably not.
Do we help the homeless? Yes. Do we believe that all homeless are victims? No. Are the Republican politicians doing the right thing? No. They seem to forget that they are working for the homeless as well.
BTW, pissing on your lawn really does green it up! :)
Sherry says
People addicted to drugs don’t have a mind healthy enough to “choose” anything. They are victims and they need help!
Kt says
Recovering addict here, after like 10 tries I finally said to myself, it is up to me to stop this and guess what? I finally stopped. I stopped, they can stop too. It is mostly a decision to accept help, it is a bad feeling to stop and most just don’t want to, they don’t try.
Sherry says
@kt. . . OK think about your mindset and situation on say your FIFTH try. . . would the extremely cruel judgement of some people have actual helped you at that time?
Congratulations on your personal fortitude and perseverance. . . I’m sure there are other victims that have not been so strong or fortunate.
I have an addicted sister that is dealing with her own demons every day. Thank goodness, California is providing shelter for her when her home state of Florida would not. Before anyone starts attacking me for not “fixing her”. . . it’s been over 20 years and you have no idea what my entire family has been though, all doing our best to help her.
KtKt says
Im sorry to read you have an addicted sister. Yes, I had help from a shelter after getting kicked out of a few and learning my lesson that I have to follow their rules and I had to go to work and discipline myself to do so in a terrible uncomfortable shelter surrounded by addicts and people who harassed me at times in these shelters. It was an awful experience, I had to walk everywhere and catch 3 separate buses to get to work and live at the shelter for 3 months with other people stealing from my bunk while I worked. I was surrounded by addicts who continued to use in the shelters and I listened to their stories and alot of them purposely would talk about how they don’t care or want to get better, the help offered to them was there on so many levels, it’s not all pretty or perfect but the help is there, they must be willing to eventually accept it and do their part or give up completely and choose to continue to live this way. These people regardless of the mental health and live seen this too, they are smart enough to choose help and stop or continue. I failed again and relapsed years after finally succeeding, no one is perfect, no one wanted to help me, I had to finally help myself, it was an ugly battle but I did it, it’s embarrassing to look back on at times and I know that their are resources in the state of FL that offer help to the willing and they re offer to people who fail repeatedly. I pray your sister finds it and gains an understanding and determination to fight her battle and win, it is tough but no impossible if she can find and search for the right resources to help her.
Kt says
And their were so many people judging me, I had a women yell at me when I was sitting outside because I was so exhausted from FL heat and she basically belittled me for sitting because I was exhausted because someone stole my water cup and I had no access to water. It made me want to crawl in a hole and die. However, I kept telling myself that I wouldn’t give up even when the world felt like it was judging me and hating on me. It’s a battle and all homeless people are capable of battling these addictions. Writing them tickets after not caring anymore might actually help one think, hmmm maybe I should stop doing this and get some help, the resources are always offered on the street. I know the street and homeless people in FL know the streets and they know exactly where to find the resources, they all talk.
Laurel says
Kt: Never be embarrassed as what you have done is phenomenal! Congratulations! Those who judged you, or harassed you, more than likely, did/do not have the stamina, determination and strength you had/have and that they probably detected that in your soul.
Stay the course and don’t let anyone bring you down to their level. Surround yourself with those who support you, even if it’s just a few.
Judith Michaud says
Absolutely correct Sherry! When Ronald Reagan closed all the mental health facilities, many of these people had nowhere to go but the streets, or if they got lucky they were sent to nursing homes at the states cost ! Many of the people are mentally unfit to work and will never have a chance to rebuild their lives, like other who were rendered homeless by a catastrophic event! As far as DeSantitis is concerned, he is a cold hearted , racist person who could care less about anyone but himself! Look at the mess he has made in Florida, that speaks for itself !
Sherry says
Judith Michaud and Bill C, thank you for pointing out what should be “obvious”.
I remember when Reagan closed the mental hospitals when he was governor of CA. I remember his “trickle down” theory of economics. . . which is absolutely NOT working for anyone but the wealthy. Human greed prevails! Our country may be the wealthiest on earth, but that wealth is hoarded by the powerful.
“If” we actually had “EQUAL” education , opportunity and justice. . . there would not be such a massive financial gap between rich and poor. “If” we actually had “easily” accessible ,”extended” drug rehab. and mental health health services with long termed halfway houses we could assist those in trouble/addicted. . . instead of either criminalizing/jailing them or just wishing they would die or go away. There are those who would be in favor of just shooting them, along with those diseased, violent invaders from other countries.
Bill C says
In the first place, people turn to drugs when they already feel hopeless. “All men are created equal” means in the eyes of the law. People are not created equal in terms of intelligence, abilities, race, family life, wealth, educational opportunities, or even good or bad luck. KT count yourself one of the lucky ones.
TREEMAN says
America could end homeless by Defunding the United Nations and Foriegn Aid to Ukraine, Israel, Mexico, etc,etc.
JW says
Alternatively, lets cut our military by say 50% as a minimum because we started but did not win any war for decades starting with Vietnam.
jake says
America hasn’t won a war since WWII.
Been There says
America could also risk having no allies when the time comes and we need them.
Laurel says
Treeman: No it won’t. Too much greed.
Also, all our American lives we have enjoyed having allies. We were there, and they were there in WWI and WWII. The situation with Putin run Russia is so severe that Sweden and Finland, both long time neutral countries, have recently joined NATO. For us to abandon our allies, and help Putin conquer democratic countries is poor judgement. We need our allies on this small planet. Trump is doing what abusers do: isolate their victims.
Shark says
Sure – And let Russia rule the world.
Greg says
Really sad but I really don’t feel sorry for the vast majority of these people. I do give money to some though. I feel that being homeless, on most cases, are results of their poor past choices. Some are there because they have little or no education, which allows them to get good jobs. Most are druggies, and again, that is their choice. Some are ex cons who were just released, with no other choice. It’s hard to feel sorry for most, because they brought it upon themselves.
Charles says
DeSantis has no soul or conscience. No wonder he will never make it to the White House.
Steve says
This will go over about as well as his. Presidential campaign lol DUHSantis
Palm Coast Resident says
From a selfish-perspective, if there are homeless people experiencing additions and mental health issues, I’d much prefer them to be somewhere other than freelancing in the woods by residential communities. When shelters won’t allow people to come in who use drugs or alchohol, that leaves them somewhere else–tenting up in our back yards, so to speak. Honestly, I’d rather there be permanent residences for them vs. shelters for my own selfish desires for my community.
With housing costs, I’m surprised anyone could possibly be surprised that the number of homeless folks rose “dramatically.” There’s also a saying, “If you build it, they will come,” so no community wants to be the it-place for people experiencing homelessness. It’s a catch-22, I suppose.
Endless Dark Money says
lol has nothing to do with stagnant wages and high inflation. do some math even unemployment maxes at half the average rent in the state, which doesnt include, food, water, or electric. republicon solution to poverty is to just lock them up.. Id rather see the Rcons in jail than the homeless.
Your right we could of had free healthcare, a free house, UBI, robust schools, national retirement, and trillions left over but Rcon Bush (who stole the election) decided to go kill some people in the dessert for 20 years and spend all that money for weapons of mass destruction that were never obtained.
Amazing how many lack basic empathy and make up false narratives to keep doing nothing.
Ban the gop says
Just need to make sure they arrest the elderly homeless the same way. has nothing to do with affordability it’s all because of there bad decision-making abilities. also definitely unregister them to vote since they don’t have a home address am I right rebublicons?