Flagler County’s New Ban on Homeless Sleeping in Public Ignores Allowance for Designating Safe Space

Last Updated: 12:50 p.m.

Since Oct. 1 it has been illegal for the homeless to camp out or sleep on public grounds in Florida. The law authorizes counties to designate a local government property for use as a public camping or sleeping space for homeless individuals for up to a year–essentially, a safe, regulated space. But that can be expensive.

On Monday, the Flagler County Commission approved on second reading an ordinance that ratifies the state law, but without designating a safe space for overnight stays, though such de-facto campgrounds are well known to local authorities.




“We’re not addressing it other than that’s something the commission can do at a future date,” Commission Chair Andy Dance said. “Another one of those long-range plans.”

The law authorizes counties to designate such a place either in the county or in a city within the county, as long as the city agrees. But it’s not as simple as designating acreage for the purpose. But the authorization does not appear to have been designed to be easy to implement. According to a legislative analysis of the bill “if a county designates public property to be used for public camping or sleeping, the county must establish and maintain minimum standards and procedures related to ensuring safety, security, sanitation, mental health and substance abuse services coordination, and illegal substance and alcohol use prohibition.” There’s also a requirement for 24-hour security.

The requirements would make it “completely cost-prohibitive” for counties, says Carrie Baird, executive director of Flagler Cares, the social service agency, and a member of the Commission on Homelessness and Housing for Volusia and Flagler Counties. Members of that commission have had discussions about the new law and the provision for a safe space, but without seeing realistic ways to comply with the requirements without facing great costs. The estimate for such a space in Flagler County was around $1 million a year, Baird said.

“And of course none of that is funded by anybody,” Baird said. “I don’t think it’s just as easy as: You can camp here.”

A county does not necessarily have to abide by those provisions as long as the county can show that compliance would be a financial hardship. The county would have to publish those standards on its website, and grant the Department of Children and Families access to the site for inspections. DCF could order the facility shut if it doesn’t meet standards.




Also, the designated safe space must not be next to residential property or even acreage designated for residential property in the government’s comprehensive plan (even if nothing has yet been built there), and it cannot adversely affect nearby property values or the safety of existing residents. How to determine whether such a location would or would not have these effects is not specified in law. Residents and businesses may sue if they feel the law is violated at their expense.

But all of that is moot in Flagler County, since none of it is in consideration.

According to the January 2023 Point-In-Time Count, the annual census of the homeless ion Florida and across the country, 653,000 people were experiencing homelessness across the United States, including 30,756 in Florida and 1,053 between Flagler and Volusia counties. The number specific to Flagler was 61. About half the homeless are considered “unsheltered,” including those living in cars, parks, sidewalks, abandoned buildings or on the street. Point-in-time counts are generally undercounts: they only include totals of individuals actually sighted.

The County Commission discussed and approved the local ordinance in successive readings on Oct. 21 and last Monday. There was little discussion. Aside from Dance’s brief mention of the local option, there was no consideration of designating a public space, and the option was not even presented to the commissioners.




The local ordinance parallels the state law, specifying certain aspects of local authority. “It forbids people from camping on public property. It creates a process: They can be trespassed,” County Attorney Al Hadeed said. “They have the right to appeal that trespass. It goes to our special magistrate for adjudication. The county administrator is given the authority for a person under a trespass order to allow them, for good reasons, to be able to use the property for conducting governmental business or to express their First Amendment rights. So this basically tracks what the statute provides.”

Individuals will not be immediately trespassed. Individuals will first be warned and given the opportunity to leave before they are trespassed. In the county and Palm Coast, the Flagler County Sheriff’s Office will enforce the state law and the county ordinance. Palm Coast has not yet approved its own ordinance, though it is expected to soon.

There is a loophole in the state law, mirrored in Flagler County’s ordinance. If an individual has a properly registered vehicle, and the vehicle is parked in a public space, the individual may sleep in that vehicle and is not required to move it. “The legislation excludes it: lodging or residing overnight in a motor vehicle that is registered, insured and located in a place where it may lawfully be,” Hadeed said, is “exempt from this statute.”




“I do see that around the community, where there’s vans and other vehicles, it’s pretty clear, probably people living in them, unfortunately,” Commissioner Donald O’Brien said, though his sightings were on private property. He asked whether parking and sleeping in a public space is open-ended. The answer is not clear.

“We do have a promulgated policy that overnight parking at our county facilities is prohibited,” Hadeed said. “For example, this parking lot. We can’t have people parking overnight in order to quote camp or to sleep.” He was referring to the large parking lot around the Government Services Building and the courthouse in Bunnell, which specifically prohibits overnight parking. Overnight parking in county parks is also prohibited.

As of today, the county only has one option for housing the homeless, and only on nights when the temperature falls below 40 degrees. That’s the cold weather shelter financed in part by the county and run by The Sheltering Tree, the non-profit, out of Church on the Rock in Bunnell, off of U.S. 1. The shelter annually opens only a handful of nights, since the temperature doesn’t often fall below 40 degrees. Other than that shelter, the county has no other option for the homeless.

Because of that dearth of options, the homeless who turn up at Flagler Cares for services are not told what they’d rather hear. “Part of the conversation we have with anyone is: Are you willing to leave the county,” Baird said, “because the emergency shelters we have in our area are out of the county, and they have a waiting lists.” Most of the local homeless want to stay in Flagler, anyway, and “there’s not near enough resources even in that system in Volusia County or St. Johns County to serve everyone.” There are waiting lists.

Baird may be the leading authority on homeless issues and policy and among the leading authorities on housing issues in Flagler County, but she was not approached by the county or local cities as they’ve drafted their ordinances in line with the new law on sleeping in public. “Definitely we’re happy to be part of the conversation and the solution,” Baird said, “but nothing can really be done without some resource devoted to it, and the resources that come from the state or the federal government are just so minimal, and the agencies that get that funding, other than Family Life Center, are in Volusia County.”