04.17.2023 West Pasco Town Hall Meeting

with Kathy and the whole team to make it happen in Deb Eubanks thank you for bringing the attention forward I appreciate all the questions all the information all the dialogue we've had already but I did want to address your group but I wanted to do it in a manner where I could have the right people in the room fire your questions away early so I'd kind of like get a breakfast preface of everything and the way I figured we can do it tonight is we're gonna do a presentation uh several different items that come up all the way through get all the items out and then by the way Chase Alex uh our Sheriff's Department Sheriff's Office is here too so thank you guys code enforcement here I gotta I got I think all the right people in our County administrative Mike carbiologist walked in so what I'm hoping for us to let you listen to what they have to say our staff team and then we'll take questions and we're going to stay here to all the questions are answered so if you want to go what I'd ask is if you do come up for questions toward the end if somebody's asked the same question don't go to the same question and just kind of repeat but we're just going to learn and get ideas and get your feedback to what you'd like to see us do to help it it is a big pain for me uh when I look at what's going on uh very frustrating for me so to have everybody in the room even Nancy's here all right all right um so for the to deal with this issue I'm very excited we've got we're doing it um we've had a good conversation from the questions that Deb had given us from your meetings that you guys have had so I hope it's gonna be very productive tonight so hopefully we'll just listen first and then you can ask all the questions you want all right turn it back to you all right so I think the very next I should have brought my agenda up here I apologize uh so the very next group I'm going to bring up here this evening Paul can you hit the down screen on there so I can go the same Pace as this oh does it okay I will walk over here where I can see the screen that's on WebEx okay so the very first thing that I want to do is just real briefly uh based on the information that we got from it's not changing slides can you help me on real quick thank you based on the information that we've received from W Banks from ideas that she collected from all of you and a lot of your input at the meetings you've had uh the areas of concern that you all seem to have is our lack of County shelters patients with homeless dumping and that's not the homeless dumping garbage on land that's homeless getting dumped here from other counties trespass agreements the garbage and debris that's left behind what you all call the panhandling that we call dangerous use of the whites of way restrictions on activities of charitable organizations there's a lot of concern

raised about all the charitable organizations constantly going out and how that causes homeless people to go to the same place repeatedly or stay in one area rather than moving on the available homes for rehousing and also in moderate income housing so a lot of those questions have been answered in the past when sheriff's office has come out to speak with you co-compliance has been out to speak with you in the past so we've asked some of our team members to get up and just discuss some of the concerns that you have so the very first group that I think we're going to introduce Craig you're going to have to is the Pasco County Sheriff's office so if we could get our representatives from Pasco County Sheriff's Office to come up they're going to speak for a few minutes and some of the solutions that they have and some of the ways they're working with the county thank you thank you so much Sonia uh good evening everyone uh good to see some familiar faces I know we had the chance to to meet with some folks uh Deb and some of our other folks as well so good to see everyone um we're here to hopefully address some of the concerns you guys have I know one of the big talking points was as far as trespassing agreements goes so I have here with me uh our major over Patrol operations major Sanborn I'm gonna kick it to you all right thank you Alex um so again as a representative of the sheriff's office as Alex mentioned uh I oversee Patrol operations for the county uh everything from the Gulf of Mexico all the way out to uh uh Polk County and then from uh from Hillsborough to uh Hernando and Sumter um where the Sheriff's Office interacts with homelessness primarily at the point of criminality right so uh homelessness is not a crime uh you you can be homeless that is okay what you can't do is commit crimes while being homeless uh the number one crime that we see from a sheriff's office standpoint is trespassing uh trespassing is fairly easy to enforce once we have the legal sufficiency to do so so what that involves primarily is an active interested property owner I've had several questions just kind of periodically about a variety of things but but all of those things are really answered with an active owner I know there's a couple examples where owners are in Thailand and things like that they can't be reached we have a hard time removing somebody from a piece of property if we don't have a responsible party for that property saying that they don't want them there so that's primarily where we're at we also do some issues with um dangerous use of right away as Sony had said that ordinance is crafted to avoid scooping up people in a large net and so what it requires is multiple light cycles Miss and things like that I know that every once in a while somebody will be driving around and they'll see a deputy sheriff we'll run them off when we when we have the opportunity to typically our

deputies are are not just driving for the sake of driving you know certainly not with whatever 3.80 gas prices they're going to a place or from a place and so the opportunity to allow a citizen that's in some sort of urgent need to to wait you know two cycles while we address you know somebody that's uh that's potentially having a dangerous use of right-of-way issue is challenging at times but again those are really kind of the intersections of the Sheriff's Office uh work with the homelessness so I know that there may be some questions at the end we're going to take them at the end uh and so if you would we're not going anywhere we'll be here till uh until the sun rises or until the questions are gone and uh you know crazy house yeah so I get paid by the year uh so I'm I'm salary and I got no place to go so we'll be here and and also for for any folks if there's any questions from folks that weren't able to make it tonight or just questions in general where that intersection is between law enforcement and uh and homelessness we have a few flyers in the back as well uh that highlight any you know Top Line questions and frequently asked questions we get on those and also we have some flyers that deal with General crime prevention tips for all of your communities so for any folks that weren't able to be here or just if you had something that pops up after the meeting you're more than welcome to help yourself to some of those flyers thank you thank you big thank you to the Sheriff's Office for the representation this evening I'd like to bring uh Patrick Arrington co-compliance with also Patrick Phillips to have them speak to you about some of your concerns that Code Compliance can work with and they'll briefly explain some of the actions that they are able to take and some of the things that you can do to help well am I on okay so I am Patrick Arrington I'm the code compliance director uh with me tonight is operational manager Patrick Phillips so you got the Pat and Pat show going on here tonight welcome uh we understand there is this little problem going on in the county and we're trying to do the best we can uh to help with it but I'm going to let you in on a few things tonight uh real quick and then we'll have the questions probably at the end code officers do not have law enforcement powers so they cannot stop people they cannot detain people they cannot arrest people in fact they can't even Force identification from somebody when the person is committing an ordinance violation that is where we utilize our partnership with the sheriff's office so I I just want to get that out there right off the bat and let you know there's a lot of things that our folks can't can't do what they can do is they'll come out and take a peek at things that always sends

the folks out right away we get our eyes on if it looks like something that is familiar that's a County ordinance violation of some kind then our folks will handle it if it's something that needs to go to another department then we contact that department and have them address the situation that's there right now for number wise there's one code officer per 23 000 people in the county along with that there are over ten thousand five hundred businesses which we get complaints on and there are over 4 000 commercial properties and that's all within 880 square miles and 22 officers to handle it so right now we're a little bit overwhelmed at times we can we can keep up for the most part yeah so you got anything you want to add instead uh we're going to be around here I know you folks got a lot of questions so we'll we'll be around here if you don't want to hold no more talking to Mike Pat for those that are on WebEx please how about now can you hear me now so I'm sure you folks got a lot of questions so you know we're going to stick around until this meeting is over with and uh anything you know you got any questions just meet up with this afterwards okay thank you well hold on one second my boss is yelling at me let's see properties oh okay yes uh that's Sally Sherman by the way that is the assistant County Administrator she just reminded me to let you know that officers whether code officers or technically law enforcement to a point could not just walk on to someone's property our guys can definitely not do that for a trespass issue that is a County ordinance violation or a civil violation so we cannot do it I can't speak for law enforcement although I was a police officer in my prior life I'm not sure what they can and can't do an account is still walking on people's property but it's very important that you know that we can't do that when it comes for these homeless campsites that you see so if you see them let us know we can address it if it's in the line of sight but if it's back in a wood line or somewhere like that chances are we're not going to be able to do anything until we get Property Owners information and or trespass agreement which they just talked about thank you Patrick so very important information so I think it's good that you kind of understand that when you call the county commissioner's office and I answer the phone or if you're in commissioner starkey's office and Jenny or Katie answer the phone and you complain about these things we've worked directly with code compliance and with the Sheriff's Office and identify where these issues are let them know but they have their processes that they have to file so they wouldn't follow so they remain compliant with our ordinances so next I'd like to bring up briefly from the county attorney's office Samuel Brandy and

Jessica Rodriguez to talk about what exactly first and foremost the um he's survived interest user right away is and why we call it that and also any other ordinances regarding how we can deal with homeless issues sure thank you Sonia so my name is Sam boundy and this is Jessica Rodriguez with me we are the two attorneys for the county that deal with all of the County ordinance violations the attorneys for Code Compliance so we can talk to you tonight a little bit about what we what we can do with those violations what they are and also what we can't do so you had major Sam one from the Sheriff's Office talked about trespass from property where someone's not allowed that's not a County ordinance violation like he said that that's a criminal matter we don't deal with those but I would reiterate his point that they need owner cooperation in order to be able to enforce those but the County ordinance like Sonia mentioned we have under Section 82 82 one of our code of ordinances it's the dangerous use of right-of-way ordinance which essentially targets that that dangerous behavior of standing in the middle of the road or in the middle of the medium um it's unlawful to make any use of the public rights of way in a manner that interferes with the safe and efficient movement of people and property from place to place on a public road or right-of-way standing in the median exchanging goods currency anything like that so Sony asked us to talk about kind of what it is and what it isn't um you know like like the sheriff's office said homelessness is not a crime so we can't we can't Target someone you know holding up a sign or or asking for money that's their right to free speech um so in areas that are considered public forums like the sidewalk or a park or whatnot generally that's not something we can Target the thing with the dangerous use of right-of-way is it applies to everyone equally and it's a safety issue you know standing out in the median in the middle of US 19 you're putting your own life at risk you're putting the risk of the drivers other pedestrians at risk so that is something that we can Target through the County Warrants process um as to County property we we can we can have someone trespass from County property such as a park or something like that but it's only after there's been an underlying violation such as a drug offense or something of that nature um but generally we can't just ask people to leave County property as far as other ordinances that apply you know we talked about when the sheriff's office is having the trouble of getting an owner to cooperate with the trespass agreement we have the ability to cite the property owner for kind of those secondary violations that are going on you know if there's if there's tents set up on a vacant lot that aren't allowed to be there under the county code we can

cite the owner for that hold them responsible make them clean up the property make them responsible for it same thing for junk and debris so you know that's when even though we can't trespass if we don't have that owner cooperation we can also we can go after the property owners to the extent same problem the Sheriff's Office talked about that we can locate them and have them and get notice to them and bring them to court if they're out of the country it becomes a lot more difficult than anything else um hi everybody this is Jessica Rodriguez so I just want to reiterate and build on what Pat said earlier about us going on as far as code going on to private property if you're calling to make a violation just be cognizant if we can't see it from the public right away meaning if I can't sit in the stand in the street and see the violation or if you're not willing to allow us onto your property because if as long as we can see it from an abutting property or the public right-of-way and we can determine it's a violation they will be cited so if you're going to complain about it and make a complaint and you can see it from your yard you have to be willing to let our guys go on to observe it from your property um other than that if it can't be seen from the street they can't enforce thank you thank you thank you thank you very much uh I'd like to bring Kathy Pearson our assistant County Administrator for public services up next she's going to present to you her presentation that she gave to our joint cities Workshop cities County Workshop a couple of weeks ago and I think you'll find it very very informative and you'll learn a lot about the solutions the county is working on right now I feel bad for some of you people and have to stand there's some seats up here if you'd like so please find some seats if you can't that'd be great so yes I'm Kathy Pearson the assistant County Administrator for public services and I want to start off by saying thank you for being here thank you thank you we definitely have a homeless problem in Pasco County and we hopefully as a community are going to come up with some ideas on how to fix it so that's why we're asked you here this is what commissioner Mariano is very passionate about he wants to hear what you all have to say so let me give you a little bit of facts first and we're going to go to the first slide so some homelessness in Pasco kindly by the numbers so The Unofficial pointing count point and time count which is done by the Pasco County Homeless Coalition is between 350 to 400 approximate unsheltered individuals sometimes I know when we're going around we seem to think there's a lot more right individuals move within the geographical area 80 percent of the unsheltered count account resides on the west side and then you can see the age breakdown uh 20 to 30 40 years old is 32 and the seniors are rising I know I was out today with

Richie and they were talking about a 70 year old lady out there that they were trying to find some shelter for so it's unbelievable how much it's happening so where is this happening next slide would be um where this is happening so we've identified currently 62 confirmed encountment camps and that's coming from our code 18 campus were identify with five plus individuals and two encampments were identified with 10 plus so that's what we have right now that we're seeing next slide I wanted to just reiterate right now what the Homeless Coalition and what they have for their homeless system process that they do and so right now they have people contact access points once assessed they have what they call the Brigade and the sword and Spoon that go out and assess these folks they determine what lists they should go on they put them on the list the people at triage and then when they matched when they're ready to get for housing they're matched with an agency that's pretty much what the system is right now next slide I do want to talk about some of the things that Community Development has done and that's Marcy esberg's group who's sitting right over here that is Grant funds that we have done to help with the homeless and so they're called Community Development block grants or cdbg ESG is emergency solution grants and home investment it was a home Grant so we put about 11.9 of these dollars into different things and as you can see the hmis system the Coalition for the homeless receives about 269 emergency shelter Services which is the Youth and Family alternative they received an HVAC system the sunrise domestic shelter received an electric system steps to recovery got Renovations for about 2.34 million emergency shelter construction acquisition permanent housing and of course rental assistance those are some of the things that that our community development block grant has done but we agree it's not enough some of the projects we funded is the Rosalie rungie residence which is permanent supporting housing and I know Michael rapoza president of Saint Vincent Nepal is here and we also have the youth Lane family shelter which is run by Catholic Charities which has about nine families at all times going through that shelter next slide is some of the current Services provided so we just wanted to list some of those services that are out there we have Ace opportunity that does transitional housing Rosalie rendu which is a permanent Supportive Housing Pasco Housing Authority one Community now the Rope center youth Lane so these are some of the services that do provide provide services for our homeless the housing first model we do want to talk about that is the national objective is to get people housed homeless assistance approach the priority prioritize providing permanent housing put a roof over their head give them the case management people can usually strive so Thrive so that's what

we're trying to get at or commissioner Starkey did you want to stop and say something or do you want to hello I'm sorry I I I I'm I was at another County meeting in Land O'Lakes so I'm sorry I was a few minutes late but I'm very happy to be here and I see a lot of concerned citizens like we all are so I'm very uh glad you all came and and I'm looking forward to your presentation and this is a very big County problem and it's very hard to solve but we're working on it okay so the next slide some of our challenges and this is where I feel that we're gonna need all of our community support and awesome ideas to help them with this right now in Pasco County we don't we have a lack of low various shelters and what does that mean so right now we have wonderful shelters that will take folks but they can't be on drugs or they have you know they have to um go by religion or whatever the case may be so our sheriff's department will tell us we're out there we find folks but we have nowhere to put them because we don't have any low barrier so that's one of the things that the county needs to look at right now is to find a low barrier shelter and there's other areas there's lack of affordable housing economic challenges domestic violence and the list goes on but we definitely need a low barrier shelter so what our team has done and what I mean by our team there's been several of us that have been needing on a monthly basis for the fast past few past few months trying to figure out whether we need what can we do and how are we going to get these folks into some sort of a shelter some sort of housing so we came up with four options and this is where all of you are going to help okay so what we're going to do is present to you the four options what are we missing there's got to be some other ideas out there that we don't know about but yes I think the county our County Commissioners are committed that we have to do something the county needs to commit to do something but we don't know what that something is but here's some Alternatives so a group of us have been visiting what we call Tampa hope and Pinellas hope and Pinellas hope is in probably in their 15th year of existence and they have a combination of what they call tent cities or Kansas or canvas shelters tent cities with pallet homes they've even gone further to build Apartments so they have apartment buildings on their complex so the folks come in they'll start in a tent as they go further they ended up into a permanent housing either on their property or somewhere else that's Pinellas hope that's run by Catholic Charities they also are in their infancy they just hit a year for their Tampa hope mayor Jane Caster realize the problem that they were having with homeless down there she went to Catholic Charities and said help us what can we do and so they purchased

a building in Ybor City it's an industrial building we have gone down there several times like I said they're only in their infancy they've only hit a year so they're in there and they've got a hundred I want to say 100 tents and they're going to be putting 225 pallet homes and when we were there just a few weeks ago they were starting to put 200 of them so what she explains to us and how they it's a 24 7 operation people don't just come in there and don't do anything they have all sorts of Community Partners that they that they get them Bible study substance abuse case management constant case management they also just don't take anybody um what I mean by that is you can't go up to their door and say I'm homeless can you help me they have Outreach workers that actually assess them they do not drug test them the only thing that they check for is to make sure that they're not sexual sexual offenders that's the only thing they will not take and so their success rate is pretty darn good in Pinellas it's about 48 which doesn't sound high but when you have 48 of the homeless taken off the streets that's pretty darn good and in Pat and in Tampa right now they're at 30 percent which they only hit there one year and they're hoping to get to 48 percent so that's one of the options is the county look for a building with enough acreage to maybe house some of these folks get them rehabilitated where they need sheriff and all sorts of people can now we have a home for them get them out of the woods and try to get them rehabilitated she also when they're out there doing Outreach the first thing her Outreach person says are you a Hillsborough County resident most of them say no they will find their homes and they send them a bus ticket back to where they need to be because she can only serve Hillsborough County residents so that really impressed me when we were studying and listening to that so that's option number one option number two we could go the county could just find land and do a tent city and not the greatest thing I don't think but it'd still be the same concept it would still have 24 7 but just a tent city so that was one of the other options we've come up with option three just do a pallet Village just find a piece of land and put a bunch of pallets and have um you know an agency come and run it and do their Rehabilitation and help them with that that was another option and then the last option would have been a congregate shelter so congregate shelter would be just buy a building put them all inside the building one of the things that um that's okay for temporary but one of the things that we're learning as we go through with like Catholic charity and things they're saying the congress not the greatest because of you know they don't have their privacy the sickness could happen it just runs through the whole building all that kind of good stuff so it's not the ideal situation but it could be and so those

are our four options that we have come up with and now it comes to what else are we missing and so at this point um I'm going to stop and I'm going to turn the mic over to Paula barricado who's our director of Support Services she's going to tell you our next steps and then we're going to be ready to answer any questions that you have and we will answer as many questions until um we're done answering all the questions but that's our options and Paul will tell you what our next steps are so good afternoon my name is Paula barkald I'm the director of Support Services welcome and thank you for being here with us today uh so at this point what we're going to do is we're going to call the names of all of those individuals that sign up to speak uh so you have an opportunity for Q a you each will have three minutes to speak don't worry if you didn't sign up you can line up after the fact we'll go ahead and call you so you have that opportunity but just keep in mind after you have spoken for two minutes you're gonna hear a beep that will give you a warning that you have one minute to close your comments and then you'll hear another beep letting you know that the time for your comments or your questions has ended this is just to ensure that everybody has the same opportunity to speak and participate during today's session in addition to that before you leave today you may have seen as you came into the building in the lobby area we had all of those options kind of blown up for you to see so you will see some of our team members are going to be out there with stickers so that you can pla press the sticker take a sticker and just put it on the option that you prefer however if one of those four options either the mix of the canvas and pallets option number one Tent City number two the third option being the palette Village um if none of those options or the fourth option the congregate shelter are options that you'd like to see we do have some writing paths and some markers so that you can write your feedback so that we can gather that information and then share that with our working group inside um in in the county okay so without further Ado I'm going to go ahead and start opening the floor for questions oh Sonia Sonia is going to help us with that absolutely yeah we will we will go ahead after we run through your questions as you leave today please don't forget to give us your feedback uh we'll we'll need that to take that into consideration for how we move forward so with that uh Miss W Banks if you don't mind it's okay hi I'm Deborah Eubanks I founded or started the Homeless Solutions of West Pasco um I want to thank everybody who helped make this meeting possible um I know we've been waiting a few months for this to happen so it's finally happened

um I want to thank commissioner Starkey for joining us today where'd she go we lost her okay and a special thank you to commissioner Mariano I know you had to change some plans to make sure you got here today and I really appreciate that um this is a sad and neglected situation and it's long overdue for attention the need for emergency housing right now is one of the biggest on the top of the list um so without further Ado I pass it to the public Chevelle Finney is the next person on our list to speak right there okay the biggest thing for me is Code Enforcement why is it that code enforcement isn't allowed on the properties without you know a TA in place there's almost a TA on every place out there in Pasco County right now so when they go out to these properties why can they not tell them take your stuff or it's going in the garbage and have a dumpster there ready and make them put their stuff in the dumpster well it's not going there why should it be the property owner's responsibility to clean it up when there's a trespass warrant in place I mean it's it's kind of crazy then the other thing is is there not a littering and loitering law in Pasco County if there is a littering and loitering law in Pasco County why aren't people being fined for it I've got Patrick Arrington right here and Patrick Phillips to answer that question real quick so in regards to the lautering uh that's something that code enforcement does not address how to be the sheriff's office in regards to the the illegal dumping um if you would or the trash and junk all over the property ultimately it's Property Owners responsibility to clean up his own property or their property we can cite and we have cited the homeless people the problem is though is when we issue them citation they just take off and they're they're at large we have them down until we run into them or a warrant gets put out on but on and you tell them okay guess what you have to leave why are you not telling them take your stuff or put it in a dumpster you spent how much money a couple weeks ago to clean up Moon Lake how many tons of trash 112 tons of trash come out of Moon Lake pretty much that right around 112 yeah yeah I mean but why Shoney's responsible take a couple weeks ago I think it was March 4th use had a cleanup Pasco volunteer come out and clean up Pasco why can't you even go and offer these homeless people a meal and a shower to help clean up something it's volunteers so offer it to the homeless we can only enforce what is actually in written in ordinances and that's what we have to operate under the county codes of ordinance and

unfortunately it doesn't give us the authority to place dumpsters on private property well I'm not even talking dump trailer would be a lot better than a dumpster because they can just hook up and pull away but I mean if it's in the ordinance and we can enforce it and unfortunately because we've checked on every like almost every camp that we've given you guys and there's Tas on almost every one of them except for maybe one and the trespass agreements will be done through the Sheriff's office now when we do turn around and issue the warning out to the property owner we send them the information to get a trespass agreement in place uh so this way the Sheriff's Office go in there and trespass whoever's on that property after the fact on you guys then cheers I've never heard the Sheriff's Office put us on it put it on us I know with us you know if it's in the ordinance we can enforce it but without it being there we can so real quick as as we um when I opened up and I told you that we can't do the same things that law enforcement can that's an arrest issue because it's a trespass that's a criminal episode at that point we do not have the authority to go in there and arrest anybody we would call them and they would come out to assist with that that is if a trespass agreement is in place and they've been out there and trespassed those particular people they've got to have their probable cause to make an arrest as well plus they're busy they're very busy and sometimes we can't coordinate the same time that we're going to go and point it out to them and have them come there as for The Dumping we can go or guys can go tell them hey pick up your trash and leave nine times out of ten they'll leave and they'll leave their trash what are they going to do they don't have any means to get rid of it we can't bring a dumpster out and just leave it there until they throw it up can you imagine how many people would show up dumping trash if we left the trash can there all right so the next big ocean is Andy ravenscraft ers so you don't have three minutes okay yeah I was curious um what legislative options does the county considered we hear a lot of uh well that's not our department um well we don't have anything codified to back that up and it seems to me that there's an awful lot of things that are going on in the convenient answer and pardon me for saying it in that manner but the convenient answer is oh well there isn't an ordinance against that so what do we as Citizens what can we do to get some of these ordinances in place I mean we've actually had people tell us that well you know we can issue a lien against the property but you know nothing really happens or you know we can arrest them but then judges don't really

want to do anything with that information and it gets really frustrating because it seems like it keeps coming down to this ordinance so I'm curious what legislative options the County's been looking into I think the county attorney's office is the best answer or this person to answer that question I mean yeah I can speak to a little bit is there a particular ordinance that that you would like to see proposed [Music] so which I can understand but if I can see somebody that's got according to code he's got an illegal camping situation going on and they can't coordinate with the Sheriff's Office you know why is it there so many levels I I understand government as far as Meeting those levels of checks and balances it just seems to be used it just seems to be be used as an excuse okay well try so trespassing is it's a crime passed by the state it's a misdemeanor and like you've already heard tonight the code officers do not have jurisdiction to go and arrest for a crime so what you're suggesting would essentially be passing a parallel ordinance making an accounting ordinance to trespass and then the issue is you can't do both you can't go with the crime and the ordinance it's a double jeopardy issue so accounting ordinance it would not have nearly as much teeth I mean if you're you know concerned about Judges throwing trespass out because they don't think it's important enough the attorney New Orleans violation is going to go before those same judges and it's got even less penalties by its very nature I think commissioner Starkey wants to speak to that well I'm not an attorney but some things just don't make sense and um here's one of the things that I would I've asked our staff why this makes no sense is that if and you know my our family was a private landowner we have to sign a trespass agreement with Sheriff's Office which which now is in perpetuity which is wonderful to keep people from illegally living on our property it should just be by right unless they have permission to live on your property they shouldn't be there and that that to me is absolute common sense but for some strange reason the law doesn't work that way it's not our law it's not our ordinance I don't know if it's at the Supreme Court I don't know whose law that is that we can't make that Common Sense thing work here right now so um you know we'll talk to our legislators and see if we can get something like that passed but right we you cannot kick someone off of someone's property and unless they have the permission to kick him off and it's backwards to me yeah thank you commissioner no okay thank you commissioner again uh Alex all intercom into Affairs officer

for the Pasco Sheriff's Office so there's actually a question that we have received numerous times actually when we first met with uh Deb and so many folks uh we had gotten this question already um so as it stands currently in major character if I'm wrong but with state law uh if someone is trespassing on your property you always have the right to call to to tell them they are trespassing and they need to leave and the the property owner is the one that is that has that right to say your trespassing on my property um and then if they don't then then you can contact law enforcement to assist with that um and then but the problem is when the property owner is not there go ahead so Alex is doing a great job um to to reconceptualize this real quick um yeah you you don't need a trespass agreement with the Sheriff's Office to enforce rights on your own property you need to trespass on the agreement with the sheriff's office to get us to enforce the rights on your property in your absence right because the only thing that it it is true moved to move his bag into a rusted out corrugated shed right out of court and have them evicted yeah sorry how how uh how long did he live there that's so I'll have to get the details I mean that that uh that sounds ridiculous to pretty much everybody so yeah I don't uh I don't I don't know any of the details it's the first time I've heard of that one I can't speak to it directly but generally speaking if if you own the property and you don't want somebody there then you can remove them all right if you want us to come and remove them then you have to say hey I own this property and I don't want them there and then we will remove them if you want us to go and remove them without you being there then you just have to put it in writing that hey if if I'm not here in the sheriff's office is then they can remove them on my behalf and so it's a pretty it's a pretty simple simple process I don't know should I take all trespassing I know there's an order to things I don't want to disrupt the order [Music] primarily because we won't be able to answer in such great detail all the immunos and other things that go along with each of the concerns that you have so uh next is Lily Markey [Music] thank you um as they were talking they said about not being able to trespass on somebody on the county property unless a crime has happened even if there's a camp there I heard that through that conversation I may have missed something within that being said but I'd like to address that as one to let us know how that works if they're actually putting a camp on County property that they can't be

removed the the other question I have is the question uh something that you made a comment that you made yeah in your presentation um it was the attorney the other part I have is about having the homeless dumping from other areas and you did briefly say that if they're not from our County they can be put back to where they came from is that going to happen for us since we're getting a large portion from outside of our County so that's a great question and I know we're getting caught up on ordinances and all of that kind of good thing our role here is until we find a low barrier and have somebody run that little barrier then the answer is going to be now if we find a building or find something that's going to have a not-for-profit run this that is one of their jobs as I mentioned with Catholic Charities that's what they do but right now unless the Brigade or anybody else goes out there and does that and they can identify and they've got money to take them put them bring them back to whatever County they are I'm sure a little bit of that is happening but so the answer is they are doing some of that right now but I'm not sure how much they're doing it right now okay okay just pass them back over good evening thanks to county for uh taking this on um through this whole process I've been in a bunch of meetings and heard a lot of things that a lot of you unfortunately haven't but hopefully you're getting a lot of that tonight um I I I'm really glad you guys are taking this on um it's it's super important and a lot of people say that well the county taxpayers and things should not be paying from this type of thing believe me you're paying for it anyway like in other services that you're you're paying for it so this has to be done my other point was going to be about Kathy I think you guys have done some great work here in uh you know coming up with some options and I know a lot of that stuff kind of comes from looking at other counties and things like that um I kind of implore you to look at a few other options though and talk to some uh you know local contractors and things because although the you know they call them pallet houses but I think it's only because they're delivered on a pallet you know they they come from like Washington I think you know between the shipping and the uh the thing these little eight by eights are very expensive in my mind um they're 64 square feet they're going to house one or two people and they're like fifteen thousand dollars you know I think you'd find a local contractor that's going to use um local materials local labor and they're going to build you a nice uh some beautiful little concrete buildings

and you know with some shared HVAC and things I think you could find a much more cost effective uh idea that's me yeah okay yeah I think I have your contact information already Bruce um [Music] thank you the one thing you did not mention was the cost of each of your Solutions and that would be a decision maker for a lot of us because we're very money conscious but before you go to there I want to mention the fact that you need permanent Supportive Housing thank you Michael for that phraseology because we have a two-year waiting list for income-based housing so until you resolve that you can move these people all around you want but we need more income-based housing for low income people absolutely absolutely there's no doubt that it's going to come two and two it's got to come two and two but right now we're hearing people that are complaining to our commissioners about hundreds of people in camps there's no place to put them we've got to start so just want to leave them in camps we can do that that's what I'm asking you all so that's why we need your advice on things so what do these costs the tents cost about 25 000 no they spend 25 000. they spend 25 000 a year on tents because of the wear and tear of this of the Sun and all of that the power Palms those particular power homes are 15 000 yes they 15 000 each and they are hurricane proof up to 170 miles per win and they're all pre-electrical got all of the AC and all that in there so yes can we do better that's why I'm here I'm not the expert in this that's why it becomes a community thank you Bruce for stepping up that's why I'm here folks I'm not saying this is what the county is going to do these are some options it's a starting point now help us help us come up with a solution and that's what I'm here for yes do this shelter include treating these people throughout the year thank you for asking that question so in Pinellas hope they get three meals a day and she gets all her meals donated at Pinellas hope three meals a day from churches not for profits other agencies in Tampa hope she pays for one meal I believe she gets it through Metro Ministry she pays for one and then the other two get donated she's working on getting all three meals paid for buy donations so yes that answer so our next person is Dale Thompson I also want to thank everybody for doing this tonight it took us a while but we're finally here my main thing is I know other people are going to ask a lot of the questions that I have my main problem is when I first got involved in this months ago I was just thinking about the people that are here from Pasco County now that I know that they're being bused in from other counties I want to know how we're going

to try to figure out a way I'm a firm believer in if you can't take care of yourself you don't take in others take care of your area first and the people that live here how are we going to be able to find out or did you already stop that from happening the busing of the people coming in I want to find homes I don't want to just clean up Pasco County I want these people to have a place to go hopefully get straightened out back on their feet but I don't want to be trying to do that for the people of Pasco County and sharing that money with people from other counties that are just coming here and overloading us when we've already got enough to take care of so I cannot answer that question I'd have to defer to code I do not know I do not have specific facts showing people were bust here I do not have that I don't know if anybody else can Don anybody else can do we have figures on that hello we do I've gone Anderson Doug let me bring you a microphone during our pit count uh we found that over 80 percent of the folks were residents of Pasco County and that's the recent count that uh assistant County Administrator uh Pearson mentioned about the 350 to 400 individuals we don't there is uh some anecdotal information out there suggesting things we did have an issue with someone that was brought into the area because of on a parole basis it was just very strange and I think it had to do with the fact that they were a sex offender but we don't have any information that would suggest that busloads are being dumped here you'll find far more services to the south of us in Hillsboro and Pinellas County as mentioned already by uh by Kathy so we just don't have that evidence so I I disagree with what Mr Anderson just said I want to say it was four years ago I went to the Homeless Coalition meeting they weren't even checking to see if someone was from Pasco they assumed that they were here for a while but their our responsibility we should take care of them I disagree with that at the board meeting that that year we actually gave United Way 50 Grand more to bust the people out I don't know if many happened home to where they're from last month to where they came from Little Athletes stories of people being told from someone up in North Carolina we'll go down to Pasco County here's a good place to go New York New Jersey they send them down they pay for their years worth of rent then they're on their own um down south they've brought him up here we know we know that we've heard it I've heard of my own code people telling me that so I'm not going to go with the number of 80 I will tell you they still don't even do the point in time count the way I wanted to get it done to find out where they're from how long they've been here and all that stuff so I will tell you the Coalition myself has led us down to find out what's going on exactly

so I don't I don't I don't accept that are that that information just received two things I want to make sure that we talked about one was actually an idea that the sheriff and Mike Fasano came to me on about um and it kind of goes back to the cost of cleanup if someone has made um a homeless camp on private property we do make the private property owner clean it up that our tax pay we don't if we can't make them clean it up um then we clean it up and we lean them the problem is we don't get our money back when we lean them for a long time so we are exploring um putting that cost onto their tax bill and I think that might get their attention so we the thing is we don't know if that's legal or not but the County Administrator and I are working on that the second thing is and listen I have a family member in South Florida who's homeless so um she has a mental illness we have tried and tried and tried to help her she's been to drug Hab many times and and until she wants to get her life back together frankly it's on her um but so I don't want to seem um that I'm not a compassionate person but if you give people who are soliciting money they're going to stay here and they're going to stay in that situation we can't be given handouts we need to be giving hand-ups and we have resources in this County we have lots of job training programs and every single company I know is looking for for people to work so um I think you know I think if we should be able to get people off the Out of the Woods who want to and into housing into jobs so don't please don't give them money um our office uh the county has print well Senator Fasano's office printed these but these are brochures that are being redone because some of the businesses in here no longer are working but these are brochures that have all kinds of resources for um anyone who is soliciting for money on the side of the street for them to be able to call to get help and so give them this instead of money and we can send you the PDF you can print it out at home we keep stacks of these in our office we're out of them now like I said we're redoing them so please do this you'll really be helping them better if you give them the opportunity to get resources and if they don't want resources and if they you know then then we're going to have to have a harder Hammer but and it's it's my hope and I think the Commissioners that that we have a place to send people and it's not forever and it's not a freebie you're going to have to earn your right to be there and to move up and out of there and be a functioning member of society and if you're not then we're going to have other paths for them but that's kind of the plan I think that we have here so

thank you yeah sure like like the light uh the media light the world center Holy Ground um any of those other places do they have access to those or can we get we can get access to those brochures to all of those organizations we give these out at all the HOA meetings that we go to and and anyone who wants the PDF we can email it to you and you can print it out yourself and keep them in your car and I have a stack of cards also for at least commissioner Mariano maybe Katie can get some for commissioner Starkey so we can you can grab a card you can email us so we can get the flyer out to you when it's when it's done our next person is Patty Lewis right hi I got a couple for you the first thing is I want to know because you all must have an idea where are you thinking of putting these I know you say you're going to purchase property but somebody must have an idea and I know we're out in Hudson and we're like the only little place that has no local government and we don't want to be The Dumping grounds because we already have most of the homeless our second thing my next thing is I've heard you say low barrier a couple of times I'm not exactly sure what that is um if you could explain that a little better is that where you I heard you mention something about you're not drug testing so what is exactly low barrier and if you have them and you do get these 10 cities or whatever up and you're saying you're volunteering you're getting volunteers to manage them and maintain them are they going to drug test them when they're there are they going to make sure that they're not breaking the rules and what do you do with them when they do Break The Rules or making a mess or trashing the place because nobody seems to be saying what happens to them after that and then when all else fails what are you doing with the ones who don't want to LEAP the woods that are still staying in our neighborhoods and trashing the place I know that was a lot but as far as the location location has not been determined yet there's new locations that we're looking at but it will be on the West Side that's all I can tell you right now that's where the homeless are that's where they are folks then you know what you've got a suggestion back there let us know what your suggestion is okay as far as the low barrier who can explain low barrier there okay there it is low barrier flexible intake process simplify eligibility criteria rules narrowly focused on the safety and exit to homelessness realistic clear expectations and client-driven services focused on housing that's what Liberia means there's no real rules so did I just say I think I said that if

there's an organization such as Catholic Charities that runs that and I would love you all to come to visit some of these places and see how strict they are it's not a free-fall Michael Raposa runs one he it's not it's not a free-for-all Newport Richie slime and see how well everybody I'll take this one because those of us in Holiday are going to disagree with you and frankly uh months ago I was driving to a board meeting in Dade City and I saw someone dragging a mattress down State Road 52 uh over towards the Sarah Nova so I just think we have it everywhere but um mostly concentrate on the 19th quarter right now and I I think the Commissioners are in agreement that um the okay the pro the problem is worse right now on the west side so the solution has to be first on the west side but more than likely we'll be working our way across the county because we're not going to have a county commissioner say also not in my district so um so we all have to work together and and it's um you know it's not a problem unique to Pasco County um and we we put our foot down and say we're not going to be Portland we're not going to be La we say it all the time but um and that's why we just have to start doing something because right now all we do is run them around kicking them out of one property and they just move to someone else's property and it's just a big circle and so we have to start somewhere that's kind of where we're where we're feeling no one said where we're going it won't only be Hudson we're going to put them um but I think that I think the okay you cannot be yelling in our meeting I think that one of the criteria or some of the criteria for locating a successful low barrier shelter will be access to public transit and jobs close by so so we wouldn't put anyone out in the woods uh on a piece of property very far away um and and then have have a problem because the idea is to help these people get to work get jobs and some of them are families who just missed a couple paychecks and now they're out on the street I've run into some of them at Home Depot trying to buy a tent to move into Starkey Wilderness Park and I said oh no game not flyer and we got him into a house family was able to save up some money and then they were back into their own apartment so you know there's a whole mixture of the kind of people that have sadly had to move into the woods or their car if I could just add one more thing they're here folks they're in your backyard right now they're here and we are here to try to find a solution and so I hope you would keep an open mind that whatever location that we find in whatever organization runs it they run it with strict rules and so it's not just going to be we're going to plop it

in somewhere and then they're going to have all these folks you know running the streets down in um Tampa hope they actually wear color wristbands so when they're out and they get a complaint from somebody that's like I got somebody loitering in my yard if they have a teal wristband they're automatically notes their client and they need to get them back to where they need to be and get them where they need to go what's that it helps with what what would you like us to do I'm just telling you what they do all right let's keep let's keep our questions rolling because otherwise we're going to be here all evening our next person is Monica Sapp hi I have a statement and a question um at the beginning of the meeting some of the officials up there stated that they are passionate about getting this under control well if you're so passionate about it why'd you let it get so bad okay second of all my recommendation coming from a former local elected official out of another state um would be you guys need to propose and adopt a trespass ordinance that enforce it that sends to every property owner that has a home on a property or vacant lot send it with their tax bill like someone was talking about enforce it make them mandatory that they have to sign it in that way law enforcement can can enforce their do their job to remove it remove them and if the property owners you guys said about charging the putting a lien on the property about getting them to clean up the property how about some of the Charities who are giving all the clothes and not to the homeless people and when they don't have a place to wash their clothes they just dump them and then they go back and get more so that's why a lot of the clothes are not are laying around and then if the if you have the trespass agreement in order and you guys can go around and get the people off the properties that they don't belong on and also find the property owners once it's cleaned up if they don't maintain it where I came from we had an ordinance if you didn't cut your grass you got fined you got a warning you got a written warning and then you got fined you know and that's all there is to that and then if you're talking about taking care of properties you know every all all County residents taking care of their properties how come Pasco hasn't taken care of their own properties yet because you know what there's two in my neighborhood that I live by that there was homeless people on and there is crap dumped all over it garbage that Pasco hasn't even taken care of their own properties any yeah I want to address that or

Sam [Music] so the proposal of essentially sending a trespass agreement to everyone in their tax bill I mean it's something that can be talked about and can be looked at I think there's a lot of inherent problems with that um you know for example the sheriff's office or code of represent forcing it you know is is not going to know who's allowed to be there and who's not just with a blanking order for every property in the county you know what happens when it's it's the handyman or the cousin or something that is there without your permission but you can't be reached to tell them that so it you know it's it's something we can look at but at the end of the day it's really it's incumbent on the property owners that if they don't want someone there they need to let us know that they need to let law enforcement know we can't really do that for them you know it becomes a problem commissioner Starkey was talking about kind of a legal issue it becomes a problem when they are prosecuted for trespass if you don't have a homeowner that's going to be our landowner that's willing to come in and say that person didn't have permission to be on my property that case can't be proven it'll be thrown out because although all the accused has to do is get up you know they exercise their right to trial and say yeah I had permission to be there prove otherwise and it can't unless you have the cooperation of that property owner property mandatory by the county by Pasco County and if someone's on my neighbor's property is kind of like a vacant property if I call and say someone to build a tent there all you guys have to do is look up the property and see if you get the truck stops agreement and if they do you can go out and get them yeah and we've I mean there's been a lot of efforts to make the public aware I I get what you're saying and I wish we could make people do things but I would need 500 more code enforcement officers and 500 more deputies to go to every single property and force them to sign something but it so that so it sounds really good but the reality is I don't want to tax you that much because that would cost all of us a lot of money so give us a chance let us try our first attempt and um let's see let's see what that looks like um my own thoughts and like I don't know how we haven't worked at shop this you know all the way to the end but I don't want to I would not want to see a some giant place I would rather have a variety of smaller manageable ones strategically placed around the county because something that I don't want to see is um people loitering around that area in the daytime you know you don't want it to become a problem for the neighborhood so they have to be a size that is manageable and responsible and that's just my own view Kathy so I don't know

if we've gotten to that discussion yet but okay Jalen Hogan over here [Music] and Alex has told each of us for the past year they can go online and put a trespass agreement on your property that is it just stays on there period you say who can be there you can't anybody who's been in committee how many people went on the computer and put in the in the trespass agreement Alice told us do raise your hand property okay [Music] can we have uh Sheriff's Office address that in a little bit about not right now not right not right now Alex but outside the trespass agreement your vacation notification that you do maybe address that in just a few minutes but let us keep moving all right Miss Hogan Janet Hogan I commend all the comments and all the work that's being done I guess you know what we've talked about is housing for those who are willing to go to those those housing developments whatever they may be I think we can all agree that that's not where the problem is the problem is with the people who don't want to go to those places and that's what we're talking about you know we don't you know the lady here who commented on that's identifying them well they have to be identified somehow that just isn't you know it just has to be but our concern is those people that don't want to go to these places that's where all of these comments are coming from what do we do with those people who are trespassing what do we do with those and you know the no trespassing agreement is obviously the place to start for anyone who owns their individual properties we live in a mobile home park that's owned by a corporation we have they and the owner does have that trespassing agreement and so we do call but we have adjacent property owned by a position and that's where all the homeless encampments are and then behind our property as Jack knows he's been out to sea and so those therein lies the problem and I don't see that problem being solved and how do we address that do we have a other than do the trespassing agreement I guess those are my questions so and the other ones have all pretty much been answered so thank you this is a question for the county attorney's office so when a trespass agreement doesn't work there are other options for code enforcement they're called permitted use violations so when somebody is staying on a property that they're not entitled to because it's not not zoned in that manner code can go out and cite them so if it's a commercial property and they are living in a tent that's a permitted use violation so they do get cited um you can also cite the property owner because they're allowing somebody to stay on their property and it's not properly zoned for that use well we couldn't do it and to share of order so so we had a property those who live uh in the holiday kind of area we

had a property behind is it Walgreens or CVS at Trouble Creek in 19 I drive that way home all the time and the Bank of America um there was a homeless Camp just behind there in a little strip in the woods and we we sent the property owner notice that um there was a problem and he ignored it and ignored it so then code drove down to his house in Pinellas County and they served him I noticed that he was operating a campground without permission and we got his attention it was like 500 a day or something so uh he quickly cleaned that up and um and last time I looked there was one guy back on there um and I've I told him that I think it'd probably be easier and cheaper for you just fence it um but uh so that is one tool that we used to clean up a a property we had the property owner clean it up um but you know they might be back again um so that's one of their tools Americana is Ellen oh sorry I didn't look all the way to the back I apologize [Laughter] that money goes to Tallahassee yeah and it uh it goes into a pot that helps run the state court system but yeah so we don't get to keep our code enforcement violation money okay please thank you I've asked several times what the percentage of homeless people in our community especially in Holiday are mentally ill I was told nine percent I also know that the sheriff has to house these people over and over and over again what they do is they as we've been told they they'll commit a low-level crime get themselves in jail where they get three squares and a shower and they stay for a couple of days and then they just the recidivism is over and over and over again I know it became unpopular to have hospitalization of mentally ill people somewhere in the 50s and 60s and little by little they were closed well it started yes right so has the county considered in any way to establish some facilities for mentally ill people on a long-term basis where they can't get treated where they can get three squares in a shower in a bed and be taken care of if you're concerned about abuse which there was then by all means put in cameras or put in something in so that you can monitor that but something but the great deal of the people that I encounter seem to have a problem they're not I don't want to say normal but they're not and and they need help and they're not they're simply not getting it and I don't think that a tent city would help them John is that something that you have any data on with coalition Michael do you have anything Michael so with regard to the mental illness

that that's a really common perception but less than 50 percent of our caseload has a documented mental illness but but it's not but it's not it's that's including all that that's but that's not uh 100 that everybody thinks that everybody out there is suffering from a mental it's it's less than 50 percent so excuse me if I may so mental health is not the reason anybody here could be homeless tomorrow but I'm telling you that it's not as widespread yes thank you that's a very good point Paul so if I may add a little bit about that um so some of you may have heard that there was a large Federal settlement uh for opioid manufacturers and Distributors that caused a tremendous amount of negative impact all across our communities right particularly in Pasco County so the opioid task force has received some funding that we hope to open up for application this summer for different non-profits and Community Partners so that they can start assisting our community in a variety of ways to address the mental health issues that cause oftentimes substance use disorder right so it's not a one solution it's a multi-prong solution so just be on the lookout for that if you want to speak more about that topic I'd be happy to share more information with you about it but there is some funding that will be coming in the other thing I can tell you is that there is a definite interest in our community to address mental health we know that it is hard to come by and it is difficult to access right so we are looking for solutions to address that um so again if you want to learn more about what is coming and what will be happening when those presentations come before us come please participate if you're part of a nonprofit or an organization that dedicates your jobs to assisting people with Mental Health Solutions or substance use disorder treatment mitigation and prevention please apply for funding this summer so I want to also kind of piggyback on piggyback on that a little bit and something that we're doing at the Florida Association counties and Jack and I are very involved in the National Association of counties in the Social Security Act in the 1960s when that was passed I believe there was a little mistake and now and this is for the the whole country if someone gets arrested and they're held in the county jail they lose all their Federal benefits they lose their Medicare they lose their Medicaid some states are suspension State and some states are a cancellation state Florida is a cancellation state so you have mental illness you get arrested you go to jail you can spend a year there you can spend six weeks there but you lose your benefits and you get out and you're not on the medicine you're supposed to be on to keep you out of trouble and and so then the the recidivism rate is very high so and I will tell you that so the county

we pick up the health bill for our jail population so we are working with Senator Rubio and others to change this so that it's not a county responsibility and that the people who are on Medicare or Medicaid can continue to have that system pay for their medicine while they're in jail and when they get out of jail and they don't get off it and they don't get themselves in trouble and we have to just keep paying more and more and more so um that's so we do have the attention of people in Washington and we are hopeful that maybe they can it's just a matter of Senator Rubio said changing one word in that law for and I don't remember what that word was and he's an attorney and I should have written it down um but I'm hopeful that that will help us too with our you know with the circle of home business with some of the people that do have a mental illness all right so the next one notice I have Alan turbos or commissioner Mariano yes we'll touch on that um you know when I first was elected we put in uh with uh Bob dylinger 195 000 for jail diversion to keep people out of the jail we're trying to work it that way even with the future with the new jail being built we can actually get these people so they go out we don't want people going down to the emergency room running up big bills that we got to pay for they have the benefits of place we can deal with it better so it is going to be something that to look at as far as the European task force I will tell you when I first looked at that I thought the settlement money should just come to us let us pick how to go do it the things they put in place can deal with mental I mean uh opioid abuse it can deal with a lot of different things you can become homeless because let's say your dad get hooked on drugs you're homeless money can be used for that counseling for someone getting hooked on drugs we work with hospice on that they actually do something for uh bereavement but they also do that for for people so there's going to be a lot of other things to look at with that opioid money and this could be a way to go forward it could be the way to pay for a building if we go forward to try to deal with this um those homeless people you know whether it's 10 20 whatever that number is should be addressed and hasn't been by the federal government for years they dumped it back in the 80s so it is something that's coming and getting worse and worse I think it deals with a lot of this I think you all saw one years ago we looked at trying to compare ourselves to like well let's go do what San Francisco is doing I didn't want to do that right didn't want to do that but that was a bad idea and that it got worse and worse and worse what they did but one of the things they did do that was the most successful was they bust the people back from where they came from um that's that's going to be a very key part of what we do to solve this thing um I do want to take care of ours I do want to take care of those people that did get hooked on drugs so that may take

an adjustment coming up so keep that in mind we may use that opioid money for that that's one of the things that's on the table and we're going to look for the Civic groups I've got a lady down in holiday that wants to help out with the church another group that's up in Shady Hills that wants to help out and they want to try to do it so if we can work with these people to go and that's it there's training out there for everybody I mean let's face it we all know we go into a restaurant they can't seat you right away because they don't have the staff to run the restaurant right There's jobs out there we want to create opportunities for people so they can get up on their feet get themselves back in the stand so it is going to be something but this type of meeting this type of thing is these type of ideas coming out of this is what's going to help us decide where to go for Direction I just wanted to mention something uh somebody had said that um being an intense City they didn't think they were going to get the help they needed for mental health I can tell you Michael Raposa and Catholic Charities and a lot of these organizations they case manage they actually get the sources for them they help them with their mental health and so please I I when we say they're living in a tent city they're not going to get the help they are going to get the help they're not giving the help in the woods that they're in right now and I think that's the point we're trying to say is they're not getting the help there so let's get something where they can get help and I do want to mention the trespassing because I have this conversation with Alex and Chase all the time and they'll say you know if we arrest somebody okay we arrest them Kathy okay we'll bring them to your jail and then they're going to be out and they're going to be back in the woods within what 48 72 hours so where do we what are we proving there so by having somewhere that's going to help them get the services they need is better than nothing and that's all I wanted to say all right Ellen turbos about an hour before this meeting my neighbors called me to tell me that well put it to your mouth oh about an hour before this meeting my neighbors called me to tell me that Timber Oaks which is 80 senior community 20 family community was one of the sites that they were considering for a homeless encampment that's why that is not true no no I don't know where I don't know where they found it but I was concerned because there's the uh County uh the county bought the golf course uh several years ago and turned it into a watershed area and that's the only area in Timber Oaks that they're talking about but I have no idea so you don't have any designated areas okay not in that area no ma'am there is nothing of that sort of it [Music]

because I follow a lot of the community Facebook pages and also next door and even on ring and there's rulers that always crop up and when you hear yourself you know something about it's in your backyard that's one of the things that as I've worked with Kathy and her team and been on site visits with them that's not going to happen we're not going to put it right in your backyard we're looking for the right location for it and you would know about it before it happened so the Reverend Ken tater is my son's first name by the way how does that happen that's wonderful okay our church is on the 19th quarter and we're very positive about the homeless they come in to ask for help at the same time uh we're making application for the senior citizens news as a location for them and I haven't heard anything here about how the food for the home is will be integrated by possibly with that particular program that's my question uh and then secondly we just got down here from where we've been here about eight years where we're up in Grand Rapids Michigan and I would suggest you investigate Hearthside Ministries and what they've done for homeless in Grand Rapids I you know go look and see what that is it's fantastic so is is the homeless eligible for the senior citizens program I have Brian Hoban here from community services and he will be able to address that with you now or you want to wait till after the meeting he'll get with you on the side on that all right the next person on the list is Lynn Picard foreign [Music] people here so anyone here's Thomas I thought not but you want to have answers father and you don't seem to have a place for them to go you know I hear a lot of complaints tonight but there's no real place for them to go and you're proposing a place for them to go which is great we serve on Mondays 130 sandwiches to the homeless hurting people and any one of you could be a homeless person only by the grace of God you wouldn't aren't a homeless person and I understand it's a problem but we're not coming up with any solutions just complaints we need a place for them we need a place when we talk to them on the street to send them where there's a safe place so they're not stealing from each other they can they're not stealing from you they're not taking away your properties there has to be a solution for them and and this complaining isn't a solution so I would ask that we at least try to look at this and try to find a good proven solution where the police can monitor them where the churches can help them where other services can help them and let's get off this complaint and stop and start thinking about them [Applause] John Montgomery he's gone already

Karen Garden okay not just for the name I know I'm gonna get booed I don't want them here anymore I have lived here 35 years we had five generations and my two daughters in the last two years moved out of County because it is this bad we don't mind paying our taxes and I know a lot of people I moved into two Senior Communities worked their entire life to live in a home that their rights are being infringed upon I lived in Manhattan I grew up in the city when I moved here I can tell you you are creating slums where you make it easier for them to reside they will come to people will send them here they will you want to give them housing you know Pasco you can live by the water you can live in their homes you can do whatever you want because we are making it easy I am not uncharitable I was raised in a Roman Catholic household I went to Catholic School my house is very very religious but charity begins at home I had children that today when we were talking about this meeting my oldest son said I didn't want to tell you but I moved out at 18 because I knew how much you struggled we worked hard I was on the verge of being homeless I didn't ask to be become disabled but I worked every day I qualify for nothing I don't qualify for food stamps I do but I do have my Social Security because it's a low amount I do get supplemental Medicaid my home is older and I live in a mobile home so I do not qualify to have help with my roof or any repairs I live alone I had my house broken into by one of these homeless people and when I called for the police to come they didn't even go two houses down where they went into now I do agree with something that Ms Starkey had brought up in a two years ago a meeting as far as um the res the commercial properties or vacant properties I do believe that the homeowners do or the property owners do need to be fined like an average everyday person who owns a home by a daily basis once the the infraction has been pointed out because they do move if they're going to get fined 500 a day they move um I wrote a list here and it seems like it's going to be redundant but um County Parks we can't get them to leave the parks well I see it's seven to seven if if they're there past seven o'clock they're not supposed to be there they should get a ticket and that goes for my son who when he was a teenager I got a call that he was where he wasn't supposed to be I gotta find that that you know if I go across 19 wrong and jaywalking I'll be darned I'll be the one getting a ticket but I am not safe to walk in my own neighborhood my neighborhood when I moved in was elderly people and seasonal people from like Wisconsin nowadays it's more homeless walking squatters and the situation that we're seeing now is that

you're making it too easy it's not that I'm not empathetic but we need to make it in the other side of the county because like it was said here that they need places that have more accessibility for transportation for jobs all the money that they're pouring into Wesley Chapel in the Moffitt complex that's where the jobs are that's where everything's going to be put it on that County I don't see any other Commissioners our commissioners for our side I know it's called the sports Coast but I'm still part of the Nature Coast I want my my little section back and it's not going to happen just south of 52. I used to live in Beacon woods now I'm actually um Johnson Heights which Gulf Highlands all right the next person to speak is Tory bagmenko I must have said it right I really only put my name on their list so that I could hear someone mispronounce my name [Laughter] okay we don't know where these places are going to be how about what would the stipulations be will they be near a school uh uh um Library Europe subdivision Kathy are those questions you can address just from the from the experts that I have worked with in the past year know they're not near schools no there is transportation they do need transportation and it's near jobs and in other neighborhoods so that's basically what we're looking at right now is those kinds of criteria the other criteria the other thing okay is it I heard somebody was saying something about building a new jail what what about the jail that's right here I heard that that wasn't being used at all that would be an Andrew Baxter question he's not here but I can answer a little bit of that because we looked at that when we were looking to do shelters and all of that we've had you know the Commissioners out there the amount of money that it would take to renovate that was just astronomical and then the whole layout is just not a very good layout so I think they're going to use it for parking in the future knock it down so that it just wasn't feasible [Music] my name is Michael and I'm an alcoholic oh this is in that meeting so they would normally say hi Michael to me when I'm in although I feel like I'm in one of those meetings sometimes listening to some of the stuff um I'm I'm the CEO with um St Vincent de Paul cares in um we've got quite a bit of property up here now um and I'm I'm grateful to be here tonight I want to tell you that on July 1st of 2020 I said to my staff within nine months I'm going to be at a community meeting in Pasco County and the citizens are going to be abroad because there's going to have been a huge spike in homelessness um and I can tell you why and I also

have the solution I'm rolling ready since the since the beginning of the pandemic svdb cares is moved 3119 households into permanent housing for homelessness across our area here in Pasco that that's 318 and an average of 96 days 170 of them were Veterans as the head of household and 148 were civilians as they had a household um here in Pasco we've sheltered 274 people using a scattered site shelter model that was in your backyard and you didn't even know it surprise 177 of those Veterans of the 274 were hosts that's 69 percent got moved into permanent housing civilians we we sheltered 237 there's 109 that were housed that's only 46 and a lot of that had to do with the timing of the funding that we couldn't get them housed fast enough today our organization has an open caseload of 104 homeless households a hundred and three of those are veterans one is a civilian household as the head of household post-pandemic when the money ran out we're left with just serving veterans up here in Pasco County and the solution is housing it is the only solution it is the only only only only solution you can move them North you can move them South you can't move them West you're lucky you've got the water there but you could drown them um not recommended it's a crime they'd arrest you right but the only solution is housing and it's rapid access to to affordable housing and even in a Marketplace that where the moratorium um really stalled things now it's moving and the prices are starting to come down and the affordability is getting better not where it was but it's better it's kind of like gas prices they go up and then they go up 50 cents and it takes five years to get the 50 cents back um you know the bottom line is that there's three approaches to attack this the first approach is out of sight out of mind and I'm sure all of you would applaud that and think that that's a fabulous idea send them somewhere else guess what they're going to come back because guess what the majority of them have a tie to your community you probably don't want to believe it but we've been asking that question since 2015 with every case that we've opened up here and 80 of those people live here they went to elementary school here they went to high school here in Pasco County these are our people the second approach is housing Readiness where people get put into a place and stored away to get ready to be housed that is precisely the model that Catholic Charities uses and I do not support that model because our organization believes that a person is ready to be housed the minute they walk through that front door there

is no preparation we house drunks we House Alcoholics we House people with no money we've housed the bat crazy we house anyone and everyone the hookers the whole nine yards and we house them successfully at a rate of about 87 percent and that is housing first and that is what you as a community should be demanding is housing first a shelter alone will not work it will not work there was a time in our world's history during the second world war where they put a host population of people in one area that they did not want and they were called concentration camps and if you put a homeless person in a shelter with no solution you're building a concentration camp and I'm not afraid to stand in front of a person say it I'm not afraid to say it some of the other stuff that you've spoken about diversion Services diversion is the ability to relocate you do not need a shelter to relocate and for a very very small amount of money your Outreach folks could be equipped with the ability to move them away you're going to be shocked at how few leave because they belong here the bottom line is this the bottom line is this you have to get back to developing your system and we made huge strides we made huge strides with the Homeless Coalition we made huge strides with the county we made huge signs with Sheriff Naco in the sheriff's department we've made huge strides and the funding dried up because the ESG money from the feds stopped you've got to restore that money before you build anything or else you're going to have a block you need Outreach you need diversion shelter and Prevention Services you need rapid rehousing services and then you need access to permanent housing again that is your solution and my final question to you is this because there's a lot of NIMBY who would volunteer to put this shelter that they're talking about in their neighborhood nobody because the bottom line is nobody wants it and and that is the same thing we go through in every Community where we work no one wants it in their backyard the objects of the game and we run a shelter in the heart of downtown St Petersburg and I'm going to tell you no one knows it's there because we run it effectively in efficiency and I'll just close with this I really begged the county to check the nhmis the dischargers to permanent housing that the organization you referenced is is telling you because it's closer to 10 percent in hmis they're not discharging to permanent housing that discharge into the street so Michael I have a question for you on that so this would be a really good question these folks want the solution now so how long does that take to get the person out of the camp to the house how quickly can we sign a contract

a contract with what where are they going to go we could go back to the model of of of those and then again you do have a piece of your population that let's face it that they don't want it yet but you got you have a large piece of the population they do want it and that's the folks that we worked with with the Coalition throughout the we cleared the deck of over 300. so the numbers went down and your visibility went way down when we stopped guess what it creeped right back up where did they go now you're not answering my question so if we were to take a couple of people out of the camps tomorrow where would they go you got to put services in place first Kathy and you've got it so what services so what we had proposed our organization had proposed which worked good once we got it rolling was a combination between the Seahawk Services which is using the scattered site motels short term and then moving them into permanent housing with a subsidy attached to it and it got those numbers down we it I'm just telling you that that is the fastest way your Sheriff cannot that's his way out of this your code enforcement cannot code their way out of this in your Community Builders including us who's one of your largest affordable housing developers in your community it would be two years if we started to build housing right now you can't get out of it fast enough you're fast enough is going to have to be isolated Services I am telling you and I was deliberate that we had five 610 people in shelter in your backyard ladies and gentlemen you didn't even know it no you didn't know because no no we had him in hotel motel shelters so so so um and that's where they came from okay yeah [Music] I watched my first meeting as a commissioner when they had a representative for the Coalition County ask for additional funding on which they were already getting money for um it came out to 4.7 million dollars with all the money for that particular year and they said the 900 people are going to have all these people it was 297 households that were going to be placed in the houses you're saying by now the numbers that we were just given it went up over 33 in two years because homeless we so so the intervention works and I'm not going to get into it it does and and I'm no that's not that's not how any of that works that's not that ma'am that's just not how any of that works you know all right we need to keep moving because some people are still waiting to speak um we have David Kimmel on I'm not the person to ask that question to so as far as the information long term what is the statistics hi I'm I'm David Kimmel and uh

I've I've uh I've lived in Pasco County and worked in Pasco County for over 30 years and I love this County and one of the reasons I love this county is you know we have a problem you guys are all here and I don't see anybody jumping up and down and screaming from the top of the lungs and cussing and being rude we're just a really good community and we have a problem and we have to deal with it and I mean someone said that we're complaining but the reality is if you have a problem people have to complain get it out so we can find a solution now some of it is going to be a little hard for us to swallow because it's going to be a hard decision to take and one of the reasons I'm here is there was a rumor it was going to be at the the center was going to be about the VA in my backyard on uh on 52 so there's all these rumors going around so one of the things I'm going to say is and I think everybody feels the same way about that is we all want to know where these sites are going to be proposed because one of the things that you have to realize is the homeless situation is multifaceted I mean it's not like everybody's a drunk and everybody's an alcoholic and everybody's crazy there are a lot of people that are homeless because they had no choice it happened to them and you can't handle them all in the same way they have to be divided and they can be in in different areas it's totally different than having one Community have an area of people that are homeless because they lost their jobs and then it's another to have a community that's a low barrier Community that's in other communities that are that are just a nice small little community and people won't like this so you have to be careful where you put those and you also have to realize that there are some people and my brother Works in Hillsboro and he helps place people routinely that's his job every day and I've had these conversations with them and there are people that don't want to be in these centers because they can't follow the rules for one reason another and I know we say mental illness is not an issue but a high percent of those people that won't don't want to go to these communities do have a mentalism that's going to be a separate issue to deal with completely but all we're doing is passing it on and by putting these prison these people in jail it makes it hard on the police officers because they know they're just going to get turned around and put out it doesn't solve the problem it's me taking a homeless person from my backyard and putting it in my neighbor's backyard it doesn't work so we have to do something as a community and I think this is a really good first step but it's going to be a hard road to go okay and we all have to keep talking about it and if things are going to go in areas that we don't want them we need to let everybody know we need to let the Commissioners know in a civil matter like you know what this really doesn't work because you just put that right near a bus stop okay and there's certain rules and regulations about where some

of these people that happen to have issues that are homeless because a lot of them because it really got to me when you were talking about people coming out of jail that had a mental issue went in and they came out and lose their meds because my brother has talked to me many times about guys that go into jail because they've lost their meds and they do a small Petty crimes so they can go back to jail to get their meds so it's a tough they don't they don't all right thank you Richard eggler from Timber Oaks thank you very much uh I kind of got a chat alpometer like the County Commissioners know me I worked on projects there's two of them before I'm from Timber Oaks I'm a retired attorney CPA and Lieutenant Colonel infantry uh but I'm now I've been on Timber Oaks and as I have some of my people here I uh I'm I've been president twice vice president twice and I'm now currently a director treasurer young lady who left is the one home knocking on my door at quarter after five tonight and said they're gonna put stuff here in Timber Oaks so my one my one science Studio Commissioners and then I'll get on to something else here a little bit is we're a senior citizen we have over 2 000 homes no but I I figured that remember we did get shot down we [Music] I have a few other things I want to talk about okay well it's my it's my three minutes all right thank you I like I like the uh it was hard to follow the alcoholic guy he's got a lot of good ideas those were the most ideas I've heard I'm not saying approval all but but like that you've guys got a real tough job for you and uh Timber Oaks look for talent in there because maybe we can help you even though you know and maybe you know you can have placement of two or three in there or two or three there you know spread it out like that that's a that's nice when I saw tent city up there I said no way you know when you're talking when you pull these people out of the woods I'm an old infantry guy I would like to stay in the woods damn it and probably some of these do too so we need to get a variety here a little bit and if they could have you know the right type facilities which I know you got to develop I don't even have a warning yet do I but you know this is a big project there's got a little bit a lot of individual Solutions I I was a chief public defender for a county for a while besides being solicitor for a couple boroughs in some rural townships in Pennsylvania and a single solution but you got to let the people work with it find out through ideas like this that came out and this young lady over here had some great ideas too and there's my warning and you know let's get together let's back the County Commissioners let's find out what's going on and keep

at it thank you very much [Applause] all right this is the first hard one that I've come across shufta that that battles this is when it's hard to read it looks like s-h-u-v-d-a sign up on the second page she may have gone everyone also must have gone Dave Dave teller yeah I you said earlier about these laws why can't we change the laws why can't we go to to uh the governor and ask him to change some of these law school the laws would be better for and then you were saying earlier I'm talking I can't remember your name but I'm sorry about you said something about the money that we get from these why isn't that staying here in Pasco County why is it going to the Tallahassee why why isn't that staying here to help this help the poor the people that are here that that need help these people need help why aren't we helping them by by what the money when you're raising and you're sending it to Tallahassee it's just stay here it shouldn't go to another it shouldn't go there should stay here in a way we do get that money back because um Pasco County has two courts and um that money goes into a pool that helps fund the operation of our two courts back here um so um it's the the way we could keep that money here is if we went to a magistrate system and um see my our attorneys think it's a really bad idea so I will tell you we're probably getting that money back here we don't control it but we're getting a Lion's Share of that pool because of our two court system here in the county um the other thing what was your other question the other question was the first one oh change in the laws some of these maybe States but some of these may be in your U.S Constitution for example and did the guy from uh did Dave from the 12-step program leap okay um my my um because if if those who are in the holiday area and someone here is going to know their name the couple that was moving down the sidewalk it started out with the two cards and next thing you know they had like 10 each what what are their names because apparently you guys all know since it's too good it's a man and a woman oh Kim and John I mean it's crazy when we we know it then um so if they're on the sidewalk we can't evict someone from a sidewalk I right now now do you remember when Mr Santa Claus or whatever his name was lived on Mile Stretch on the mattress and then he

here God bless you all [Applause] right we have Lisa from Holy Ground is here and would like to have a couple say a couple things can you get Marsha to speak for me how's that I don't know how many of you like me or don't I might need an escort when I leave but that's okay you don't mind do you see there got a buddy already Jack Mariano man my heart I mean you've toured our place you don't come empty-handed and I don't know how many y'all do or don't like happy with him or whatever I'm real happy with them because it's a man who's coming his own vehicle and brought us water but no one who even tour us at the new place I'm still housing homeless people but I didn't make the board I don't know why but I'm okay because they call me a one-man band I don't really know I know when people are homeless I do know this much my code enforcement are they gone already ain't you one of them okay a code enforcement I have a problem with them when I moved I mean I was running 33 000 hot meals a day to sleep in 100 150 200 a day at the old Holy Ground but the one on the internet then Avenue I was there for 27 years I mean I worked with the sheriff's office so much I wore clothes to bed I didn't know what pajamas were because they knock on the window this music can you take one more always I believe four years ago you ended up with this problem when I had to move [Music] and that's the truth I would but then I had to get put on new property code enforcement everybody came it was a big mess they were getting all these listings to do which again that's their job I'm not Donald and thank you very much okay but I made sure I did every one of it but when I look at an officer State Trooper it's out on the road trying to protect your community pull up to my Lord two or three are calling that down can you just take one common problems and they can't see I can't sleep on my patio furniture you know I'm not putting a tail over him but it's not going to rain tonight I know some of this is funny but it's the truth wherever you want them and then you got to get out the wheelchair get out all this stuff and they gotta bring them to you I want to go to bed but now I gotta feed him pot him bathing bring them out here tell them to love them out there yeah I'm okay got a nice comfy pillow on comforter that's what I'm doing every single day I've been doing it for 30 years here in this community 30 years it'll be 31 in August I'm not looking for another boy because I'm not gonna get one anybody let me tell me on the back when I got 100 homeless people in my I don't need an alarm system I gotta lock myself

out of the car I just say how many you got peonies I had a bus alarm system there is they do not bite the hand to feed them I can go out there today and walk in the woods and they wouldn't touch me they wouldn't cross the hair on my head people are retiring in the death in the sheriff's office before me I said y'all are retiring I'm never gonna retire I'm gonna be here and take my last breath of the Holy Ground And I tell you what if you have questions there are so many good questions here but there's a fine line I see this line right here listen you know y'all versus them or whatever versus you I know her I know Starkey I Know Jack guy no more I know him you called me for the reading to ask me numbers I don't get the count I don't know why they don't come anymore take care of the homeless count for me but that's all right because it doesn't matter the problems there what's our solution and that's what she's saying what's the solution you think they got all those Solutions I don't have all the solutions I want tints in my yard I'm not near school I'm not near anything hey when I moved in my new places because I'm I'm sorry I'm sorry because that we do right behind the castle King storage [Music] we're here we're here I'm doing nothing there is nothing where I live We own two properties One House next to us that's it he got his gun out but that's all right he didn't shoot nobody so we're good but we don't have we don't call this year's office but we have problems in the house we take care of our house we call them eating everybody brownies Somebody Pray you know if you don't play someone get hurt that's why I see it when you're calling on somebody better call on God however the point is I'm still housing them folks and as many as I could I would I've got a vacant piece of property we could grade it down you could put you know 30 or 50 10 centimeter and let's start moving something I already have the number one man band that's what they called me they used to call me downtown I don't want to be a one-man band I want to help I want people to help me I'm getting a little faster I don't even get a vacation do you take a collection here and take a vacation next week come on Jack bring some water bottle come and see it again instead of bring a beer man now I'm just getting out and drink yeah I do but it's not condemned and we got up and down before so it could be restored as the Center building for bathrooms and showering and then the tents will be placed around it so if you know I mean I don't know what I was doing but when I started back in 91 I was put in motel rooms and I got property and then they all had to walk up the street with

banana boxes because I couldn't be around one number one anyway yeah I've been doing it for that long I've been through many Sheriff's and I mean they don't like me but um sometimes I get a birthday card but I mean I do all the jail stuff oh can I have somebody else who's there in three minutes [Music] the police I do the um the elderly but when I got to the new land I was grandfathered in on the old land so I can lay you anywhere it didn't matter some people don't want to go in the building like you said they're not ready to go with people they had social anxiety so I tell them yours I could do that at my place and it was commercial property so nobody could tell me anything and it's fenced in and when they listen this was the old-time Sheriff's rule when they found them out there to trespassing when they'd find them out there on somebody else's property they say you got two choices I will give you two choices [Music] to jail or you're going to miss thesis where's it going to be families went to me they don't get a good home and you're just making him go to bed his prayer you know that's just where it was we all work together how are we gonna do that now we are doing it on but a lesser scale can we up my skill s [Music] immortal s oh yeah [Music] for the rest of their lives I took an average I've been doing 30 years I can answer the question now um I've noticed it takes them three to four months to get on their feet and get a place to live now now that economy has changed I have to make I can run them compatibility you can get two people that are compatible they like each other to hang out they do all the right things or make to go in places getting the license back getting driver's car you know I can make them compatible into a community where they're doing the right things you don't know that they were homeless before they got there but if we're allow abiding citizens now even though they were before that they now are able to live in a community and I let them stay for that length of time because she wouldn't let me buy it because she owned a property next to it and um she said nobody would buy it and um Guess what at least nobody's one of them Hallelujah oh you guys know Mary Romeo are you about this tall man she doesn't mean yeah everybody recognizes her more than me I'm like hold up I'm sorry for 33 years man all you do is walk

she laughs yeah I want somebody to write a book it's supposed to be it's called Pasco County the urban legends of Mary because everybody knows where I go shopping they know her I'm like why is this a show everybody she's doing good but yes I have a lot of elderly a lot of elderly because they cannot afford a place on what their income is we do not have the ability to put them in 55 or olders and your alfs if they don't make enough money to stay at them they have to get that other money from somewhere else to help them stay in those so I keep them too and I do when I say food I give them means to grow a crown okay thank you amen ities that's the problem I think most of us are afraid of she has the distance how long it takes now I looked up all these different places that you're saying well this one's there 15 years this was there only a year and they have no data as to the success rate of putting people in these recyclologists but that's not enough but I want 4.7 million dollars go down the duty because all they do is just get people off the street you cannot say that you can take someone living in the woods for a year and say here you go there's a house you know what happened this house now had 50 people living in it is it worth it it became there's something to keep their stuff because they didn't have a structured group over their head and that owner was paid a year in advance [Music] just get one okay you need to be straight and not on drugs you're using mine I have to save every month for my little bit of taxes that I've had and that's a lot of money for me but if you're gonna say we're going to pump down I just saw the figure of 11 million dollars and that was broken down there's kids in school that have food insecurities every day you want to listen where that money could go that's going to help people that are already paying taxes and our functioning members in these communities you'll never know okay you never know article that said that this is this meeting place on a date it's not where not what time I found it at the library [Music] she wouldn't post the meeting time because she wasn't confident enough oh well it's all good guess what you're here now the place was packed out we're good all right questions for seven years it's your turn so I worked for United Way of Pasco County for seven years as our finance director and I know all the non-profits from what we funded for them and after I

left there I sat on panels hi Don I sat on panels with the Homeless Coalition and tried to get them to spend their money wisely where it was going and I asked about six to seven years ago the Homeless Coalition summer was in the room with me at that panel discussion and we were talking to the Homeless Coalition and I said why don't we fund the tent cities like they do in Pinellas at that time and I was told that's not good now today it's coming as part of a plan but I'll tell you the homeless what we used to say United Way was there are two types of homeless people the homeless that want the help and the homeless that don't and when I we ran cold winter shelters and I would have homeless people come in the door and ask for a blanket they did not when we used to tell them go to the homeless shelters they're there for you they wanted a blanket they wanted to live on their own outside because they were challenged in these shelters and buildings that you put in place or want to put in place for them they don't want to live like that they want their own rules so you more or less if you're going to do these type things and 15 000 I get it the veterans are neat I mean they need but then you ought to deal with the Saint Vincent De Paul that is one of the centers that can get them into the homes why are we not giving them money to help those agencies like the Holy Ground like the women and children's battered shelters that we have in Hudson the the um the hope the Rope Center they have the facilities already why are we not adding to their money to give them the abilities to house more people why are we putting another building or so let me ask a question I'll do a poll amen she does a phenomenal job and she takes anybody in [Music] um and and she doesn't does a phenomenal job she gets them working she's got that new piece of language I think is even a better piece of land and the other one just because it's tucked away you got room how many of those can those uh units there palette homes how many could you fit on that one back section there yeah um there you have um there's eight RV spots there's actually able to divide that power to run more of those buildings at once in other words so the water's already there the power's already there there's nothing there they have even the concrete slabs there we don't have to go find out because I don't know Dimensions I'm not really good at that but he has next her lot is an anchor the one next to her that she needs cleared is 0.46 Acres okay so it's more than the other one I had the other one was one point one and a half one in a quarter but I'm a little more than that about an acre and a half

two acres we're not using our availability of these shelters in order to help them get more people in and not you guys having to put the bill or put it on your shoulders at the county commissioner yeah but for 30 years I've never asked I loved her yes so if I can just mention I just want to feel what she had to say so Marcy esberger's here she's our director of Community Development these are all Community Development block grant dollars they're federal dollars that come in any agency can apply for these dollars any agency Marcy I don't know we just went through the the open enrollment for that if you don't apply you don't get and unfortunately there are rules and stipulations because it's federal dollars there's no getting around it so Lisa was more than happy to apply for those dollars Saint Vincent De Paul has gotten Millions Marcy you want to tell them how much money St Vincent de Paul has gotten Millions they have pain so we just we just spent uh over 500 000 to buy a new shelter for Catholic Charities it's on uh so there so Felicity house and they've just opened it up and they're putting women in there uh you saw a picture of Rosalie rendu which was used uh Community Development block grant coveted dollars with ship money to rehab eight units of permanent Supportive Housing and that was him and we you know we have on the books getting ready to do 33 uh one bedroom affordable units that will be Ozona for as soon as the board it comes to the board and the board of County Commissioners are approve that we have 77 units of uh affordable housing for Veterans that's supposed to go up on Massachusetts Avenue so we have a lot of these things go going on the uh you mentioned Catholic Charities uh so with Catholic Charities and the Homeless Coalition we put 1.2 million dollars into a county-owned property which was the old boys and girls club and that's what we opened the family shelter for so we put a lot of money into these organizations you ask why we don't just go to these organizations because they all have limited capacity so we really have built up a lot of these organizations and we do expect that in any of these options this isn't going to be the county running it these are going to be our non-profits running yet because they're really the arms and the feet of the people but uh and and that's how we do it but there's been plenty of money and that 4.7 million dollars went to house over 255 uh households 368 family uh individuals in one year and then we uh they were all still housed last year and we made sure that they got vouchers and things like that being functional members of society getting a job working sustaining themselves and their family so that so that I I believe that you're saying

that you have an expectation that everybody's going to start here and end here that is unrealistic no that's unrealistic order of old people the veterans but the fact is you are just putting a Band-Aid at our money we are here Holy Ground s firemen coming out they do their um they have to be permitted why can't you have them get a permit if their family we suffer configure Department you got enough [Music] whether you're in the hospital they've been hit by a car or car insurance okay I just wanna I've listened to a lot of things tonight and I too am a pastor and over four years ago I was homeless it doesn't matter if everybody that gets housed makes it to be successful a successful contributing member Society or just one person because that one person tonight is me as far as the panhandling permit that was a question I was going to ask when I got a chance because I know in Sarasota County they did pass a rule an ordinance a law I don't know that band panhandling and I wanted to ask if anybody knew the number between the difference between panhandlers and actual homeless people panhandling for money what does anybody know what the difference is okay because they're they did successfully do that in Sarasota County um so there is no more panhandling in Sarasota County but that's a whole you know that's just a part of the problem but homelessness is not a one-size-fits all everybody that's homeless is homeless for a different reason my brother is still missing in Vietnam 51 years so I'm very passionate about homing veterans but I'm also very passionate about homing elderly people I'm pushing elderly here and you know there is not a day that goes by that the trauma of being homeless does not live inside of me and if my bank account Falls below a certain number I go into an absolute Panic a full-blown panic because I know what it's like to be homeless and the idea of being homeless again as an elderly person terrorizes me it absolutely terrorizes me so to hear that we have the numbers in Pasco County of elderly people that are homeless it just makes me want to weep right here there are women and children that are homeless because of the economic crisis that this country is in [Music] it has but it was an economic crisis when I was homeless and I had to give up my son

because I could not take care of him I was able to get him back when I got back on my feet but I had to had to make that hard decision to let someone else care for him while I couldn't and my homeless situation I'm going to tell you people my homeless situation went from bad to worse because I was just a very young woman at the time and a single mom and I ended up being a victim of human trafficking back then they called it prostitution so yeah you're looking at a too not just a homeless woman I hope that makes you feel better well after being trafficked for four years I was able to turn States evidence on the individual that was trafficking me [Applause] and it was just all up from there amen he went to jail for six years and then dropped dead of a heart attack when he was released karma is a beautiful thing and God is even better so unless there are people out there because I've served the homeless for many many years trying to give back and there are homeless people who just want to be homeless and you can't deny them that and there's nothing wrong with that if they're not sexual predators they're not leaving noodles on your lawn and they're not stealing from you leave them be they're living their best life and that in their mind that's their best life just because it's not the best life you would live it doesn't mean it wrong leave them be come I said if they're not leaving needles on your lawn and they're not stealing from you and they're not sexual predators I know yeah it's all right thank you anyone else want to speak thing for a second when going back and when he brought back up the pictures of the housing um you've been to Club Wildwood you know with our water issue and everything else my question is for that 15 grand are those things all going to be raised because we're all in a flood zone I I they just look flat I'm just seriously curious the tense and the the other ones you said they were hurricane 150 mile an hour I do believe you said are they going to be raised up also I mean because we are they're on concrete pads well I'm not saying that I'm asking are they yeah I mean I think your question specifically is is it if it's if we're not looking for flood zone sites so we're looking for sites that yeah elevation so yes so and then and depending on the sites it's

some sites on like like the robe Center we built that building we had to raise that thing up didn't make sense to me I've never seen water up that high over there white would have to be that high but we did um down the Legion Lane Van Dorne uh we bought 51 Lots there I was going to like help a lot of people for low income Etc uh habitat walked away from it because they had to go spend extra money 30 grand or so in the houses they were still in the flood flood zone so they couldn't do their program right so I don't know three steps yeah so it's a good good question again no no locations been picked we're looking to look at all different Alternatives and I will say I'm gonna go check on Lisa's flood elevation over there if some of those buildings work over there she's got one stretched I don't even know about the exterior land yet so we'll check that out too it may be good for her to try to help her and if it doesn't work with Community Development block grant money Mabel users general fund money to go because she's doing a great service for a lot of people helping them get up and if it gets a few people out of the woods so they don't burn the neighborhood around them with their tanks that could cause fires cause you cause Leisure Beach Etc uh they don't leave their trash everywhere that gets caught around and I will say one thing with the ACT Center way back when that was designed to be a senior facility that the clubs were taken care of it later turned into The Big homosphate Field and I will tell you I've talked to them after they were done they were relieved that the place had burnt down so they'd have to deal with the negativity of the homeless people who are treating them they were spat on they were swore at so believe me they felt better not having to go deal with that issue anymore but we want to try to help great people like Lisa was she doing the ropes and other great places doing the right thing Catholic Charities I would tell you from some of the stuff I've seen them do I didn't have any idea they could do as much as they could I want to try to look at that too because I don't think unlike was just said I don't think it's right to live in the woods when you've got our deputies that are out there with our code enforcement people that have to go in there there you go um that have to go defend themselves because they've got machetes in their hand because they feel they're entitled to that land it's not theirs it's wrong it's wrong it may be their best life but it's not for everybody else here that's trying to be productive I want to try to help them anybody with mental illness we want to help them right after work right away opioid addiction we got an hour funding supposed to go try to work with that we want to try to help them every step of the way but the people that can work and can get out there

you know just give give them a place I don't care if it's a shell of a building that they don't like I don't want them to like it there right I don't want them to be comfortable there I want to be there so they can be safe so they can have their property safe and they can live in a lady who we had right in front of cemetery for how long on the sidewalk there that wouldn't come out because she was raped in the woods doesn't want to go in there again I mean like I think it was married and then you know these guys were out here trying to get him out show us the problem out there trying to get her out I said look she's got a shopping cart she stole it arrested get him in the jail at least she's off the street and she can be safe until we can find a better way and then maybe with something like that maybe would trigger her to say you know what I don't want to go in there I'll go over here I mean it was that desperate a thing to to make something happen so right behind you right back here you have questions I came down here to volunteer so if I could hook up with somebody to volunteer talk to Lisa right over here I was what you were saying and I was thinking back when I lived in St Petersburg they had a problem with the tent cities there and they just basically their solution was just to destroy the tid cities so they took them all away from them the people and they on the street my son was at Seminole High School and his teacher made these uh they all got together they got the wood from like Lowe's or Home Depot that was donated to them and they made little single housing with solar panels on them and you have facility that you can make to like wash and things like that and that was done from the schools and I know because you know my son was involved in it and if on a bigger thing maybe a low bearing property that you were thinking of we have a lot of banded hotels and on us 19. you know we can Implement some of these programs people and volunteers to help in different levels the hotel isn't always the way to go because an environment your channel [Music] places like that right so one of the things at least with a shelter like the Holy Ground like the robe Center they try to keep everybody so they're straight right I mean that they're going to fall off the wagon whatever you're going to deal with it but for the most part we don't want to have One Bad Apple destroying everything else so filter it in so they can come around they can walk down the neighborhood and go steal some because they needed something else so if you want to help please help the Holy Ground help the road Center Catholic Charities another great group um and and I do want to especially as we're looking at these Alternatives which I just saw that for the first time probably last month that may be an alternative and for your side I was thinking it could fit on that

one side um when they came up with this idea I actually was stuck complaints at that time and I'm not getting a police car I'm like wow you ask me what can we do I said well the homeless otherwise you tell us in your county I know what violence means he said yes we talked to the Border County Commissioners they said no you can't have her you've got to send her home she takes care of ours but that was then and we were able to communicate with them they needed extra bus fare to be able to do their jobs because even though they get the job then they only got a lease with bus fare but it takes two weeks to get a cab not only did the job no I will I will say this if we haven't done this for you yet um I'm not sure if we did even with the Rope Center anywhere else but maybe we can put a program in to give a free bus fare while someone's living with you to go through that that's something that wouldn't cost the tax for any money it's already been going is have we tried that yet the verb Center does right have we held have we hoped All Holy Ground yet all right have we have we helped you have we had have we helped your people yet with bus passes yet Lisa you have that because you asked nine okay so now now now we're gonna have they helped you with bus passes for your people yet no okay so we want to go we want to we want to bring that I'll bring out the board meeting tomorrow uh typically if you've got people that you're helping to go along and let me let me say something for the churches those first like for trying to help I will tell you that there's probably so many camps you'll go to and every bit of food that you bring in to go to them it's get left behind and becomes trash I think if you could reach out and maybe look at help at least helping the ropes on a direct right to there and let's slowly get them out of the woods and go and that may be a better way to go as far as all those things because when they just can come in they can keep keep living in the streets and come and not and not getting out she can help them get them back in their feet the ropes commissioner we have a couple of ladies here that have been waiting to speak that haven't had a chance yet right back here she's had her all right hang on oh to respond let him respond let me just tell you I'm I'm here I I am Mike my name is Mike and I'm also an alcoholic I've been clean for one year only I am giving my life to God and whatever he wants me to do I've given up a seven thousand dollar vacation in order to to help the homeless and whatever like oh I got a voice I have one thing to say not everybody wants to be there and just because they're homeless doesn't mean they don't have a right to have a clean pair of

clothes while they're being homeless or a food to eat uh for that day our mission when we go out there is not to support them but to give them the things that God has told us to do take care of the people that are poor that need help get get down there and get into the dirt and filth in which these people live and say hey we'll help you but you've got to help yourself our help comes in the Lord Savior Jesus Christ we make them pray we tell them when we get there look we're not here to help you out of your miseries that's not what we're here for we're going to give you a meal to bribe you to come out so we can pray to God for your soul and your life and hope that your faith in God will give you the direction to get you out of what you are in now and I've been here for a year and I've I've taken the ambition to help one family one who got homeless because they raised the rent from 800 to 1300 and couldn't stay and they're in the wood with a child and that's a that's a family that I chose an entire year that I've been doing this with this gentleman right here one family the rest of the people they're I'm going to tell you you probably already know it a lot of them don't want to get out of the woods that's their home and that's not for me to work with I I pray with him I tell them God can give them the answer here's the book open it up read it he'll give you the answers that you need to get out of here but we're not going to get it by being in here and arguing with each other because somebody's in my backyard I can tell you that during Chasco Fiasco on Indiana Avenue I've got videos on my cameras in the front of my house of three people taking a whatever you call on Indiana Avenue and they weren't homeless I seen one of them go across the street where they're building a two-story house and get into a uh the one with an L whatever that is there you go one of those so it wasn't a homeless person that took a crap in my yard all right so let's Get Down On Our Knees let's ask God for for an answer to this if we all pray and ask God for help we can't solve this the right way caring about each other thank you but let me know one of our staff people uh before you before you leave I want to get your Brian get with Brian right there I want to I want to try to make that move quickly all right beautiful yeah hi there um my name is my name is Linda Alston I'm with Queen of Peace peace and Justice Ministry and we've worked closely with a lot of different groups particularly the Coalition for the homeless Don Anderson over there who does phenomenal work but something that we have learned as a committee is and working with Dawn is it without the infrastructure that goes with some of these um these people cannot move on to that next stage okay so I am so thrilled Mr

Mariano Miss Starkey that we're talking about this because fine I mean I've lived I've been a properly owner in this County for 42 years I've lived here for 37 years same house okay so I love this County and feel very passionate about this and so infrastructure I'm talking about for instance um during covid they had some money to uh for Rapid rehousing putting people in but part of that was they needed they needed the household goods they needed you know all these things they also needed a place to go and so we had they had the money but there was no affordable housing available and that is still the case today so we can do all these wonderful things which is fabulous but we really have to think the five months and six months down the line or the two months down the line of where are these people gonna go because your CNA your assistant manager at Burger King the manager at Walmart they can barely afford any place to live and they are on the edge and we have to prevent that and we have to prevent anybody from staying here for six and nine months so we have to look at the affordable housing crisis that is right along with it so that we're not driving down the street like we were doing for Coalition for the homeless we had a whole Corps of people driving down the street taking pictures every you know apartment that was for rent so we can make sure we get the information to go on so we can get somebody in there you know before they lose the money and that person doesn't have a house okay and that face of homelessness is not necessarily always of course you know mental illness or opioid addiction or whatever they just want to live in the woods we've worked with so many mothers with children they're living in the Magnuson they the bus goes there they don't want to be homeless so when I see this big blanket of what homelessness looks like I don't think you understand how personal you know this is it's you and me it's your next door neighbor who became disabled and can no longer afford that's the face of homelessness and these are the people we have you know we have to serve them and along with this we do need that affordable housing picture to go with it so housing authorities [Music] coming together so we are working on that too your parents um there's something that we've been talking about and studying I think Roseanne maybe gave you Donna brochure and I wanted to talk to you personally because I was at the last thing last week There's a national program called um home sharing.org it's a national program that's a non-profit that has to do with meeting people um who have a house they could be on the verge of losing their house they're on the verge of homelessness then you've got the person who can't afford 1200 or 1500 for the one bedroom and what this program does this is a National Organization is they've created a whole

system and a program in a database that puts people together and matches them and keeps that elderly person in their house and prevents that from homelessness because itself into DePaul Catholic Church you can't believe how many times we have an 82 year old woman 85 year old woman they're living in their car at Walmart and they're coming to Saint Vincent De Paul for food this is happening every single week it's not the 22 year old male it you know these are real people and they had a house but their husband dies they've lost their house okay so there are some national programs out there that are really pretty inexpensive that are driving through Dallas Texas has used it for 25 years Pinellas County has it Sarasota has it so it's it's a it's another housing affordable housing option that solution thanks you've actually formed the committee within the Continuum of Care Roseanne is uh carrying it and we're looking for you folks to join in on that and they're looking at a couple of the programs we've recently acquired the resources but arson civility okay yeah it's not yes everybody this is not this didn't happen overnight not loud enough this didn't happen overnight and this won't be fixed overnight but I think everybody first we have to understand we cannot push and kick that can further down the road this cannot be a situation of not in my backyard because it will be in somebody's backyard so we all have to look at these Solutions and we have to have a certain element of Tolerance best a couple of the things that I heard that really rallied with me is if it doesn't get too big if we don't try to fix it with one solution and it's huge it'll probably be a lot more tolerable what Mark has said as far as these uh that I I know homeless people I know I know a guy who's living over and I forgot the name of that street but the picture that you had up over there it's it it's that it's clean everybody's taking care of it they have excessive community on at Thanksgiving they're all each of them went into their kitchen and made something and came out and sat on the picnic table and ate it together thought it's a lovely little setup for 16 people over there it's on for 16 people and it's good for those people but there's another set of 16 people that are going to need a different kind of a solution and when we say low low threshold what um Hope Center of Hope is doing yeah she has some rules once you get in there but I would think that she's pretty low threshold if the cops are knocking in the middle of the night on her door and saying can you take one more she's not critiquing them and saying we're these need a drug addict right now or something sorry Holy Ground yeah so so anyway I'm I'm awful with the names but anyway that's that's the whole thing so don't

be so concerned about words don't be so concerned about low threshold or or this or that or the other thing and if you're looking for input from the community today I think the resounding answer is not one of these is going to be the perfect solution and you need to look at your budget and you need to look at the opportunities and you need to fiscally and prudently look at what's the most effective and triage it identify those people that we can solve for fairly inexpensively and quickly and get them housed first and then look at what the next problem is and start to build a 10 20 year program that you can sustain and that you have the funding for because the last thing that a homeless person needs is to be put up in a nice place for six months and then to be back out on the street again so whatever we do we have to commit to for the lifetime until they can either move on or or not and some people won't be able to move on I think that could be the closing speech that wrap today anything else all right let me just say uh Deb Eubanks thanks for doing what you did um you know the Sheriff's Office got a lot of emails from me the last six months um just just for things we're just picking up Etc um and then as you say we need to pick something for the long-term solution I do like the thoughts of having some different segments spread out around we won't feel the impact as much uh when I get people like Lisa from Holy Ground um the Campbell's from the Rope Center uh Catholic Charities to what they can do all those opportunities we need to look at all I actually had a church up in Shady Hills that would actually like to get those 15 000 units put them on the little complex right there just to get people out of their Woods that are right up there their own people that go to go to their own church and help them up we've got opportunities for training for people for careers for people there are opportunities out there to get yourself off the ground but it's going to take some big action good all right everyone thanks to the Sheriff's Office code enforcement the attorney's office zoning in my community development team for everybody everything putting together probably won't say something thank you yeah I was just going to remind everyone as you're leaving please don't forget to leave your feedback on your way out which option you like and if not please add your comments on option five thank you thank you [Music]