DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – Daytona Beach city commissioners will hold a public hearing next month on a proposed ban on public camping as leaders work to comply with Florida’s new anti-camping law that largely prohibits people from sleeping outside.
The public hearing will happen during the meeting at 6 p.m. on Sept. 3 in the city commission chambers. A final vote will take place after.
The commission unanimously voted to move forward with the hearing at a meeting on Wednesday.
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Under the proposal, enforcement would be considered a last resort. If police do detain someone, officers would have the option to bring them to a designated safe zone at First Step Shelter rather than jail.
“We have a shelter, which is a program for people who we help go into housing,” said Victoria Fahlberg, executive director of First Step Shelter. “We also have what’s called the Rose and Safe Zone. The way the safety zone works is if an officer in any of our partnership cities sees a person who is committing a minor ordinance violation, instead of taking them over to the jail and going through all the expense and hassle, they can actually just bring them out to our safe zone and they can stay here overnight.”
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The safe zone offers people a bed, a meal and access to services.
The ordinance also allows police to skip this pre-arrest warning if the person:
- Is ineligible for entry because they are under the influence of alcohol or drugs, are a sexual predator, sexual offender or a domestic violence offender, or for other reasons dealing with their conduct;
- Has been fined for public camping on two or more occasions within the last 180 days;
- Is under an existing trespass order for the public property at which they are found to be camping.
The ordinance, if approved, brings the city more in line with the state’s public camping law, which allows people to sue if public camps are not taken down in a timely manner.
Several cities and counties passed public camping ordinances or began to enforce ordinances already on the books more stringently.
Advocates warn that bans on public camping often create more problems than they solve.
A News 6 analysis of court records found that in Orange County alone, there were nearly 100 arrests for “camping prohibited” through Aug. 20.
An Orange County jail oversight commission report showed the county was spending around $4.6 million a year to keep homeless people and people with severe mental illness in jail. The county says the base cost to house an inmate at the jail is $144 a day.
“What am I supposed to do?” Orange County Public Defender Melissa Vickers told News 6 in June. “We’re arresting a bunch of people who don’t have a home, we’re releasing them back onto the street still with no home (…) and we’re criminalizing the fact that they don’t have a home to go to.”
News 6 reached out to the Volusia County Jail, which said it is too early to know what the impact of Daytona Beach’s potential ban will be but emphasized that its priority remains the safety and security of employees and inmates.
News 6 is continuing its investigation into how local governments are responding to Florida’s new anti-camping law. You can read more at ClickOrlando.com.