I live in the #1 city!! Whoo hoooo....love the quote about "they continue to push homeless people out of the city".....
this was in our local paper...
Sarasota collects 'meanest city' title
Officials reject coalition's criticism of the way homeless people are treated
By MIKE SAEWITZ
mike.saewitz@heraldtribune.com
SARASOTA -- The only thing that would have kept Sarasota from being listed as the nation's meanest city was a promise to reconsider its ordinance aimed at keeping homeless people from sleeping outside.
But that didn't happen and now it's official: Sarasota is the meanest, according to a coalition of advocacy organizations for the homeless.
Fort Myers stayed off the list after it agreed to re-examine an ordinance prohibiting feeding the homeless in public parks. Gainesville, which was No. 5 last year, stayed out of the top 20 after police there backed off arresting the homeless.
"They (Sarasota) could have been taken off the mean list if they would have just done away with that ordinance," Michael Stoops, acting director of the National Coalition for the Homeless, said at a press conference Wednesday. "They continue to push and push and push, and push homeless people out of the city."
The city of Sarasota officially rejected the title. The ordinance, said Mayor Mary Anne Servian and other city officials, is a tool to safeguard the homeless and lead them to help.
"This is the best thing we can do for them," Servian said.
City Manager Michael McNees said he e-mailed Stoops to explain the city's position and the community's efforts to help the homeless, but he never received a response.
"It is clear that this designation is much more about generating publicity for the agenda of the coalition, whatever that may be, than it is about legitimate public policy discussion," McNees said.
The groups that compiled the report say that it's intended to generate publicity, and to get city leaders to take a second look at their ordinances. They also admitted that the report looks only at "criminalization" issues, and not at services in the community.
Out of more than 200 cities, the groups chose Sarasota as No. 1, up 10 spots from last year.
Sarasota finished first on a list that included much bigger places like Atlanta, Chicago and New York. The report on homelessness, called "A Dream Denied," was compiled with help from the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty.
Stoops said the groups came up with the "meanest cities" idea in 2002, putting the 12 meanest in a list called The Dirty Dozen.
He said that the groups had to do something to get local governments' attention, otherwise cities would just continue to create rules that put homeless people in jail.
"It puts pressure . . . pressure on cities to rethink their criminalization strategies," Stoops said. "No city should want to be labeled a mean city."
The Sarasota city commissioners have passed three similar ordinances that prohibit outdoor sleeping overnight on public or private properties. The first two attempts were declared unconstitutional, but the third was recently upheld by a local judge.
Complaints from some downtown residents and business owners prompted the city to pass its first no-camping rule in 2002, along with prohibitions on public urination and aggressive panhandling.
Stoops said he's been working on homeless issues for more than three decades, and Sarasota has been the most "persistent in trying to get an anti-homeless law adopted."
Bradenton was not included in the Top 20, even though it had been pre-ranked at No. 12. Stoops said he was provided with updated information that warranted removing the city from the list.
Sarasota -- which lobbied hard to stay off the list -- didn't get the same consideration. McNees and a police lieutenant have disputed the designation since learning that Sarasota might be named No. 1.
McNees has said that the report is unfair to the entire community, which has been generous in helping the homeless. Sarasota police Lt. Paul Sutton said that the city has more beds for transients than any city its size, and has one of the biggest Salvation Army shelters in Florida.
The new ordinance allows police to take offenders to the Salvation Army, instead of jail. Police came in contact with more than 4,500 transients last year and arrested 45 people under the city's no-lodging rule.
In the past, city police have arrested dozens of homeless people under the no-camping rule. In only five months in 2003, police arrested more than 120 people under the ordinance. During that same time, an additional 210 people were arrested for open container and curbside drinking.
Many homeless people are repeatedly booked at Sarasota's jail. A consultant said last year that the same 473 people -- many of them homeless and addicted to drugs or alcohol -- accounted for 9,343 arrests in six years. That's about 20 arrests per person.
Since then, the county has created a plan to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars finding treatment alternatives.
City commissioners insist they passed the no-lodging ordinance to take homeless people out of unsafe and unhealthy camps. The report is a "slap . . in the face" to everyone who's trying to help, said Commissioner Lou Ann Palmer.
"It's ludicrous," Palmer said. "Absolutely ludicrous."
Service providers also dispute the report, as a whole.
"It makes no sense," said Bryan Pope, general manager of the Salvation Army. "It's not based on fact. They are going to give a distorted report that paints the entire community with a set of accusations that has no bearing on what's really going on."
Stoops said he will likely visit Sarasota in February, when New College of Florida will host a forum to discuss homelessness. He hopes that the city will join the dialogue.
"We're going to try to twist some arms in a good way to get people to work with us," Stoops said. "We're not going to go away. That's not our style. We're going to continue to put pressure and focus on Sarasota, for sure." << Previous | 1 | 2 | 3
I wonder if it's because of the recently passed legislation restricting panhandling to certain areas and times?
