Ron DeSantis's Unusual Solution to Homelessness in Florida May Just Be The Answer

Red State ^ | 02/05/2024 | Ben Kew

[SeekAndFind]

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has come up with an unusual solution for solving Florida's homeless problem: putting people in camps. 

Although the idea may sound authoritarian or reminiscent of the power-crazed lunacy exhibited during the Chinese coronavirus pandemic, it may actually be a viable solution. 

The Tampa Bay Times reports that DeSantis is considering approving legislation that would help move homeless people off the streets and place them in specialized camps where they can enjoy access to various services. 

However, DeSantis confirmed at a news conference in Miami Beach on Monday that the idea was still very much a "work in progress."

"We feel that if the Legislature is willing to lean in on this, that we want to be there to be able to offer support, but it’s got to be done right,” he said. “It’s got to be done in ways that is focused primarily on ensuring public order, ensuring quality of life for residents, ensuring that people’s property values are maintained." 

DeSantis continued:

We cannot allow any city in Florida to become like San Francisco, where homelessness, drugs, and crime have decimated the quality of life, hurt the economy, and eroded freedom.

In Florida we will continue to enact policies that promote accountability and community safety, unlike in California where they are promoting dangerous policies that harm their communities and economy.

House Bill 1365 and Senate Bill 1530, which are currently passing through the Florida legislatures, aim to allow local authorities to prohibit sleeping or camping on the majority of public land or properties accessible to the public.

As a result, counties and cities may earmark certain areas for camping and sleeping, provided these locations do not significantly and negatively impact adjacent residential or commercial properties.

The lawmaker sponsoring the legislation, Sen. Jonathan Martin, R-Fort Myers set the aim of the proposal is to get homeless people the help they need.

The goal is to take people who have mental-health issues, who have substance-abuse issues, who are sleeping in public parks, public parks that we fund with a lot of money every single year here in Tallahassee, making sure those public parks and those public space are used for what they are intended.

According to a report released last year by Florida’s Council on Homelessness, the number of homeless people in Florida is rising as a result of various factors, including the rising cost of living:

Per the annual Point in Time count, over the past five years, Florida has seen an 9% increase in the rate of Floridians experiencing “literal homelessness” (28,328 to 30,809 individuals from 2019 to 2023). The past two years’ Counts have shown increases; however, due to limitations conducting the Count during COVID, the accuracy of these increases are not certain.

What we do know is that Florida is facing an unprecedented housing market affordability crisis. Florida’s population growth is the second highest in the country. Supply and demand being fundamental market factors, this is causing housing costs to increase at extraordinary rates. That factor, coupled with population growth, has significantly increased pressure on the rental housing market.

Whatever comes of this idea, it cannot be worse than California, where homeless drug addicts occupy the streets of San Francisco, Los Angeles, and other popular cities. If implemented successfully, it could potentially serve as a blueprint for other states to solve America's growing problem of homelessness.

[FormerFRLurker]

In before the DeSantis derangement types find a way to make this into an attack on Trump somehow.

[laplata]

He might have gotten the idea from FDR’s Civilian Conservation Corps during the Depression.

[Extremely Extreme Extremist]

Temporary solution that doesn’t address the root cause.
Zoning laws, building permits, etc. all need to be overhauled. And developers should be allowed to build micro-units at least 150 sq ft minimum (Current law in most states is 400 square ft). Better than sleeping in the street.

[Extremely Extreme Extremist]

Stop trying to ignite a flame war. DeSantis is out of the race and focused on what he should have been doing all along.

[ConservativeMind]

Send them on a one-way ticket to Puerto Rico.

[packagingguy]

I used to work with the homeless.

By my estimation about 15%-20%, given the chance, will get back on their feet again.

Heck I knew one who was homeless after being in jail for selling cocaine, learned to farm while in prison, got out and got a job plowing/harvesting fields and got married to another formerly homeless person who had been a hooker.

Some people relapse from a stable life, going back out on the street to smoke crack. They can be turned back around with constant coaching.

Still others just went broke. One guy owed hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical bills after his wife died. He got thrown out of his apartment. He was a caretaker for her and only in his early 20’s so he didn’t have job training.

The largest percentage choose to be homeless and mooch off of others.

[GOPJ]

DeSantis has a way of finding incentive patterns that make people choose the right choice. He’s starting brainstorming process...I’m hopeful.

[packagingguy]

Builders in this area won’t even bother with 3,500 square feet. Condos are banned in most areas (too bad if you are a Boomer and wish to downsize).

7,500 seems to be the minimum.

It is not that way where I used to live (Alabama), but where I live now it’s probably to keep Black people out.

I’m looking at my neighbor’s house through the window right now. It’s around 8,000 square feet. They are black. So the strategy didn’t work but I don’t care what someone looks like. They are nice to me.

[TexasGator]

“Stop trying to ignite a flame war. DeSantis is out of the race and focused on what he should have been doing all along.”

Every DeSantis thread posted after he dropped out that I have seen has anti-Trump comments posted by the usual crowd.

DDS won’t go away.

[vaskypilot]

The Carroll County Farm Museum in Maryland was originally an alms house. The poor worked at the farm. The camp idea reminds me of this old idea.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

The Agnews Developmental Center was a psychiatric and medical care facility located in Santa Clara, California. It was created in 1885 and was originally known as "The Great Asylum for the Insane." Note that this was built just 36 years after the initial big Gold Rush in 1849. The state had become wealthy enough quickly enough to build such a great hospital. After shrinking for years, it finally closed in 2009.

I find it ironic that we created housing and care for people with serious mental health problems 140 years ago but we can't do it today. In the 1970s, the liberal do-gooders decided that the people held involuntarily in such hospitals should be released and fend for themselves on the streets. That 50 year experiment has been a colossal failure.

Now Florida is proposing to create great "camps" for the "homeless" (almost all of whom have addition or mental health problems). These camps will house the huge homeless population, but won't provide anywhere near the level of care that society provided 140 years ago. With all of our wealth, why can't we create compassionate mental health hospitals like so many states had 100 years ago? Putting the insane on the streets is horrible for them and horrible for society.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

Housing units would be good, but we need to close the damn border, shut off the fentanyl and opiate flow, and execute drug dealers.

[TexasGator]

“The Florida Building Code sets the standards for minimum size requirements, which vary depending on the designated occupancy and type of structure being built. For instance, a detached, single-family home in Florida must have at least 150 square feet of floor space, excluding bathrooms and closets. However, minimum sizes increase with each additional occupant, with at least 100 sq. ft. of additional space for each extra individual.”

https://inimkt.com/what-is-the-minimum-size-of-a-home-in-florida/#:~:text=150%20square%20feet%20is%20the%20minimum%20floor%20space,extra%20occupant%2C%20with%20100%20sq.%20ft.%20per%20person.

[ansel12]

JFK started trying to close the mental hospitals and take over state programs with the federal government in 1963.

[MeanWestTexan]

Most small towns and unincorporated areas of Florida have no such restrictions.

You can build whatever you want.

[metmom]

You go guy!!!!!!!

[E. Pluribus Unum]

And developers should be allowed to build micro-units at least 150 sq ft minimum (Current law in most states is 400 square ft). Better than sleeping in the street.

They will make great drug shooting-galleries!

[Taxman]

I’ll tell you what: If pup tents are good enough for our troops, then, By God, pup tents are good enough for the homeless!

Roundem up, Governor, and putem in pup tents!

[lastchance]

That is not just in Florida. Years ago minimum living space, light,and ventilation was based on the Council of American Building Official’s 1&2 Family Dwelling code which was adopted either locally or by the state. I think the current code for 1&2 Family Dwelling is from the International Code Commission and adopted into statute. There are also housing codes which cover existing buildings.