There's a place - but will the homeless residents of Fort Lauderdale seek it out? That's the $9.4 million question
What's a family? Must it include children? Is a marriage license mandatory? What about unmarried couples who have been together for years? Should they be treated as husband and wife? Should they be allowed to sleep together and possibly have sex?
These are but a few of the myriad questions weighing on those preparing for the opening of the $9.4 million H. Wayne Huizenga Homeless Assistance Center on Sunrise Boulevard in Fort Lauderdale.
It's not that center officials are prudes. They don't have a personal problem with unmarried people sleeping together or having sex. But, as center program director David Freeman points out, how can they enforce a no-sex rule in the open ward-like men's and women's dormitories and then let married couples live together in the family wing?
"People could get together for the night saying they're family," says Ezra Krieg, resource development director at the center. It could become a new pick-up line for those trying to put their lives back together. "Hey, want to be part of my family?"
Defining what is and isn't a family is as far from the biggest problem facing those who have two months to figure out how to find hundreds of men, women, and children who are now living on the streets, in cars, in crowded apartments or in Fort Lauderdale's infamous Tent City.
But it illustrates how even simple questions quickly become complex. For instance, Krieg says, during a recent meeting, a debate broke out about what exactly constitutes homelessness. Is it being on the streets for a month? A week? A day? A couple of hours?
Consider this scenario, he suggests. A cop sees a man sleeping on a park bench. What is he?
"These people don't carry cards," Krieg says. While human service officials estimate that there are between 5,000 and 6,000 homeless people in Broward County, it's just an estimate. Exactly how many there are, much less who they are, is anyone's guess.
So, when the center flings open its freshly painted beige doors on February 1, 1999 it's difficult to say who, if anyone, will be waiting for assistance.
"Nobody knows if 500 people will be waiting to come in the first day or two," Freedman says.
While the questions for center staff are multiplying faster than admissions of infidelity in Washington, one thing is certain. The spanking new center - with a pleasant open-air courtyard, a hair salon, a medical center complete with a dentist chair and an X-ray machine any chef at a five-star restaurant would love - won't solve the county's homeless problem.
And it won't become the new home for all 300 to 400 people who have made their home in Tent City nightly since the city opened it in 1993 to keep the homeless out of city parks.
Freeland and Krieg are adamant about it.
"Anyone who believes this is the answer to homelessness in Broward County is seriously uninformed," Krieg says. "This isn't for everyone."
That said, it's back to the unknown. What will happen to those who either don't qualify to become residents of the center, don't want to become residents or for whome there's simply not enough room?
The men shrug.
"I don't know. I don't have an answer for you today," Krieg says.
And the response has some homeless people and those who minister to them nervous.
Richard Courtney, who has lived at the tent off and on for four years, has filed suit asking Broward Circuit Judge George Brescher to stop the city from closing the tent until officials can answer that question.
If the tent closes before city officials say exactly how they will deal with homeless people, Courtney says he fears the homeless will again be rounded up on dubious charges and arrested.
Such arrests, he points out, were part of a bitter lawsuit the American Civil Liberties Union filed against the city of Miami. The city lost and now owes the homeless they arrested $600,000 and $900,000 in attorney's fees to the ACLU. Despite the high cost Miami paid, Fort Lauderdale officials seem unimpressed.
"Once the center opens, we'll be able to arrest them for trespassing," says Fort Lauderdale Mayor Jim naugle, explaining that the tent will close March 1, a month after the center opens. "We'll be able to enforce our laws. That's what our attorneys have told us."
Courtney obviously doesn't agree. Court-ordered negotiations with city officials went nowhere, he said. So, early next month, he'll be back in court hoping Brescher sides with him and either clearly spells out what city police can and cannot do when they encounter a homeless person or stops the city from closing the tent. Further, he says, he wants the city to reserve a place somewhere in the city where human service agencies, like Love Thy Neighbor, can serve meals to the homeless.
That, Naugle says, is truly objectionable. "The feeding operations are one thing that hurts the homeless because they sustain the life of alcoholics," he says. Without the programs, the people eventually would get hungry enough to seek help, he says.
Courtney, a self-described conservative, agrees somewhat. But, he points out, not all homeless people are alcoholics. Some are just hungry. "How can you put them out?" he asks.
But, the mayor doesn't seem to differentiate. Those who don't seek assistance or don't want to live in the center?
"They just don't want the rules," Naugle says, "They want to go out and get drunk and barf all over the floor."
Bob Semak, vice president of Love Thy Neighbor, which provides meals at the tent and earlier this year sparked controversy by feeding homeless people at the beach, says many of the homeless he has met over the past six years are far different from those Naugle describes.
"I just wish he'd go with us and meet some of them," he says. Like Courtney, he wonders what will happen to the hundreds who now live at the tent once the center opens.
As for those at the center, they're not actively involved in the debate. They have their hands full just figuring out how best to help those who want to live at the center. But, they readily admit, while the center will help many, there are some it won't reach. Future residents of the center must be referred to it. They just can't walk in off the street and plop down for the night.
On January 4, with a staff in place, Freedman says, center officials will begin combing the community, spreading the word about the services that will be available and begin lining up potential guests.
While it's not necessarily his problem, Freedman says, there's ample evidence more help is needed than the center will be able to offer.
The numbers weigh on the side of needing an emergency shelter," Freedman says.
Will such a facilty ever be built?
Unknown.
But, given the controversy that delayed the construction of the center for years, it seems more unlikely that the possibility that recently introduced people will be allowed to bed down with each other at the center for the night.
Also see:
Sun-Sentinel:Shelter to open soon
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