Donna Deegan rolls out Jacksonville’s plan to address homelessness, complying with state ‘unfunded mandate’

Image via AP.

Florida is set to require local governments to implement plans to stop the unhoused from sleeping in public spaces, and Jacksonville Mayor Donna Deegan is rolling out her approach, with the goal being to achieve “functional zero.”

“This means that the number of people entering homelessness is equal to the number of people finding permanent housing. It also means turning homelessness into a rare, brief, one-time occurrence in a person’s life,” Deegan said.

Deegan announced that Tracye Polson, the Director of Strategic Partnerships in the Mayor’s Office, will be the point person for this initiative, which will cost $13.64 million in its first year ($10 million from public funds in the city’s proposed $1.92 billion budget, and the remainder sought from the private sector).

“None of this critical funding is optional. We absolutely need it to address the unfunded mandate that has been handed down to us by the state, and we need it to make substantial progress on reducing homelessness. Without this plan, we will be at risk for lawsuits starting Jan. 1,” Deegan said.

The plan will incorporate recommendations from a work group tasked with this issue by the Mayor’s Office.

The administration seeks to improve data collection about the local homeless population.

Additionally, “homeless outreach teams” will be deployed countywide to address the needs of this population, including connecting them with shelters. In turn, shelters will be compelled to develop a “24/7” intake policy to comply with needs created by the state law.

More shelter beds are also sought, with an eye toward helping the increased number of homeless women and people of both genders aged 55 and up. Additionally, the administration seeks to ensure that agencies throughout the city understand homeless intake and how to handle it.

Hotels will also be part of the solution, with 100 rooms secured that could house two people at a time. Additionally, a “ModPod” container solution is envisioned, which could provide shelter to an additional 100 people near the Urban Rest Stop. Permanent Supportive Housing programs are also slated for expansion.

Deegan said Jacksonville “wanted to avoid having a tent city,” and so a combination of a “homeless village with the services people need to get back on their feet” was the logical move.

“We would have failed if we only built a place to temporarily house people without putting them on the path to becoming a functioning member of society once again,” the Mayor said.

As well, the “Homeward Bound” program will be expanded, to return unhoused people from elsewhere back to where they lived more successfully, thus allowing Jacksonville to focus on alleviating homelessness for more permanent residents.

HB 1365, the state law the city is responding to, bans counties and municipalities from permitting public sleeping or public camping on public property without explicit permission, in a move deemed by the bill language to fulfill an “important state interest,” with what House sponsor Rep. Sam Garrison has called a “Florida model” for handling the issue.

Counties would be charged with setting up encampments that ban drugs and alcohol and include rehabilitative social services as a way of enforcing the prohibition against rough sleeping. The camps could only be in one place for 365 consecutive days.

Those conditions include clean restrooms, running water, security on premises and bans on drugs and alcohol. They must also be located in places that don’t impact the value of nearby properties.