wild homeless queen conch
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There is a post today at goodmorningfloridakeys.com, which you should be able to reach by clicking on this link: the angels weigh in on me, Florida Keys school board member Ed Davidson and retiring navy base commander Patrick Lefere, Steve Pribramsky weighs in on school district HOB recording keeping, HOB architect weighs in on HOB and school district, and other fun school district news
Meanwhile, in The Key West Citizen today - www.keysnews.com - my interjected thoughts in italics.
Consultant: Larger shelter won’t attract more homeless
BY GWEN FILOSA Citizen Staff
gfilosa@keysnews.com
Opening a 24-hour full-service homeless shelter in Key West would not attract even more men and women to the island’s streets, said consultant Robert Marbut, an expert hired by the city this month to study the issue.
“First and foremost, people come to places because of the weather,” said Marbut on Tuesday, seated in a rental car as about a dozen homeless men tried to stay out of the afternoon rain along the 5200 block of College Road.
“They don’t go to Minnesota to become homeless,” said Marbut. “They go to Sarasota, Key West, Miami, San Diego. It’s the palm trees and beaches. They don’t come for services.”
Marbut perhaps forgot his comments in a recent article in The Citizen, to the effect that Key West is a non-native, including homeless, non-destination city, unlike any other city in America. Marbut perhaps forgot Key West has a Veterans Administration medical and other services facility in Key West. Marbut perhaps forgot US foreign wars create even more homeless veterans. Mabye Marbut’s right, though. Maybe a full-service homeless shelter will will not cause homeless people in Minnesota and Chicago and Philadelphia and New York City and Boston and Atlanta and Jacksonville and Orlando to want to come to Key West, which bills itself as Paradise. Maybe Marbut’s new full-service homeless shelter will cause homeless people already living in Key West to want to leave Paradise, for the mainland. Minnesota, for one example. For winter sports.
Marbut, a former White House staffer and college professor, was the architect for homeless services in Clearwater, St. Petersburg and his hometown of San Antonio, Texas, where city leaders have claimed success.
In both cities, when the “holistic” type centers opened, offering food, shelter, counseling and job training services where clients help run the operations, homeless rates dropped in jails and then in the shelters, Marbut said.
Pinellas County, where the Safe Harbor shelter opened two years ago in Clearwater, has seen about 400 fewer homeless people in its jail beds, said Marbut. In San Antonio, the jail has 700 fewer homeless inmates.
Reducing the number of homeless people in the county jail on Stock Island would be nice. At Marbut’s semi-homeless jail, the city will foot the bill, instead of the county, which funds the Sheriff’s budget.
Safe Harbor, built to hold 470 people, has a regular population of fewer than 400 these days.
“By putting all of your services out there, you get a drop in street homelessness, a drop at the jail,” Marbut said. “When case management gets working you also get a drop in the shelter population.”
Okay, I believe that. But where do you get the increase? Where do the street, jail and shelter graduates end up? And who it paying for where they end up? Are they paying? Is it subsidized by local and federal governments and charities?
Mayor Craig Cates believes Marbut’s guidance will do for Key West what those holistic centers have done for other cities grappling with people sleeping and living on the streets.
Just yesterday, I gave a ride to a man at a bus stop who is on a crew doing US 1 road work. He is in the Florida Keys Outreach Coalition program. He started at Patterson Avenue and now is at Poinciana. I asked him if Cecil Bains was still working for FKOC? He said Cecil just retired. Cecil started out as a FKOC client, and as he progressed he became a FKOC employee. He never left FKOC. I asked my rider if a monitor named Curtis, was still at Poinciana? Yes, Curt is still there. I said Curt was a monitor when I stayed at Poinciana in 2003. Really? Yes. I asked my rider if he knew Charles Davis? No. Charles entered the FKOC program shortly after it started. He has worked off and on for them ever since, when he is not in Nevada. He works for FKOC now, lives in one of FKOC’s Poinciana buildings.
Marbut is due to deliver a report to the city by July, said City Manager Bob Vitas, who offered a $19,000 contract to the nationally known consultant for 2.5 months’ work. Most of it is for traveling expenses, Marbut said.
He has already interviewed some 100 homeless in Key West and walked the daily trek of the average homeless person who sleeps at the Keys Overnight Temporary Shelter (KOTS), next-door to the county jail on College Road, and by 7 a.m. is hoofing it toward Old Town.
On Tuesday, Marbut scoped out the city-owned property that houses the former Easter Seals nonprofit and the two-story building behind that has served as the Florida Keys Mosquito Control District’s Lower Keys headquarters since 1979.
The Mosquito District building could be a possible spot for what Marbut calls “higher level residency,” for men and women succeeding in programs at the shelter. The shelters he has worked on in Texas and Florida have used “penalty boxes” and other sleeping spots as consequences for poor behavior.
It will be crucial that homeless residents not using booze and other narcotics be segregated from homeless residents using booze and other narcotics. FKOC does not admit residents who are using booze and other narcotics. FKOC gives applicants a urine test up front, and gives residents random urine tests ongoing. A resident who flunks a random urine test is made to move out immediately, regardless of time or day or night, or weather. Residents are required to attend 12 Step meetings. Residents are required to do chores. Residents are required to get paying jobs. Residents are required to pay rent. Residents are moved through and out of the FKOC program, unless so impaired they cannot do that. Some FKOC graduates seem to do okay. Others backslide.
Inside the old Easter Seals building, envisioned as administrative offices, Marbut marveled at the condition and the layout of the office space.
“It’s not perfectly laid out, but it’s not bad,” he said, taking notes during a brief tour after city Facilities Maintenance Supervisor Brett Wright met him there to unlock the door.
Until Tuesday afternoon, it had been almost five years since anyone had unlocked the door at 5220 College Road and stepped inside, said Wright.
By the front door, Velez Smith, 65, sat on the concrete, apologizing to the two men who said she was fine there.
Smith said she has been around Key West since the 1970s, and pointed out that she has a house in Riviera Beach but has been living on the streets here for about four months. It’s been years at a time before, she said.
“I live at KOTS,” Smith said. “It’s clean sheets and it’s really safe there. Sometimes [club] dancers stay there. They want to get away from the roommates.”
About ten days ago, I picked up four men on US 1, who were on a road work crew. They said they stayed at KOTS, because it’s free. They did not seem down and out. They seemed like okay guys. One spoke Spanish, almost no English. Another was bilingual and translated for the other man. The other two spoke only English.
Smith was waiting out the daylong rain beneath the city-owned building’s outside awning. She didn’t have the money to sit in a bar or restaurant, she said.
“I travel as light as possible,” Smith said. She had recently found a bright blue mini umbrella, perfect for her situation, she said.
“I found it, I didn’t steal it,” Smith said, without being asked. “I don’t steal.”
She knows about a place where she can rent a room for $500 a month, she said. Smith added that she gets a “monthly check,” and is on Medicaid and Medicare.
“I’ve got friends here,” Smith said, when asked why she stays. “Why run off to some place where you don’t know anyone just to get a break?”
Indeed, why pay rent when Smith can stay for free at KOTS? Wonder what she does with her money? Wonder if she has a narcotic of choice? I would have asked her that, and I would have reported her answer.
While Smith and a friend killed time outside, Marbut inspected the city’s property, which appeared deceptively small from the road. It’s roomy and already assembled in an office building model, with a frosted-glass sliding door for a receptionist desk by the entrance.
Marbut counted nine “closable” offices, plus room for eight cubicles.
“You could put 17 people in there,” he said.
Inside, the barren rooms were a bit stuffy, but appeared to need only a good scrubbing. Colorful murals decorate the walls, including one near the entrance that depicts children playing above a beach and palm tree.
No evidence of squatters was inside. The floors were littered with scores of those black, hard-shelled millipedes and several dead roaches.
A 3-foot-long dead iguana lay shriveled in front of the beach mural. Marbut and Wright carefully stepped around it while checking out the room.
The city could have an office building for its homeless shelter for the price of a good bleach scrubbing, a new coat of paint and some outside cosmetic fixes, Marbut said. The 1991-era air-conditioning system, which runs constantly in the empty building to prevent mold growth, needs replacing, but the rest of the building’s bones are fine, he said.
“I’m pleasantly surprised,” Marbut said.
I hope I am pleasantly surprised by Marbut’s new homeless shelter. I hope he returns homeless people to independent living, meaning, they have their own place, they are paying their own rent, buying their own groceries, paying their own way, not subsidized by the city, the county, the state, the feds, churches, other charities, other recovery programs.
I wonder how Marbut would try to fix me, if I were in his new shelter? I don’t have a narcotic of choice. I am physically impaired. I am spirit-blocked from earning a living wage. Would Marbut put me in his penalty box? Would he kick me out of his shelter? I would go insane being confined in his shelter. I would get on my bicycle each morning and wander Stock Island and Key West, hang out where it’s familiar, comfortable. I would not hang out with homeless people away from Marbut’s shelter. I would use it to bathe, sleep, watch evening movies and play chess, if any residents liked playing chess.
Back to the front-burner naval battle in Key West, received this yesterday. I added pics:
small cruise ship at Mallory pier
———- Forwarded message ———-
From: Jerry Weinstock <weinstock@bellsouth.net>
Date: Tue, May 28, 2013 at 11:00 AM
Subject: Fw: Recon Study - Army Corps
To: janesjunglework@gmail.com
Sandra your thoughts on this —-after you
have the time to read it -or skim -it (long and detailed)
Jerry
THE STUDY —-A TOTAL WASTE __My Judgement .
—- Forwarded Message —-
From: Jerry Weinstock <weinstock@bellsouth.net>
To: Dondemaria@aol.com
Sent: Tue, May 28, 2013 10:56:41 AM
Subject: Fw: Recon Study - Army Corps
Don: this is the link to the Key West harbor Reconnaissance
report that has already been done—it is EXTENSIVE
and in my judgement a study is a capricious (whimsical)
waste of $—-just makes us one step closer to a horrific
environmental catastrophe. —-Jerry
small cruise ship leaves the outer mole
—- Forwarded Message —-
From: “Mangiamangia@aol.com” <Mangiamangia@aol.com>
To: weinstock@bellsouth.net
Sent: Tue, May 28, 2013 10:11:53 AM
Subject: Recon Study - Army Corps
http://www.kwsalliance.com/files/57097666.pdf click link
From: sandra downs <janesjunglework@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, May 28, 2013 at 1:49 PM
Subject: Re: Fw: Recon Study - Army Corps
To: Jerry Weinstock <weinstock@bellsouth.net>
I read the first half. This isn’t a very good or accurate report. It is not backed up with any factual information for the most part. A lot of unsupported allegations with no reference to where the information was obtained and what backs it up, such as:
We lose tourists ONLY because our channel isn’t wide enough for the bigger ships. This is not honest or accurate. It does not take into account that many other countries and islands have devoted themselves to providing top notch services for tourists, and they have prettier islands, better scenery, more transportation, better reefs, cheaper prices, etc. I believe the “tacky” ships come here because it is close, cost effective and easy. But the well heeled travelers do not like the T-shirt shops and bars. They want an upscale place to see all the beauty the tropics has to offer. They want to swim on “sandy white beaches”, listen to saxophone players, see tropical birds, plants and trees.
For God’s sake, we don’t even have benches for tourists to sit on because we are afraid a homeless person might sit down. I went on a cruise once where we were transported to a private island, and 100 or so workers set up the snorkeling, food, drinks, etc. so we could eat, drink and swim in the middle of nature. They do this EVERY day. WE do nothing like this. They are thrown on a train and shuffled to our commissioners shops and bars. Where they can wander up and down Duval amongst the traffic and congestion and buy a Tshirt. What the “F***” vacation is that?
On page 15, it says “knowledgable stakeholders” were interviewed….but it doesn’t say “who” these stakeholders were…. I am assuming they are pro cruise ship “stakeholders”. They claim there have been no groundings, environmental disturbance, etc., yet that they are aware of. Yet, the ships leave at sundown, so if the bottom was disturbed, we would not see the muck. And who knows how many cruise ships have churned a bit of bottom away.
How do these stakeholders know what goes on under the ocean? And why isn’t there a list of the stakeholders who gave this information, and where did the information come from….Right now, all I know is someone with a vested interest in having more cruise ships, remembers there haven’t been any environmental disasters here yet. This is not a report you could turn in to a 6th grade teacher. There is no information on who the “stakeholders” are or where they got the information that was put in this report.
Also, there is no mention of the pollution, fuel, waste disposal, etc. in the first half that I have seen. That is just conveniently not talked about at all. Throughout the report, it seems the concern or problem standing in the way of the widening project is partially the coral 1500 feet away from the channel, and how minor degrees of navigating would put large ships on the coral. The report says the ships are “anticipated” to keep getting bigger and draft deeper and that smaller ships like those who visit KW will be phased out. The report says 1 million people a year come to visit KW on cruise ships. The report says 1500 jobs are locally created because of cruise ships. All of this is in the report, but with little back up or descriptive information. Such as, how many ships quit coming to KW because the tourists wanted more Carribean ports, or because our little town can’t hold the passengers on one ship at one time without a delay for the tourists to “get off and around KW?” We simply have NO ability to handle or manage 3 times the amount of tourists off one ship, a bigger ship. ***Unless we completely close the area around Duval Street off to all local traffic while the tourists wander around on foot or provide increased opportunities for easy transportation around the island. If the streets are flooded with 3 times as many people at once, what will they all do? Stand in lines everywhere they go? I don’t think that is a vacation stop I would like to make.
big cruise ship today
How big will the cruise ships be in 10 years if the trend continues to “get bigger”? And what is the widening project going to benefit if in 5 years, the channel is too small again for the “bigger, larger…etc.”. Also, of the 1500 jobs, how many are Duval street stores and employees that would still have a job without the cruise ships? And how many previous tourists who drove or flew here, DON’T come to Key West anymore BECAUSE of the cruise ship traffic and congestion? The study does not “STUDY” at all.
It seems to me with bigger ships, there is no way we can dredge a big enough channel to ensure it does not have to be done again in 5 years, or when the next hurricane fills the channel with sand. You can’t just move a reef around as they suggest they could do…..
Bottom line is, a comparison should be made to Alaska. IF Alaska blew their mountains up, ripped all the trees off of them, killed every whale in the water,….what would there be to go there for? We are considering destroying our reef for day visitors? Our ocean is our Alaska.
How many visitors does the city think would come here just to hit Duval Street for liquor or a lap dance? I mean, this whole idea is ABSURD. We have no ability to manage more tourists at once. It would be like a Fantasy Fest night with that many people wandering around the streets. How many more cops would there need to be? What is the COST to us to handle bigger ships and crowds? What would Key West have to do to handle on a daily basis 3 times the amount of tourists they now handle? What happens in times of war when the area is closed to all cruise ships? What happens to the economy that was altered from tourism to “cruise” tourism only IF the ships chose NOT to come here because we had nothing to offer? I think we need to devote all our effort on making this a more desirable place to visit, a more lovely place, a friendlier place, easier transportation, cleaner beaches, with clean bathrooms, better fishing opportunities, living reefs, etc. Then the big money tourists would come, and no one would ever want the cruise ship traffic back again.
From: Jerry Weinstock <weinstock@bellsouth.net>
Date: Tue, May 28, 2013 at 6:31 PM
Subject: Re: Fw: Recon Study - Army Corps
To: sandra downs <janesjunglework@gmail.com>
Hi Sandra: You hit the bulls eye—-!!
Environmental damage would be
catastrophic—widening the channel
more jobs —-just $ in private hands
if anything —-GONE sensitive Quality
visitors. Lose of all that’s good
about Key West—- sincerely-Jerry