Depress ctrl and + keys together to increase text size; depress ctrl and – keys together to reduce

First today, let’s time travel back to shortly after Key West opened its homeless shelter …

From the Key West Citizen (keysnews.com), provided this morning by my gracious host Todd German, who sits on the Citizen’s Editorial Board, my interjected thoughts in bold italics,.

Addressing rec center atmosphere at shelter a step in right direction - 10/04/2004

There’s a new group in charge of the tents set up for homeless people near the jail on Stock Island, and things are going to be a little different from now on.

The back story is, the new group, Florida Keys Outreach Coalition (FKOC), Father Stephen Braddock and Charles Davis and Sam Kaufman, FKOC’s lawyer and Chairman of the Board, and I told the city during the spring of 2004, not to open the new homeless shelter. We told them it would become a den of booze and other drug usage and trafficking, sex trafficking, thieving, fighting and disease. FKOC had declined to operate the new shelter for the city. The city opened the shelter, and it immediately became what we had told them it would become. So, the city went to FKOC’s CEO, Father Stephen Braddock, begging him to have FKOC take over the shelter. Steve replied that FKOC would do it, if Charles Davis would handle it. Charles had moved back to Nevada. Steve called Charles and told him what was up. Charles said he would come back and straighten the shelter out, if he got to call all the shots. Steve passed that along to the city, and the city and the Sheriff agreed to it. The shelter was on the Sheriff’s land, on Stock Island. So, Charles came back to Key West and straightened out the shelter. I heard this story from both Charles and Steve. The Citizen never reported it, as far as I know. I reported it many times at goodmorningkeywest.com. As far as I know, I’m the only person/publication, who reported it, ever.

The city has signed a contract with the Florida Keys Outreach Coalition, headed by Steve Braddock, to run what has been called the homeless safe zone since it opened in late June.

Father Stephen Braddock, FKOC’s President and CEO

The Outreach Coalition is renaming the area the Keys Overnight Temporary Shelter, or KOTS.

On Sunday, representatives from the Outreach Coalition met with people who have been staying in the tents, emphasizing ‘temporary’ in the site’s new name. While previous lodgers at the shelter could remain there throughout the day, the new rules call for people to leave the shelter with their belongings every day by 7:30 a.m., and check in at 7 p.m.

Tents, technically, but actually quonset huts. I stayed there two nights in early 2005. The quonset huts look today, as they looked back then, except I heard they were fiber-glassed over after Hurricane Wilma, in the fall of 2005.

The safe zone had become to much like a rec center, the new management says, and they hope forcing people to gather up their belongings each day will compel them to look for other options or seek more long-term help, such as substance abuse or mental health treatment.

There are long-term programs offered to homeless people in the Keys, including the ones offered to men and women by the Outreach Coalition. Those programs provide housing to people who agree to stay off drugs or alcohol, look for work and move toward getting their own homes. Some of the programs give people up to two years in what is called “transitional housing.” And others, like those offered to veterans and people with mental illness, can be offered for longer stretches of time.

Good theory, didn’t pan out. Or, we plan, God laughs!

The shelter provides an excellent opportunity to get the word out to those who need these services. At a meeting at the shelter on Sunday, Outreach Coalition staff members handed out a resource list with phone numbers for people who might want to seek help from the Domestic Abuse Shelter, AIDS Help, the Children’s Shelter and several other agencies, along with a map to their locations in Key West.

Again, good theory, didn’t pan out. It became a permanent place for homeless people to sleep at night. There was very little “transformation”, if any, among shelter clients. Jail trusties were used to clean up KOTS each morning, which improved sanitation. However, it eventually was discovered that trusties were finding caches of drugs and other contraband stashed away at KOTS and bringing it back into the jail, and the Sheriff stopped letting trusties clean up KOTS.

We congratulate the city for getting the shelter up and running, and also Andy Williams, who managed it for the first three months.

Andy knew nothing about homeless people, he was leagues out of his depth, as was the city. He was replaced because the shelter was a disaster and the city knew it.

The shelter gave the city and county a place to tell homeless people they could go when being kicked out of public parks, beaches and other areas.

True, because the city wanted to be able to arrest and jail homeless people for seeping outside at night, but to do that, the city, under the Pottinger federal case brought by the ACLU, which arose in Miami, under much the same circumstances, back in the early 1990s, required Miami to provide sleeping shelters for homeless people, and only then could Miami police arrest and jail homeless people who did not sleep in the Miami shelters. Also, the shelters had to be convenient, so Miami homeless people could get to the shelters. Otherwise, Miami homeless people had to be given transportation to the shelters, and only if they refused transportation could they be arrested for sleeping outside at night. Key West was in the same federal court’s jurisdiction. In the beginning, Key West city buses were free for city homeless people wanting to get to KOTS at night. But that program was ended and homeless people were left to their on ways of getting to KOTS. KOTS was built for one reason: to stop homeless people from sleeping outside at night. There was no other reason. I was involved in that up to my eyeballs. I was sleeping nights in a tent, in the wetlands across South Roosevelt Blvd from Smathers Beach. I was in ongoing dialogue with Assistant City Manager John Jones and City Manager Julio Avael.

We’ve seen that such a place can exist in Key West, and now it’s time to refine the shelter’s rules. It shouldn’t be so comfortable that it becomes a permanent home for people who need to address problems that led to their homelessness in the first place.

But it did become a permanent home for quite a few local homeless people, and for homeless snowbirds, who came down during the cold months, and left when the hot months approached.

And at just the right time, in steps Braddock and the Florida Keys Outreach Coalition to orchestrate such changes. We commend the city for its choice, as we believe the Outreach Coalition and Braddock will manage the Keys Overnight Temporary Shelter in a professional, compassionate way but with a firm commitment to moving people toward self-sufficiency.

— The Citizen

Very reluctantly, Steve Braddock took on KOTS, he told me that himself, and that he was glad to be rid of it, when, in 2010, as I recall, the city was sued by the marina/condo association across the saltwater canal from KOTS, for public nuisance and building KOTS without permits, and FKOC was named as a defendant, too. Being sued hurt FKOC’s ability to get grant funding, so it gave KOTS back to Key West. Mayor Cates called me, furious at Steve. I asked Mayor Cates if he had told Steve the city would hold FKOC harmless in the lawsuit, for FKOC did not build KOTs and it was the city’s, not FKOC’s shelter? Mayor Cates said, no, he had not offered to hold FKOC harmless. I said, Steve never wanted to manage KOTS. He had told the city not to build it. He had run KOTS on a shoestring, it was not a profit maker for FKOC. It’s the city’s shelter. The city had to have it. Let the city run it, and see how well it does this time. The city then hired Southern Assistance Homeless League (SHAL) to run KOTS. SHAL still runs KOTS, which did not turn out at all like the city envisioned. I told the Monroe County Commission in the Harvey Government Center in Key West, in 2003, not to get involved with the city’s homeless shelter, it was not the county’s problem, but the city was trying to rope the county into helping with it. I bet the present county commissioners wish that County Commission had taken my advice. I bet the present Sheriff wishes that County Commission had taken my advice. I believe County Commissioners George Neugent and David Rice were on that County Commission.

Back to the future,

in today’s Key West Citizen (keysnews.com), my interjected thoughts in bold italics:

City leaders are counting on Monroe County to chip in at least 50 percent of the operating costs for a new homeless shelter on Stock Island.

Why, it’s the city’s homeless shelter. The County Commission never felt the county needed a county homeless shelter. The city has always insisted it needs a homeless shelter. The city should pay for it, therefore.

The city’s $1.2 million plan to relocate its homeless shelter to 5220 College Road call for 120 beds, 20 fewer beds than the existing one, the addition of the local soup kitchen and a sprinkler system. Two sleeping areas will be housed inside new metal buildings, rather than ones with roll-down side canopies.

Todd German astutely observed that more space is allocated for intake, case management and administration, than for sleeping area. He astutely asked, where do all the clients hang out, when they are not in the sleeping dorms, on their sleeping pads? He astutely asked if the time out area will be locked up, like a jail cell, under the Marchaman Act? I said I doubted that. Monitors will tell disorderly and/or drunk or otherwise wasted clients to go to the time out area, or leave the facility, and if they refuse to leave, the monitors call KWPD and ask for police enforcement, since it’s the city’s homeless shelter, and not the Sheriff’s.

City commissioners, however, appear more concerned about where the money will come from to make the shelter relocation from the sheriff’s office property up the road — necessary in order to settle a lawsuit by nearby condo owners.

“Yeah, where’s the money going to come to pay for this? City Commissioner Mark Rossi asked city staff, immediately after the first report detailing the costs, design and construction was presented at Tuesday night’s meeting.

“Is it coming from Monroe County?” Rossi asked. “Who’s going to pay for this? I’m a taxpayer, too, just like everyone else. I’m not going to foot the bill for $1.2 million.”

This is crazy thinking. The city insists on having a homeless shelter. But the city insists on the county, which doesn’t want a homeless shelter, to pay half of the cost. Hey, Commissioner Rossi, why don’t you tell Mayor Craig Cates to get the $1.2 million out of the Bight Authority’s reserves, like he and the City Commission got $1.3 million recently out of the Bight Authority’s reserves for Mayor Cates’ new city hall in the old Glenn Archer Elementary School? Mayor Cates later said on US 1 Radio, 104.1 FM, I heard him say it, than anyone who does not believe the Bight Authority’s reserves are the taxpayers’ money is insane. Right there on US 1 Radio, I heard Mayor Cates say that. Todd German told me that he thinks I am making a great point, if the Bight Authority reserves are the city government’s to do with as the city wishes, then those reserves can be used to build the city’s new homeless shelter.

Commissioners Billy Wardlow and Tony Yaniz followed suit, questioning whether the county would agree to team up with the city once the Keys Overnight Temporary Shelter (KOTS) is relocated to the former Easter Seals site on College Road.

KOTS costs the city about $440,000 a year to operate and has room for 140 people on any given night.

Actually, KOTS has beds for 120 people, the other 20, when the shelter is at capacity, sleep outside the quonsut huts. Also, there probably are double that many homeless people in just the Key West area, and there are more homeless people at any given time in the county jail on Stock Island.

“The county said, show us your plan and your budget, Commissioner Teri Johnston. “This is the start of the conversation. Every indication I’ve gotten is they wanted a plan, they wanted a budget.”

City manager Jim Scholl said his last conversation with County Administrator Roman Gastesi confirmed the county’s intention to help at least run the shelter. “We would expect a 50 percent investment at least in the operations, if not in the upfront capital costs,” Scholl said. “This is a plan.”

“Plan”? Really? Gastesi makes that call? Nope. The five county commissioners make that call, and I know for a fact that the three county commissioners who live up the Keys from Key West are not happy about funding Key West’s homeless shelter. What the five county commissioners do about that, though, I will not predict.

Also on the table is a pending decision by the state on whether Monroe County Land Authority funds could be used on the Key West homeless shelter relocation.

The city is claiming the shelter is affordable housing, so it should be funding like any other affordable housing. Currently, the Housing Authority money cannot be used to acquire/build affordable housing, but can only be used to acquire land on which affordable housing can be built. There is a push to have a special law passed in Tallahassee, which will allow Housing Authority funds to be used to build affordable housing, historically thought to be public rental housing. KOTS clients pay nothing to stay there. They cannot be made to pay to stay there. For then it is not a homeless shelter. It is a rental shelter. The Pottiinger case requires the city to pay the rent, and everything else, if it forces its homeless people to sleep in the shelter, or be arrested and jailed for not sleeping there.

The city’s civil engineer Gary Volenec delivered the staff report, the first detailing a proposed budget and a site design at the Easter Seals location.

Yaniz asked Volenec whether the $1.2 million budget is “fully funded,” a phrase he has blasted as being bandied about on various projects, including the City Hall at Glynn Archer School, which is now estimated to cost $18.8 million.

“Is the $1.2 million ‘fully funded?’” Yaniz asked Volenec. “Say no, please.” “No,” Volenec replied. “Thank you,” Yaniz said. “The sleeping facilities would need 50 square feet per person. That provided some constraints to us.”

On Friday, Johnston said she has talked with staff about the 120-capacity figure, saying it isn’t a permanent decision. She added that many of the KOTS residents work for a living. She recently met a man who works three jobs, with one of his employers being the city, who sleeps at KOTS.

“We’ve got to get out of that mindset that people out at KOTS are deadbeats,” Johnston said. “It’s an incredibly effective program. We’ve just got to keep giving them support out there.”

I have reliable information that perhaps 30 percent of KOTs clients have jobs, but those jobs are not providing a living for those clients who cannot pay high Key West rents. I have reliable information that, of those who work and stay at KOTS, that many of them spend a good bit of what they make maintaining their drug habits of choice. Just as most KOTS clients, who are receiving social security disability, retirement or VA benefits, use their benefits to support their drug habits. I am told by KOTS personnel that the present KOTS management is not allowing into KOTS clients who are wasted by booze and/or other drugs. But I know, from what I frequently see at the staging area across from the Easter Seals property on College Road, that many homeless people using KOTs are long-term addicts, and they are using. All you have to do to know that, is look at them, although getting out of your car, or off your bicycle, and talking with them brings even more clarity. Commissioner Johnston needs stop listening to city staff and to SHAL personnel who run KOTS. She needs to spend time at KOTS. She needs to sleep a few nights there, talk with the homeless people who stay there. Then, she will have a more clear picture of what really is going on at KOTS and among the city’s homeless people. Same advice to the other city commissioners and Mayor Cates. Advice I gave them a number of times at city commission meetings. Advice they have not yet used, as far as I know. If the do what I advised, they will find that most KOTS clients are “dead beats”, by mainstream’s standard, or are mentally ill, or are not interested in changing, or able to change, and, hmmm, 90 percent are addicts.

The new shelter will have a sprinkler system in case of a fire, something KOTS lacks. But unlike the bunkhouses on the sheriff’s property now, the new metal buildings for sleeping won’t be air-conditioned, staff said.

“The ceilings would be insulated and there would be some ceiling fans,” Volenec said. Key West’s tropical heat and the proposed metal buildings won’t add up to a proper shelter, said Yaniz, calling for the shelter to have sleeping areas with removal canopy sides instead.

I told Todd German this morning, during the summer months, the new dorms will be sweat lodges. That will discourage homeless people staying there at night. Sweat lodges will encourage disease and its transmission. Native Americans might find that an amusing twist of fate.

In a year or two, city staff will be asking to install air conditioning, Yaniz predicted, adding that the new shelter plans will attract even more homeless people to the island.

“If that brochure gets out to the midwest and thenortheast, they’ll be packing their bags and heading south,” he said.

Tony, the brochure is already out, it’s been out for decades. Homeless people come to Key West because they don’t freeze here in winter, and the city is a party town, and most of them love to party. And, this new shelter will be smaller, as designed, in the number of beds, than the existing KOTS shelter. Where will the local displaced KOTS clients sleep nights after the new shelter opens? This cartoon by Arnaud Giarad, co-publisher of Key West the Newspaper (thebluepaper.com), sums up what already is out there, and has been out there a long time.

Moving laterally into the county jail on Stock Island, yesterday, I submitted a comment under Stacey Legate’s poem:

Write On | Musings by the Ladies at the Key West Detention Center …

sloanbashinsky@outlook.com