This is “Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Month” in the City of Fort Lauderdale, Florida. At the City’s Commission meeting held on November 1, 2022, Vice Mayor Ben Sorensen recognized the hard work of homeless outreach and services providers.
Notably uninvited and unrecognized were the Florida Action Committee (https://www.floridaactioncommittee.org) and the Sex Offender Housing Subcommittee of the Broward County Reentry Coalition (https://saferbroward.org/registrant-housing/), who have been providing advocacy and outreach to this population for years.
We can only speculate why the city known as the “Venice of America” and one of Florida’s most popular tourist destinations, with nearly 20 million visitors annually, wants to keep what these organizations have to say under wraps. That’s because eighty percent of the City’s unsheltered homeless (roughly 330 people) are on the sex offender registry. Very much like Miami-Dade County’s Julia Tuttle Causeway public relations debacle in the late 2000’s, Ft. Lauderdale has it’s own little secret that it does not want you to know about.
For a City that prides itself on its human rights policies, it sure seems paradoxical that this human rights disaster is ignored and that they would take the time to pat themselves on their backs for their efforts in fighting homelessness, when their efforts completely ignore the majority of their homeless.
In honor of Ft. Lauderdale’s “Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Month”, the Florida Action Committee would like to do something to help those 80% of the homeless population in the City of Ft. Lauderdale who are ignored by Mayor Dean Trantalis and the rest of the City Commission, and that is to bring attention to this issue. We may be a small organization, but we have a loud voice.
Here is a letter we copied to the editor of the Sun Sentinel: FAC Letter to Broward Homeless Initiative
Please use your voice to ask the Sun Sentinel to cover this story.
More candidates for the Phase IV Media Blitz letters.
Crazy thing is that Ft. Lauderdale held their 6th Annual “Homeless Symposium” at Holiday Park (https://www.fortlauderdale.gov/Home/Components/News/News/6512/16). Holiday Park is a park! Broward County has an ordinance that would prevent registrants from going to the symposium (Child safety zone. An area extending three hundred (300) feet from schools, designated public school bus stops, day care centers, parks, and playgrounds measured in a manner similar to the measurement of the residency restriction area provided in this Ordinance.)
Why would anyone hold a homeless symposium in a location where 80% of the homeless can’t go? It’s like offering free day care at a strip club.
I sent the following email to several of the Sun Sentinel Editors:
Hello:
The city of Fort Lauderdale recently declared November, 2022 to be Homelessness Awareness Month.
There are 415 unsheltered homeless in the City of Ft. Lauderdale, and according to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE), there are 331 homeless individuals required to register as sex offenders in Ft. Lauderdale. That is 80% of the homeless population!
Legislating individuals into homelessness is not sound social policy, nor is it humane. These laws do not conform to what is known about patterns of sexual victimization, and thus do little to prevent recidivistic sexual violence. In fact, these policies may undermine the very factors shown by research to be associated with positive reentry and reduced recidivism.
Levenson JS. Hidden challenges: Sex offenders legislated into homelessness. Journal of Social Work. 2018;18(3):348-363. doi:10.1177/1468017316654811
At a recent meeting to address homelessness, the City of Fort Lauderdale did not even acknowledge that 80% of their homeless are registrants, nor did they invite anyone who does social work within the registrant community to attend or speak!
Please look at the pdf attachment. It is a copy of a letter sent to the city recently.
Please report on this!
This is a great letter! Professional and to the point!
This is like a realtor that is showing a house in a neighborhood, but there is that “One” house on the street they do not want the buyers to see.
Or a scratch or damage on a car that the used car salesmen avoids pointing out and walks you to the other side to take a quick peek before pressuring you into signing on the dotted line.
Funny because a lot of people compare some politicians to used car or other shady salespeople. This one in particular reminds me of David Copperfield, because he made 330 homeless people just disappear.
I wonder in what “God they trust”. It’s not the God of the Christian Bible. Becuase I can go on all day long how what that area does goes against so many different Bible commandments.. Its crystal clear in the Bible how these people should be treated. The only God they trust in is Money.
Jesus said “Where your treasure is, that is where your heart will be also.”