CALL TO ACTION: Oppose Miami Beach’s Plan to Criminalize Homelessness
UPDATE 9/12/2023
Open Flyer
Please join the Racial Equity MCARE Zoom call 1pm Tuesday, September 12th, devoted entirely to discussing the Miami Beach City Commission’s meeting, 8:30 am Wednesday, September 13th at 1901 Convention Center Drive, and their plan (see Commission Memo and proposed ordinance here) to deport and arrest unhoused people. We’ll circulate talking points in opposition to this inhumane ordinance, and discuss constructive alternatives to criminalization.
It is no coincidence that this proposal to criminalize homelessness is surfacing just weeks before Miami Beach’s pivotal Mayoral election in November. Given our cultural contempt for the poor, political candidates find that the homeless are easy targets for a “get tough on crime” campaign that panders to their constituents’ fears and ignorance about the root causes of homelessness.
Therefore, it very important that we show up in numbers at Wednesday‘s City Commission meeting. We must look to embarrass this tourist haven for its planned cruelty to the poor, demonstrate the racist underpinnings of the ordinance and create a groundswell of public opinion against this wasteful diversion of police and city resources that will only worsen the city’s homelessness problem.
In solidarity,
David Peery, JD
Miami Coalition to Advance Racial Equity
Website – Facebook – Twitter
Update 8/14/2023 – It was one year ago, September 2022, that FAC sent a letter and proposal to the Mayor of the City of Miami concerning the homeless crisis. We do feel it presents a very viable solution to the homeless issue. You can read the letter here (FAC Letter to Miami RE Homeless).
We are preparing a similar letter to send to Miami Beach Mayor and commissioners. They are missing the source of the problem and a logical solution to reduce 75% of the homelessness without any cost to the city.
The Miami Beach City Commission will consider and vote on a proposal Wednesday, September 13, 2023 to authorize Miami Beach police to arrest poor people for sleeping in public if they refuse shelter and “services.”
The Miami Coalition to Advance Racial Equity is asking social justice advocates to join them at the Miami Beach City Commission chambers (time and location details below) and give public comments in opposition to this inhumane proposal to arrest people for the “crime” of not being able to afford a home. It is a wasteful and fiscally irresponsible diversion of police resources to arrest poor people rather than protecting our community from real crime.
“Criminalization of homelessness is an expensive way to make homelessness worse. Saddling people with criminal records makes it harder to obtain housing and to escape the cycle of homelessness. And it diverts resources away from Housing First solutions that would constructively end homelessness. Homelessness is a housing issue, a health issue and a human rights issue. It is not a criminal justice issue. Miami Beach cannot and will not arrest its way out of homelessness. This proposal would increase the suffering of the poor, waste money, and do nothing to end homelessness.” David Peery, JD, Miami Coalition to Advance Racial Equity
They will meet at 8:30 am on the second floor of the Miami Beach Convention Center at 1901 Convention Center Drive in meeting rooms 222-225, and offer comments in opposition to this misguided proposal to criminalize homelessness in the City of Miami Beach.
If you are unable to attend in person, please call or email the Miami Beach Mayor, City Commissioners, City Manager and City Attorney with your opposition to the this outrageous proposal to criminalize homelessness, They need to be asking WHY their citizens are homeless and what they, as elected officials, can do to help their citizens.
| Mayor Dan Gelber | 305-673-7035 | [email protected] |
| Commissioner Kristen Rosen Gonzalez, Group 1 | 305-673-7103 | [email protected] |
| Commissioner Laura Dominguez, Group 2 | 305-673-7104 | [email protected] |
| Commissioner Alex J. Fernandez, Group 3 | 305-673-7106 | [email protected] |
| Commissioner Steven Meiner, Group 4 | 305-673-7105 | [email protected] |
| Commissioner Ricky Arriola, Group 5 | 305-673-7107 | [email protected] |
| Commissioner David Richardson, Group 6 | 305-673-7102 | [email protected] |
| City Manager Alina T. Hudak | [email protected] | |
| City Attorney RAFAEL A. PAZ | 305.673.7470ext. 26277 | [email protected] |
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Leviticus 13:46 – All the days wherein the plague shall be in him he shall be defiled; he is unclean: he shall dwell alone; without the camp shall his habitation be.
There is a lot of irony in this scripture.
Plaque = Registry
without the camp = No place to dwell
And many more comparisons in this short but powerful scripture that can compare the lepers to those on the sex offender list.
https://www.tampabay.com/archive/2005/04/20/state-moves-on-tougher-sex-offender-sentences/
“Rep. Dan Gelber, D-Miami Beach, wanted to explore surgically implanting sex offenders with GPS monitors. ”
https://www.newsweek.com/lobbyist-who-put-sex-offenders-under-bridge-81755
“Even some staunch supporters of residency restrictions have expressed misgivings after witnessing the chaos the ordinances sow. Florida state Sen. Dan Gelber, whose district is home to the Julia Tuttle camp, is adamant about the 2,500-foot rule. A father of three, he recently learned, to his dismay, that a registered sex offender who lived six doors down from him was arrested for masturbating in front of some children. Despite his hardline stance, however, Gelber was aghast at what he observed in his first visit to the bridge in early July–the density of the encampment, the sordid conditions. “There has to be another way,” he says.”
(His better way is to now arrest all homeless)
https://www.miamibeachfl.gov/
“Dan Gelber is the 38th Mayor of Miami Beach. Dan served as a decorated federal prosecutor in South Florida.”
His mansion overlooks the waterfront.
What expectations of empathy from this plutocrat can there possibly be?
This is absolutely atrocious! I have to tell you one of my first thoughts was the homeless people that are forced to register should say ‘OK I accept your services’. And then they’re going to say well you’re not eligible you’re on the registry….
A very good point, Karen.
Would also add that getting someone new at the head of the homeless trust would be very helpful.
People make mistakes in life and most people who are subjected to the sex offense registry have not hurt anyone because they somehow got swept up in being charged because of a link or photos sent to them on a computer link. People should never be defined by the worst thing they have ever done. The registry prevents these people from being able to move forward productively in their lives because of their inability to obtain a job or place to live, all by virtue of being on the registry which has unequivocally proven to be totally ineffective. Lives and families are being unnecessarily destroyed by the registry. Please consider the FACTS and stop continually punishing people who for the most part do not deserve it.
Diane, with all due respect, many of us did, indeed, hurt someone. Many of us acted inappropriately with children, and the ones who were just looking at CP mostly had intentions of doing so, even if they never did. (Reality check)
BUT…Most of us are very sorry for what we did, and we would never reoffend! (Statistics also bear this out.) But please take the many protestations of innocence that you may hear with a large grain of salt.
My point is that the registry is not only unfair for the people who were “only looking at” CP. It is unfair for ALL of us.
The registry is not only unfair for the people who were “Romeo and Juliet” cases. It is unfair for ALL of us.
No one should be put on a government hate list and treated with disdain and contempt and systematically destroyed by their own government.
Some people suffer from mental illness, but it is possible (in most cases) for them to fully recover and become a productive member of society again.
If we are only going to advocate for the ones who were unjustly convicted, then our advocacy will be quite small and limited, I am afraid.
This has been said before, but the registry, cannot be a one size fits all solution. Even those of us on the registry
seem to be conditioned to believe that we’re all the same. Some of us did not have victims. The registry as it exists needs to go.
With all due respect sir, maybe some people did not have a physical victim, but the minute the person on the other side of that conversation mentioned that, “Oh, by the way, I’m only 16 (or 15 or 14)”…That should have been the cue to exit the conversation and block them.
But those ones who protest their innocence because they thought that the person was over 18, but then happened to be told by the person plainly that they were underaged….
Well, they can protest their innocence all they want…I’m not buying it.
Just my opinion.
But yes, I agree with you, this registry is wrong for ALL! (everyone makes mistakes in life.)
There is a difference between between being stupid and ensnaring oneself in a police sting, versus viewing CP, and actual physical abuse of a minor. I make no excuses for me being stupid. For me the issue is that we registrants cannot continue to allow ourselves to be lumped into one homogeneous group. We should speak only for ourselves in a common cause to end the registry.
Yes, the sex registry must end for all. (Whether one went “all the way” or simply got caught “on the way” there.)
The Constitution protects certain aspects of homelessness, such as the right to sleep in public and the right to own personal property.
In the case of Jones v. City of Los Angeles (2005), the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that it is unconstitutional to criminalize sleeping in public when there is no available shelter space. The court found that this law violated the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment, as it punished people for a condition that was beyond their control.
In the case of Martin v. City of Boise (2018), the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that it is unconstitutional to criminalize camping in public when there is no available shelter space. The court found that this law violated the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment, as it punished people for a condition that was beyond their control.
The Supreme Court has not yet ruled on the constitutionality of laws against homelessness, but it is likely that the Court would uphold the rulings of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The Court has a long history of protecting the rights of the homeless, and it is unlikely that the Court would allow states and cities to criminalize homelessness without providing adequate shelter space.
In addition to the Eighth Amendment, laws against homelessness may also violate other constitutional rights, such as the First Amendment right to free speech and the Fourteenth Amendment right to equal protection under the law. For example, laws that prohibit begging or panhandling may violate the First Amendment, and laws that target homeless people for enforcement of vagrancy laws may violate the Fourteenth Amendment.