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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Jacksonville considering modeling homeless project after Miami-Dade
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpQHlO9C-mc
So we can expect PFRs in Jacksonville to become even more nomadic as they are evicted from one transient location to another to another…
There are many areas and places to live in Jacksonville.
Miami, not so much!
What was the response from the Suarez last year to FAC letter to repeal the Book Law?
https://www.miaminewtimes.com/news/miami-dade-sex-offenders-face-arrest-with-closure-of-encampment-on-may-6-10299920
Coming across this old article Under a 2005 county law ordinance named for Lauren Book, a Florida senator and survivor of child sex abuse, offenders who abused victims under the age of 16 must live 2,500 feet from any school, much farther than the 1,000 feet required under state law.
“A 2017 report commissioned by the ACLU found that across the county, only 320 affordable rental units met those guidelines. this was in 2017. “
https://theappeal.org/south-florida-sex-offense-homeless-population-spikes/
But Sorensen didn’t mention that the city’s own rules are, in part, driving up homelessness. An ordinance forbidding most people on the state’s sexual offense registry from living within 1,400 feet of schools, daycares, parks, or playgrounds puts all but 1 percent of residences off limits to those on the offense registry and forces hundreds to live on the streets.
“In September 2020, a group of organizations dedicated to helping formerly incarcerated people reenter society issued a report to the state legislature about the explosive rise in homeless registrant numbers across the state, which has seen a 312 percent spike since 2011.
More than a quarter of Broward’s registrants are homeless, according to a 2021 report by the state’s Office of Program Policy Analysis and Government Accountability (OPPAGA). Currently, there are no homeless shelters in the county that accept people on the registrant list. OPPAGA data show that Florida registrants averaged age 50 in 2018, with one in seven older than 65, numbers that almost certainly have increased due to residency bans and the state’s lifetime registration requirement.”
Residency restrictions is the major attributing factor to homelessness
for the past year there has been a conservative radio/podcaster named Dave Rubin who has been drooling all over the Mayor of Miami since he moved here because the homelessness in Miami is not close to what it is in los Angeles (where he left) what the mayor forgot to tell him was that he makes it illegal for the homeless to live anywhere and that’s the reason its so low, not some amazing program that’s keeping people off the street. someone should try and get that information to Dave Rubin and see if he does a segment on it with his show now that he is living here. Any exposure for what the mayor is doing might open the eyes of people that are unaware of whats really going on
I called Mayor Gelber’s office today. I spoke with his secretary Maria Ospina. She would like to be copied in emails as she does most of his correspondence. She also suggested the Mayor’s helper Danielle Mejia
[email protected]. [email protected].
What next? Are they gonna ban us from possessing and displaying the American flag? Don’t laugh because they already treat and see us as not one of “them.”