A Florida law that criminalizes sleeping in public spaces and will take effect next month is expected to provoke a “tsunami of lawsuits” but do nothing to alleviate the state’s homelessness crisis, the mayor of Fort Lauderdale has warned. Dean Trantalis says his city is scrambling to find a way of complying with the bill signed by the Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, in March, and which becomes law on 1 October, requiring municipalities with insufficient shelter capacity to establish encampments for unhoused persons, the Guardian reports. A contentious meeting of the Fort Lauderdale city commission last week heard a range of suggestions ranging from camps in the parking lot of David Beckham’s soccer stadium or the roof of city hall, to providing one-way bus tickets for the unhoused to travel to other states. But commissioners did not take any action. ““The city is at an impasse because while the state has handed all the communities this draconian mandate, it failed to provide a remedy to partner with us in which to fulfill their expectations,” he said of the public camping bill. “We’re doing our best to try to address it. We’ve staffed our police department, our civilian homeless outreach program, we’ve doubled it this past year, because we feel it’s a priority. But the mandate from the state is an onerous burden.”
Figures show the number of unsheltered people in Fort Lauderdale almost doubled from 2022 to 2023, contributing to an 18.5% increase in homelessness in Florida, and a national spike of 12%. Trantalis said he feared money currently used for services and supports for the homeless would be lost when a clause of DeSantis’s law takes effect in January. That clause allows legal action against any municipality that fails to curb rough sleeping. “Any private citizen can sue if the city fails to remedy an encampment situation,” he said. “This is going to be a cottage industry for a whole new level of lawyers who feel they could take money out of the city instead of applying it towards helping the homeless. “This is going to be a tsunami of lawsuits that’s going to hit all the cities, and again, will it benefit the homeless? Of course not.” Diana Stanley, chief executive of The Lord’s Place, one of Palm Beach county’s largest homeless shelters, told the Guardian in March that the bill places the financial and logistical burden for accommodation solely on municipalities and counties, then exposes them to significant financial penalties if they fail to deliver. “We should be coming together to come up with solutions, not taking punitive approaches,” she said.
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