Fort Walton Beach Council agenda — 09-13-11 regular — reading text

city.It is operated with grant that had become a magnet feeding programs. street. AN that has changed. money and contributions for the homeless, a move Even as the city worked It' s night and day," exec, from a broad coalition of that has drawn grumbling aggressively to build casmo- utive director David Nutt municipalities and state and from those groups. Those politan credibility with new said by telephone one recent local agencies. It is run by the world- class museums and who get caught sleeping on morning. " I'm sitting in my sheriff' s once, with the coop- the sidewalk, having an open trendy restaurants, bomeless officerightnowkrokingacross eration of the prosecutor' s beer or relieving themselves people still were everywhere at the park, and it's gone from and public defender' s offices. in public have been get- on the streets of the low r-ise, hundreds lying amand on the I think ( Safe Harbor) is ting a free ride to the new, waterfront downtown. Visi- grass to a half-ilmn." part of the answer, I don' t 500 -bed Pinellas Safe Harbor, tors could not walk around Haven for Hope' s foram es think it's the whole answer," instead of a trip to jail. without dodging panhandlers are an issue — some of the said Sarah Snyder, executive This summer, the once - and stepping over street nonprofit charities involved t hector of the Pinellas County ubiquitous crowd of homeless are scrambling to raise Coalition for the Homeless, a hanging out and sleeping all people. Businesses complained. money for operations now group that develops policy and over downtown sheets dwin- Politicians fretted. The city that state and federal fund- determines how federal grad ledtojustahandful. sanitation department had to ing is being reduced. money is distributed county- Marbut, who said he has studied approaches to home - spray sidewalks with disin- fectant to cover the stench Critics there and St. Petersburg also question in wide. " We can't force people 4-IT to bemmebetter. Wecan only lessness in hundreds of U. S. cities during the past four of urine. We as a countywerejust Marbut' s firm contention that the time- honored tradition of show them how much bet- ter their Wes could be if they DYctbI" m,gtc years, said St. Petersburg had dealing with it, we weren' t do- gooders bringing food, made some changes." C,