Orange County approves local law prohibiting sleeping on public property

In order to comply with a new state law that prohibits people from sleeping or camping on public property overnight, Orange County leaders on Tuesday formally passed their own local version of the law in a 4-2 vote, with newly elected commissioner Kelly Semrad and commissioner Maribel Gomez Cordero acting as the lone dissenters.

“When we’re faced with really difficult decisions, I gotta use the people as my guiding star,” said Semrad, who was recently elected to the District 5 seat vacated by term-limited commissioner Emily Bonilla. “I cannot vote for something that complies with what I look at as [cruel] and unusual punishment when people have nowhere else to go, and we are living in the nation’s lowest-paid economy.”

The approval of the ordinance, first brought up for discussion last November, came despite concerns voiced by local residents and leaders of homeless service nonprofits, who nonetheless admitted they understand the county’s limited options.

Florida House Bill 1365, approved by the Republican-controlled Florida Legislature and Gov. Ron DeSantis last spring, enacted a statewide ban on sleeping on public property. The law took effect Oct. 1, 2024, and leaves enforcement up to municipal governments.

As of Jan. 1, the law also now allows residents, business owners or the State Attorney General to sue municipalities that fail to enforce the ban — putting pressure on elected leaders to avoid using tax dollars for preventable legal costs.

Municipalities accused of failing to enforce the ban must first be given a written notice prior to the filing of any civil suit. By law, they are allowed up to five days to “cure” the violation before a civil suit can be filed.

Methods of curing could include directing persons found “camping” to a shelter, finding alternative housing options for them or — as a last resort, according to the Orange County Sheriff’s Office — arresting them. Under the new ordinance, this would be prosecuted as a misdemeanor, punishable by a fine of up to $500 and up to 60 days in jail. Camping for recreational purposes or sleeping in one’s car, provided it’s properly licensed and parked lawfully, doesn’t count.

Rollins College student organizer and climate justice activist Matthew Groncholske, who said he previously spent a period of time without shelter himself, pleaded for county leaders on Tuesday to ensure the ordinance isn’t “abused” by any person, group or agency.

“I know that this is in lockstep with the state,” Groncholske conceded. “But I’m begging you, just look at the methods to navigate the state law with compassion and rehabilitation and true justice for all.”

The threat of legal action has prompted municipalities like Orange County to adopt their own local versions of the new statewide ban as a precaution. Some cities and counties, including the city of Orlando, already had such bans in place before the state law was proposed.

“We know that the jurisdictions have been kind of boxed into creating these ordinances in order to minimize their risk in complying with or in protecting themselves from potential challenges” said Martha Are, CEO of the Homeless Services Network of Central Florida, in an interview with Orlando Weekly.

At least a half-dozen other municipalities in Orange County, from Winter Park to Winter Garden, Eatonville and Windermere, have already passed similar bans within their own limits, either before or since the state law’s passage. Today’s decision will cover unincorporated areas of the county.

“We are obviously concerned anytime any community takes more steps towards criminalizing people experiencing homelessness,” Are added, referring to the risk that homeless people could now be jailed for simply having nowhere else to go.

“The ordinances and the [state] legislation don’t address the actual cause [of homelessness], and instead kind of shift blame to people who don’t have control,” said Are. “But we understood that the jurisdictions feel like they must do this in order to protect themselves.”

As of last year, Florida was home to the third-largest population of homeless people in the country, behind California and Texas, with more than 30,000 people affected by housing instability. In Central Florida, the number of people without shelter last year increased 105 percent over the previous year.

According to Are, whose nonprofit facilitated the region’s annual count of homeless people last year, most striking was the noted increase in older adults who are living on the streets.

“For many people who live on Social Security or pensions, the cost of housing, food and medical care is simply outpacing their modest cost-of-living increases,” Are explained.

While the region has a network of homeless service agencies that Are argues are “effective” at addressing chronic homelessness, “We don’t have the resources — either the funding for the programs or the housing units — to house everyone who would otherwise be eligible and in need of those services.”

“There are certainly efforts to help people, and many people are being moved back into permanent housing every year because we have a very courageous and highly skilled system that is working on that,” Are defended. But organizations like the HSN and its partners “cannot overcome the shortage of housing units.”

Orange County, with a population of more than 1.4 million, has seen rapid growth over the last decade. Average rents, however, have also shot up, and affordable housing development has failed to keep up with demand.

So has available shelter space, particularly shelters that are accessible for people with complex medical needs, an active substance use disorder or pets, despite an ongoing effort to establish a new low-barrier shelter in collaboration with the city of Orlando.

Other initiatives from Orange County, ranging from permanent supportive housing programs to tiny homes and a landlord incentive program, are also in the works. The Orange County government allocated about $45.6 million in this year’s budget for homelessness services and related initiatives, then added another $10 million to the bucket after state lawmakers approved the statewide camping ban last spring.

“In terms of addressing this issue, you have to address it with multiple prongs,” said Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings, who proudly touted the county’s multimillion-dollar investment in various proposed solutions.

“That is all costly to do. So if anyone is looking for a silver bullet that somehow, in the next few months, we’re going to solve it — no, it’s a long-term investment,” he argued. “But we have made progress.”

Legal counsel for the Orange County Sheriff’s Office confirmed to the board that it’s not the agency’s intention to automatically go out and arrest people who are found sleeping on public property. The agency has a limited-hours Behavioral Response Unit, staffed with co-responder teams of clinicians and sheriff’s deputies, and can offer warnings, or other referral services, before hauling anyone off to the local jail.

“I would just say that the sheriff’s view of enforcement of this ordinance dovetails well with the Orange County’s intent with regard to this ordinance, which is to make sure that compliance is achieved through services, assistance, warnings, or other non course measures,” said OCSO legal counsel Austin Moore.

“This is nothing more than adding a tool to the tool belt of law enforcement,” argued Demings, a former Orlando police chief and Orange County sheriff himself. “It does not say that law enforcement shall make arrests for persons who are violating this but it does put law enforcement in a better position on our behalf, if we are experiencing some violations that we know that could potentially result in exposing the county to litigation.”

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This article appears in Jan 1-7, 2025.