A section of Ft. Lauderdale\u2019s homeless population will be looking for a new resting spot following a month-long closure of Stranahan Park.
\nDozens lined up Friday to get vouchers for bus passes to leave the area. Others gathered their belongings awaiting word on whether or not they\u2019ll be given a hotel room provided by the city for a few days.
\nThe situation unfolded after city officials said they received a notice of violation from the state health department that there are unsanitary conditions in the park. Specifically, it\u2019s infested with rodents.
\nEarlier in the afternoon, a backhoe dumped items from the makeshift homeless encampment. CBS4\u2019s Carey Codd was told that it was simply trash and not people\u2019s belongings. Instead, those were loaded into large recycle bins and taken to the Ft. Lauderdale Police Dept. where the homeless will have access to it.
\n\u201cThat tractor that you just hear starting up, pulled up and started grabbing things, dumping in the roll off box, the dumpster,\u201d said Trinidad Deleon, who lived at the park. \u201cSome of it was our personal effects \u2014 clothes, pictures of loved ones, our Bibles.\u201d
\nThe move comes as a surprise to those who, for years, have camped out and been fed at the park.
\nMany feel it\u2019s just a pretext to move the homeless out of Stranahan Park and out of downtown Ft. Lauderdale.
\n\u201cHere, it just seems like an epidemic, the more people, ya know, in one area or whatnot, that they don\u2019t like, over a period of time, they\u2019re just going to do this to you,\u201d said Trinidad DeLeon. \u201cSo all they\u2019re doing is just pushing the envelope down to the next part of the city.\u201d
\nMayor Jack Seiler disputes that.
\n\u201cWe have a health, safety, welfare issue,\u201d said the mayor. \u201cThis is not about the homeless in the park, this is not about whether that park has had a history of problems. This is about the health, safety and welfare of people today in that park, people in that park going forward.\u201d
\nThe mayor said they have 23 hotel rooms that people can stay in for a week. They also have 15 beds at a shelter. There are also 7-day Broward County bus passes for people who need to get somewhere else in the county.
\nA homeless woman named Jennifer didn\u2019t like the way the situation was handled.
\n\u201cWe\u2019re clean,\u201d she said. \u201cWe\u2019re civilized. We\u2019re just homeless. We\u2019re not classless. We\u2019re not education-less. Have a little more compassion.\u201d
\nShe said the problem is the difficulty of getting help.
\n\u201cThey promise us shelter,\u201d she said. \u201cThey promise us help. But you have to have an addiction or a problem to get the help.\u201d
\nHomeless advocates believe this highlights a bigger problem \u2014 a lack of housing for struggling people.
\n\u201cThis is another example of kicking the can down the road without any solution, without providing what homeless people need most which is housing,\u201d said Jeff Weinberger.
\nRobin Martin with Rebuilding Together Broward says they are making consistent progress getting people in permanent housing in the county but the problem persists.
\n\u201cUntil you have enough housing available for people, what do you do? How do you care for them?\u201d Martin said. \u201cAnd today this was not a good example of the city. It was not the best side of Fort Lauderdale.\u201d
\nThe mayor said the park will be shut down for at least 30 days while it\u2019s cleaned.
\nCBS4 News asked the mayor what happens when the park reopens and the homeless want to return. Seiler He said they\u2019re not ready to tackle that issue yet. He said that will likely be discussed by the city commission over the coming weeks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A section of Ft. Lauderdale\u2019s homeless population will be looking for a new resting spot following a month-long closure of Stranahan Park. Dozens lined up Friday to get<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6144,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog-stories"],"yoast_head":"\n