Areas of Service - Homelessness
SLC’s Homeless Advocacy Project is a statewide project to protect and defend the civil and human rights of homeless individuals and their advocates. The Project has two main objectives: 1) combat the criminalization of homelessness and 2) identify and address systemic issues faced by homeless individuals and their advocates that violate their civil and human rights. The Project seeks to address these objectives through the provision of community education and outreach to inform homeless individuals and advocates about their rights, and through legal and policy advocacy including impact litigation. It also provides training and technical assistance for advocates and attorneys.
Criminalization Issues
Due to the magnitude of the housing and homelessness crisis, many homeless individuals have no choice but to struggle to survive on the streets. Unfortunately, cities and counties across the state of Florida are increasingly using the criminal justice system to punish homeless persons for engaging in activities necessary to their survival. Criminalization wastes valuable police and judicial resources and creates barriers to homeless individuals trying to access services, jobs and housing. SLC advocates for policies that target the root causes of homelessness, such as the lack of affordable housing or access to jobs that pay a living wage, instead of policies that punish homeless individuals for taking care of basic needs in the public places where they are forced to live.
Criminalization measures enforced by cities and counties across the state of Florida also can violate homeless persons’ civil rights. These criminalization measures take a variety of forms, but most commonly they prohibit homeless individuals from engaging in activities such as sleeping/camping, eating, sitting, storing personal property, and/or begging in public spaces. Many cities and counties also enforce so called “quality of life” ordinances or status crimes that make it unlawful to engage in involuntary life-sustaining activities such as sleeping. Many of these measures deprive homeless individuals of federal and state constitutional guarantees such as freedom of expression, freedom of association, the right to be free from unlawful searches and seizures, the right to be free from cruel or unusual punishment, the right to due process of law, the right to travel and the right to equal protection under the law.
SLC uses litigation to challenge the criminalization of homelessness in federal and state courts. Here are some of our representative cases:
Booher v. Marion County and Sheriff Ed Dean, Case No. 5:07-CV-00282-Oc-10GRJ (M.D. Fla., J. Hodges)
This lawsuit was filed on behalf of a homeless individual against Marion County and the Marion County Sheriff, in his official capacity, challenging a county ordinance that was being used by local law enforcement to prohibit homeless individuals from requesting charitable donations for personal use without first obtaining a permit. The lawsuit challenged the constitutionality of the ordinance under the First and Fourteenth Amendments. The plaintiff had spent over 200 days in jail for six different incidents of holding a sign that says, "Homeless Vet God Bless." This action sought injunctive and declaratory relief and damages. On September 21, 2007, the Court issued an order preliminarily enjoining enforcement of the Marion County ordinance during the pendency of the litigation, and finding that Plaintiff had established a substantial likelihood of success on his claims that the ordinance is facially unconstitutional. The County repealed the ordinance and a settlement was reached with the County paying damages to the Plaintiff.
Catron v. City of St. Petersburg, Case No. 8:09-CV-00923-EAK-EAJ (M.D. Fla., J. Merryday), 658 F.3d 1260 (11th Cir. 2011).
In September 2011, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the City of St. Petersburg’s trespassing ordinance violates federal due process and the state constitutional right to intrastate travel. The ordinance authorized the City to exclude people from public property by issuing a trespass warning. The lawsuit alleges that the City uses the ordinance to ban homeless individuals from public parks, as well as surrounding sidewalks and bus stops, and does not provide an avenue to challenge trespass warnings without risking arrest. The Eleventh Circuit ruled that the City’s ordinance is unconstitutional on its face in violation of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
Chase et al. v. City of Gainesville and Sheriff Stephen Oelrich, 2006 WL 3826983, (N.D. Fla. 2006, J. Mickle) (permanent injunction); 2006 WL 2620260 (N.D. Fla. 2006, J. Mickle) (preliminary injunction).
This case was filed on behalf of three homeless individuals against the City of Gainesville and the Alachua County Sheriff. The lawsuit challenged under the First and Fourteenth Amendments two state statutes and a local ordinance which were being used to prohibit Plaintiffs and other homeless individuals from soliciting charitable donations on public sidewalks and streets. The court granted a preliminary injunction against the defendants, and made a preliminary finding that the challenged statues are facially unconstitutional. A settlement was reached in which the court entered a obtained a permanent injunction prohibiting enforcement of two statutes and a city ordinance that were being used to prohibit Plaintiffs and other homeless individuals from soliciting charitable donations on public sidewalks and streets. The Sheriff and the City also paid damages to the three Plaintiffs.
Fire of God Ministries v. City of Gainesville, Case No. 1:06cv188 (N.D. Fla., J. Mickle).
This case was filed on behalf of Fire of God Ministries, a non-denominational church that ministers primarily to homeless individuals, against the City of Gainesville for violation of the anti-discrimination requirements of the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, the Free Exercise Clause and the Equal Protection Clause. Specifically, the City of Gainesville had taken action under its Land Development Code to require the Ministries to obtain a special use permit in order to continue to use the assembly hall and property that it leases and uses as its primary place of worship. The plaintiff argued this requirement was discriminatory, because the City’s well settled prior practice has been to allow property such as that at issue (which was grandfathered in to the current Land Development Code as a lawful nonconforming use) to be used for purposes of nonreligious assembly as of right, without the need for such permit, by nonreligious institutions and assemblies. The parties agreed to a settlement with the City issuing the zoning compliance permit with conditions to the Fire of God Ministries.
City of Sarasota, Fla. v. Tillman, Case No. 2D04-5643 (Fla. 2d DCA).
We represented the Florida Homeless Coalition as amicus curiae in a certiorari appeal in support of the public defender who successfully challenged an anti-sleeping ordinance on constitutional grounds in the lower court in the context of a criminal appeal.
Walters v. Sheriff Sadie Darnell, Case No.: 01 2008 SC 006199 (Alachua County Court, 8th Jud. Cir. Fla.)
Our client was a formerly homeless individual who was living in the woods outside Gainesville in unincorporated Alachua County. He had been camping on this land without any incident. One day, he came back to his camp site to find his tents had been slashed and some of his personal belongings destroyed. He filed a complaint with the Alachua County Sheriff's Office (ACSO) and report the destruction of his property. We assisted our client in pursuing his complaint and discovered that two deputy Sheriff's officers had claimed responsibility for the destruction of his property, but no further action was taken by the ACSO in reference to this matter. After filing a claim in state court, the parties settled the case and ACSO paid damages to the Plaintiff.
Technical Assistance and Training
SLC provides training to private lawyers, legal services attorneys, criminal defense lawyers, police officers, students, advocates and homeless individuals about the legal rights of homeless persons. SLC also provides technical assistance to lawyers who are engaged in litigation to protect and defend the civil and human rights of homeless individuals. SLC collaborates with advocates nationwide in its efforts to advocate for better policies that address the root causes of homelessness:
Committee on Homelessness, Public Interest Law Section of the Florida Bar. SLC is an active participant in the PILS Committee on Homelessness. The Committee brings together legal services attorneys, public defenders, and private lawyers who work on issues of homelessness statewide. The Committee meets in person three times each year at the Bar meetings and is one of the most active committees of PILS. In addition to these in-person meetings, the Committee convenes by teleconference to network, discuss items of current interest to Committee members, and work on statewide advocacy projects.
WIKI to End Homelessness. Ending and preventing homelessness will require a broad collaborative effort. To strengthen this movement, the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty launched a WIKI to End Homelessness that will support the efforts of advocacy groups and attorneys. Like Wikipedia but focused on ending and preventing homelessness, the new website will be a shared knowledge-base of information and documents that are of critical importance to developing and advocating for solutions to homelessness. SLC is a partner on this project which aims to provide the advocacy community and policymakers with a single location where they can find resources to support their efforts to both solve problems of individuals struggling to resolve their homelessness as well as develop policies on the federal state and local levels that will have a broad impact on the homeless population.
Human Rights
“Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world.” –Preamble, Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948)
“Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and his family including...housing.”-Article 25 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948)
The human right to adequate housing is recognized in numerous human rights instruments and policy statements as essential to ensuring the well-being and dignity of human beings. Homeless individuals are quite literally denied the enjoyment of the human right to housing in the most basic sense. Many homeless individuals are denied the right to even have a roof over their heads and are often forced to live in public spaces. Even homeless individuals who are fortunate enough to have access to shelter in the form of emergency or temporary housing arrangements do not enjoy the right to live somewhere with security of tenure, peace and dignity. The lack of access to adequate housing directly affects the realization of other human rights.
National Forum on the Human Right to Housing. On November 8th and 9th, 2009, more than 150 advocates from 20 states gathered in Washington, DC for the 2009 National Forum on the Human Right to Housing. The event was hosted by Georgetown University Law Center, and co-sponsored by the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty, the US Human Rights Network, National Fair Housing Alliance, and the National Alliance of HUD Tenants. The highlight of the conference was the National Town Hall on the Right to Housing where advocates presented testimony to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing, Raquel Rolnik, who made the Forum the final stop on her two week fact-finding mission to the United States.
SLC presented written and oral testimony to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on human rights violations that are caused by the criminalization of homelessness in Florida. SLC called for local and state governments to develop constructive alternatives to criminalizing homelessness and to repeal or cease enforcement of such laws and policies. The Special Rapporteur presented her final report about her country visit to the United Nations Human Rights Council in March 2010. Her final report included findings about human rights violations caused by homelessness and a recommendation that the US develop constructive alternatives to the criminalization of homelessness.