Homeless Voice; Hypothermia in the Sunshine State

The Homeless Voice is owned by the COSAC Foundation, a multi-faceted non-profit agency that feeds, shelters, and arranges access to social and medical services to every homeless person that enters its shelters. We aim to enable them to return to a self-reliant lifestyle, but for the small percentage of people incapable, we provide a caring and supportive environment for long-term residency.

Originally made by a team tasked to raise money from the streets for the shelter, the Homeless Voice was born from the knowledge that freedom of press was a way to raise awareness. We started as a flyer, then a 4-page newsprint, then finally becoming the voice of the homeless with the Homeless Voice newspaper and website in 1999.

In this newspaper we hope to present the problems that the homeless population faces day-to-day, the problems these people personally face, and the ways that laws can help and hinder them.

Visit us at to read past issues, see online-only content, and a full map of where you can find this paper.

Many of our vendors are clients of our shelters, brought to different major cities to vend this paper in return for a donation. Based out of Lake City — where our Veterans Inn shelter and Motel 8 is located — or Davie, they are always brought out in groups of four to help each other stay motivated and keep each other company. They’re given plenty of food and water for the day and don bright shirts to distinguish them as our vendors.

Depending on their specific job in vending this newspaper, all vendors take in about 75% of donations that day, with the remaining 25% put back into the paper.

We distribute in all major cities throughout Florida, including Tallahassee, Lake City, Jacksonville, Tampa, Orlando, Daytona, Ft. Lauderdale, Miami, and now Gainesville.

Editor-in-Chief Andrew Fraieli

Publisher Sean Cononie Executive Editor Mark Targett

Contributers Jim Lunsford Robert Davis

COSAC Foundation PO Box 292-577 Davie, FL 33329 954-924-3571

Cover design and photo illustration by Andrew Fraieli

Vendor and client Michael White

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Photo by Miranda Schumes

Hypothermia in the Sunshine State

Winter after winter it takes extreme cold for emergency shelters to open

By Andrew Fraieli

Check out our previous issues and other stories at

Homelessvoice.org

Orange County Appeals Rent Control

The county will appeal their 2022 measure to the Florida Supreme Court

By Andrew Fraieli

Why Homelessness May Rise in 2023

Rising inflation, rising rent, dropping paying power and third largest homeless pop.

By Robert Davis

CREATIVE NON-FICTION

The Cop and His Rifle

Why cops arrest the homeless so much

By Jim Lunsford

Wanted for Murder

Anxious Freddy and a double murder

By Jim Lunsford

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Email us: andrew@homelessvoice.org

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Contact Ginny: 386-758-8080

The Cop and His Rifle

Why cops arrest the homeless so much

By Jim Lunsford

Cops like to prove they are fighting crime and the easiest way to prove it is by making lots of arrests. One would think that resolving differences peacefully would be a better solution, but who am I to argue policy? Besides, there’s power to consider as well. One must keep a heavy boot on the poor.

The Daytona Beach Police Department has certainly made a lot of arrests over the years, but this policy has done nothing to make the town safer. Filling the jails with harmless drunks rather than violent offenders only swells the ranks of the homeless. After all, job applications and a record don’t mix all that well. But, it’s safer to arrest a street drunk than to go after someone with a gun.

The Daytona Beach Police Chief was once quoted that when he was a beat cop, he always went for three arrests a shift — his own personal quota. Obviously, there wouldn’t be time in a shift to catch three violent offenders in one night. Methinks he may have made his career on the backs of the homeless he had busted. At any rate, he certainly went on at great lengths on how the homeless were the scourge of the town.

Once, there really was a homeless person who proved to be a serial killer. Naturally, he targeted the homeless — as most serial killers do. But he was busted by a group of wandering hippies known as the “rainbow people” at a festival they held every year in the Ocala National Forest — not by the police.

When other serial killers in the city received enough attention from their killings of the homeless, the Chief announced the safest thing for the homeless to do was leave. He even increased his efforts in encouraging them to do so. He is a truly compassionate man.

So, I believe what one homeless person told me. They had asked one cop why the police were targeting them. The cop told them he got paid days off after so many arrests, and the homeless are so easy to bust.

This same officer would go to a balcony overviewing a park every morning, surveying it for homeless people who may have slept there the night before. If only the homeless were around, he’d bring a rifle in a carrying bag. If “real” people were around, he would just take his binoculars with him. I think it says a lot about him that his first choice was to search for homeless people with a scope on a rifle.

Jim Lunsford first became homeless in Daytona in 2010, and remained so until late 2016. In early 2018, he became homeless once again. His stories are meant to help people understand what it’s like to be homeless.

Orange County To Push Rent Control to Florida Supreme Court

ByAndrewFraieli

Orange County, the first county in Florida to put rent control on their ballot in almost 45 years, will be bringing that rent control ordinance to the Florida Supreme Court.

Approved on their November ballot with a wide margin, it faced a lawsuit attempting to invalidate and remove it from the ballot, a repeal, and finally a successful invalidation. But with its enormous support by the public, and despite the growing legal costs, county commissioners hope to see it validated by the state’s most powerful court.

Had it not been contested, the measure would have allowed only one rent increase for a 12 month period, and no larger than the existing rent multiplied by the Consumer Price Index. These limitations are not the product of Orange County though, but a Florida state law from the 70s.

The law functionally limits local government’s ability to impose rent control, with an exception for a “housing emergency” — what the realtor’s lawsuit tried to prove untrue about the county so to invalidate the measure.

Specifically, the exception says no measure “imposing controls on rents” can be adopted unless it’s found they are “necessary and proper to eliminate an existing housing emergency which is so grave as to constitute a serious menace to the general public.” It states that the measure can only be for a year at a time — if passed by the public for a vote — and specifically exempts luxury apartments, defined as having an average rent of $250 at the time.

WHAT HAPPENED

Aug. 9 Orange County commissioners put the rent control measure on the ballot, and within days landlords and realtors sued.

“It is adverse and antagonistic to the public interest and to the interests of the Plaintiffs and their members to allow the Rent-Control Ordinance to be placed on the ballot or enforced by Orange County,” the complaint said, calling the ordinance “unlawful and invalid” and asking Circuit Judge Jeff Ashton to keep the measure off the ballet.

Filed by Shutts & Bowen lawyers on behalf of the Florida Apartment Association and Florida Realtors, they believe the county did not sufficiently prove there was a “housing emergency” as required in the 70s state law, nor proving rent control would fix it.

In September, Ashton partially supported the lawsuit, stating the measure was illegal, but went against the landlord and realtors' hopes by allowing the measure to stay on the ballot anyways.

“There is public good in the democratic process and in allowing the public to exercise their right to express their opinion on this issue, even if that is all it will ever be, an opinion,” said

Ashton in his 9-page order.

He continued to describe how 80% of county residents are “cost-burdened,” meaning paying more than 30% of their income on housing, that eviction filings are indeed increasing as well as an overwhelming demand for rental assistance. Even so, Ashton said it may not be sufficient to meet the requirements of the decades-old law for “housing emergency.”

The associations quickly challenged the judge’s ruling in appeals court, and succeeded in getting the case fast-tracked to be heard, while also asking the county be forced to pay the legal fees for challenging what the realtors and landlords see as a measure “expressly prohibited” by that state law.

The groups had hoped the fast-track would help to remove the measure from the ballot before election day, but ballots had already been printed by then, the county said in a 78- page brief in response to the association’s challenge. The county also defended their measure, pointing to some of the same facts Ashton said, and arguing Orange County rents are “pushing well above historic limits when compared to income and affordability.”

Later in October, the case was finally heard and the appeals court sided with the associations that the measure should not have gone onto the ballot, leading Ashton to order county election officials in November to not certify results of the measure, preventing it from becoming law even if it passed — which it did.

The measure received 225,979 votes, about 59% of all ballots cast — a large margin for a measure like rent control to pass on.

“The people voted in their best interests and for rent stabilization and didn’t fall for the lies and manipulation of the corporations who have been controlling the system with the money they take from everyday hardworking people,” Orange County Commissioner Emily Bonilla told the Orlando

Sentinel. “The people voted to simply keep a roof over their heads.”

But to make the measure law, the county would need to appeal to the Florida Supreme Court. And, after an executive session of the council on legal advice, the county decided to do so.

“In my humble opinion at this point, there is a question of legality and I believe that appealing is going to provide some clarity,” Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings said, who had voted against the ordinance in August. “The odds are probably not in our favor but I want that clarity and there’s an opportunity for the courts to provide that.”

WHAT DOES IT MEAN

The county’s appeal, if successful, would immediately lead to the measure being effective for one year. If the county loses the appeal, not only would the measure have failed, but taxpayers may have to bear the legal costs of the realtors and landlord associations.

“Neither the election results nor the county’s decision to file an appeal to Florida’s Supreme Court change the fact that this flawed and illegal rent control measure has already been invalidated,” Chip Tatum, a spokesperson for the Florida Apartment Association, said. “This decision further demonstrates the BCC’s disregard for the law and taxpayer resources.”

Every speaker at the public comment after the county announced it would be appealing the measure’s legality was supportive, with all highlighting how popular it was on the ballot.

The county has not spoken further on how it will try to defend the measure, but in its previous response to the associations' lawsuit lawyers for the county cited the “historic limits” of rents in the county falling behind of modern day as the number of “cost-burdened” renters rise — renters who pay more than 30% of their income.

This is on top of the lawyers stating the county studied the crisis and did find “an existing housing emergency which is so grave as to constitute a serious menace to the general public” as the law requires.

The associations similarly have not put out publicly how they intend on defending their lawsuit, but in that lawsuit they point to many errors they see in the ordinance.

The main one is they believe the county did not sufficiently establish the existence of a housing emergency, accusing the county’s findings of having no housing emergency to use as a baseline to compare. The lawsuit goes on to focus on the “serious menace to the general public” clause as well, claiming an impact on health, safety, and welfare to be necessary, such as “overcrowding” resulting in “insanitary conditions” and “disease.”

The final main point is that the county does not prove rent control would actually resolve the housing emergency — another requirement of the 70s-era law.

The 5th Circuit saw these as fitting arguments, but it may be many more months before the Florida Supreme Court hears them and Orange County receives its rent control — or it’s legal bill.

As an arctic cold front swept over the country, Christmas in Florida grew closer to the New England winter snowbirds ran from than the warm escape they hoped for. But snowbirds and locals alike just turned up the heat for the week. Those who have no home to escape to, or heat to turn on, had to find shelter.

For that week leading up to Christmas, temperatures dropped to 40 and below in south Florida, with Orange, Hillsborough, Pinellas, Broward and Miami-Dade counties, among others, opening emergency cold weather shelters to handle the amount of unhoused people who needed a warm place to stay. While these short-term emergency shelters help in the extreme cold, activists and medical professionals argue they take too extreme of weather to open.

COLD ENOUGH

These emergency shelters are meant to compensate for an expected influx of people looking for shelter during this cold weather, more than normally seen and therefore requiring extra space as day-to-day shelters fill up because of it. The short-term shelters stay open overnight, putting people back outside in the morning and shutting down completely once the weather is over.

The temperature required to open these shelters vary across Florida, but often don’t open until below 40, still leading to cold weather exposure that can cause injuries.

The effects of cold weather on people experiencing homelessness are “all too familiar,” to Dr. Courtney Pladsen, she told the Homeless Voice.

Pladsen is the director of clinical and quality improvement at the National Health Care Council for the Homeless, a nonprofit organization that works with more than 300 clinics across the country training and sharing research, including in Portland, Maine where she is based.

She’s seen “trench foot,” where people step in snow and can’t dry off as they have nowhere warm and dry to go. It can cause painful blisters to develop that make it difficult to walk and can lead to infection. She’s also seen frostbite.

“I’ve had patients who have had amputations because of frostbite,” Pladsen said, “and lots who’ve had nerve damage.”

But the biggest health risk, according to Pladsen, is hypothermia.

Hypothermia is when body temperature falls below 95 F, a “severe medical emergency,” according to the NHCHC. The heart, brain, and kidneys can malfunction and lead to death.

“Malnutrition, decreased body fat, underlying infection, lack of fitness, fatigue, inadequate shelter and heat,” are all risk factors for developing hypothermia as well, she explained, and all common in those experiencing unsheltered homelessness.

The risks with the low temperature cutoffs to open

“Even those who seek shelter — and are allowed to enter — are frequently turned back onto the streets during the day,”

emergency shelters lie in the risk of hypothermia not solely tied to outdoor ambient temperature, but also wind-chill, amount of clothing to protect, and whether that clothing is even dry.

The counties needing these emergency shelters points to not having enough shelter beds to house everyone who is living on the streets in the first place, as the National Alliance to End Homelessness has shown. And, their capacity shows the amount of people who clearly want to come inside from the “only” 40 degree cold — a cutoff that can still leave people outside, with the potential of hypothermia, or even pneumonia.

EVEN IN FLORIDA

Mary Stewart had been sleeping in a tent in the woods for two years by the time she first caught pneumonia. She coughed up phlegm and mucus non-stop into napkins and toilet paper from a local McDonald’s. An entire week went by where she laid bundled in a coat, burning up from a fever while shivering from body

chills, having no energy to eat or go out to panhandle. After seven days, her hunger grew too painful to rest any longer. She pulled herself together and left the tent she called home in search of a can of soup from a nearby Winn Dixie. Up until then, Stewart said she survived solely on water and other liquids. The next day, she took an hour-long bus ride to the emergency room in JFK Medical Center in Lake Worth.

“[The nurses] had to put me on oxygen and rush me in for a chest x-ray,” said Stewart, who’s also written for the Homeless Voice. “They said I had pneumonia on my left lung and admitted me for an entire week.”

That was the middle of January in Palm Beach, Florida. Fourteen years, and one more bout of pneumonia, later and Stewart still sleeps in a tent outside, chronically homeless since 2005 with small patches of time being indoors.

The CDC points out that hyperthermia could set in at temperatures above 40 degrees if someone is chilled by sweat, rain or cold water, leading to the issues Pladsen has seen.

In Los Angeles, their winter shelter system opens when there’s three days of low daytime temperatures and night wind chill temperatures of freezing or below, and for certain amounts of rain. Baltimore only opens their's if it’s below freezing, and much of the metro area of Denver requires the temperature to drop below freezing and there is moisture, or below 20 regardless.

“Even those who seek shelter — and are allowed to enter — are frequently turned back onto the streets during the day,” said the National Coalition for Homelessness’ 2010 report “Bringing Our Neighbors in from the Cold.” This leaves people to bear the brunt of the cold for an entire day once again.

In some cities, such as Miami, anti-homeless ordinances even specify using bedding, like blankets, while on the sidewalk to be illegal. So while there were 12,672 people experiencing unsheltered homelessness in Florida by the latest estimate of 2020, there were only 183 seasonal beds, according to the National Alliance to End Homelessness.

In the week of the extreme weather leading up to Christmas, Orange County announced that their downtown shelters had filled up completely, with two county-run emergency shelters taking in an additional 140 people Christmas night — more than double compared to the night before, according to the Orlando Sentinel.

The Homeless Leadership Alliance of Pinellas in Pinellas County, encompassing St. Petersburg, had more 1,100 people take advantage of their emergency cold weather shelters that week. Hillsborough County, encompassing Tampa, had nearly 800 people, according to ABC Tampa Bay.

“[The nurses] had to put me on oxygen and rush me in for a chest x-ray. They said I had pneumonia on my left lung and admitted me for an entire week.”

The CDC points out that hyperthermia could set in at temperatures above 40 degrees if someone is chilled by sweat, rain or cold water.

Mary Stewart in West Palm Beach | Photo courtesy of Mary Stewart

Wanted for Murder

Anxious Freddy and a double murder

By Jim Lunsford

Freddy was a very nervous person. We met while he was on probation for some petty crime. He was terrified of jail, not the type who would do well there. I can’t say much against him for it, I don’t think I would do well either, but I think I would do better than Freddy. He was just too scared.

We would talk on occasion at the library. Sometimes he would have a beer, as that was easy to get away with, in terms of his probation. While he was checked fairly frequently, beer doesn’t stay in your system that long. Pot is the real concern with those who have to face drug checks, as it stays in your system the longest.

Odd that the substance which does the least amount of harm is the one they must avoid the most, but such is our legal system.

He would tell me he would rather smoke pot, though. I told him, since I usually had some, we’d smoke some when he got off his probation. The day of, he came and found me.

We smoked quite a bit, and for some reason he was videorecording me as I loaded up a bowl. I didn’t mind, it wasn’t as if it would be admissible in court — I could have been putting anything in that bowl.

Shortly thereafter, I left town for a week or so. I hadn’t been on the streets that long and I was off looking for work. There was none to be found though, so back I came when a friend told me the cops were looking for me as a person

of interest in a double homicide. As you might imagine, I inquired at some length as to the details of this search. It seems that poor Freddy had found two dead bodies near his camp. They were homeless, and someone had murdered them in their sleep. While the stories varied wildly as

DNA and exonerated him. That would have been the end of it all, but then Freddy’s letter arrived at its destination. Naturally, the detective began questioning Freddy, and even talked to the person who got the letter supplies. When the detective checked Freddy’s phone, the video with me was still on it, and all of a sudden I was a person of

I avoided the cops though. Even then, I had already witnessed too many examples of cops trying to railroad people into prison. Far too often cops concentrate on closing cases, rather than solving them, and being homeless makes you a target for this sort of abuse. This detective wasn’t that sort, but I had no way of knowing that at the time — I was just a spot on his checklist.

The detective decided I wasn’t worth the trouble to find and the murders remain unsolved.

So, Freddy got a friend to buy him a stamp and an envelope, mailing a letter to the State Attorney’s office instead. Freddy wasn’t that bright though, and left his fingerprints on the envelope.

Meanwhile, another homeless person had discovered the bodies and did call the police. The cops tested the man’s

Jim Lunsford first became homeless in Daytona in 2010, and remained so until late 2016. In early 2018, he became homeless once again.

His stories are meant to help people understand what it’s like to be homeless.

Why Florida Could See a Spike in Homelessness in 2023

By Robert Davis

ocal housing experts are concerned that Florida could see a significant spike in homelessness in 2023 after a year that saw hurricanes Ian and Nicole ravage the state’s southern peninsula and destroyed affordable homes for some of the state’s lowest income earners.

Florida has been one of the hottest housing markets in the US since the pandemic began in March 2020. In nearly three years, the state’s median home price has skyrocketed by more than 61% from a low of $251,000 to now more than $406,000, according to data from Zillow. Meanwhile, data from the Florida Housing Coalition shows that the state leads the country with more than 53% of renters being housing burdened, meaning they pay 30% or more of their monthly income on rent and utility expenses, because of rent increases and stubborn inflation.

As the calendar turns to the new year, some experts are concerned that these conditions will cause homelessness to increase if the state does not intervene.

“There was already a gap between what housing costs and what people can afford,” Anne Ray, a researcher at the Shimberg Center for Housing Studies at the University of Florida, told the New York Times in October after Ian made landfall.

“The communities that were hardest hit in Southwest Florida already had been seeing large increases in rent over the past year or so,” Ray continued. “A storm like this comes along and we could lose that critical supply of affordable housing.”

HOW BIG IS THE PROBLEM?

Florida has made a lot of progress on providing housing and services for people experiencing homelessness in the state. The state has seen its homeless population decrease by 41%, or more than 13,000 people since 2007, according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s 2022 Homelessness Assessment Report, which compiles state level onenight count data.

The one-night count, also known as the “Point in Time Count,” typically occurs in late January and is designed to be a snapshot of homelessness in a local area. Totals can vary widely between counts because it relies on volunteers to find homeless people during one of the coldest months of the year and requires homeless people who are contacted to identify themselves as homeless.

As this paper has previously reported, some people avoid identifying themselves as homeless because of the stigma that is attached to homelessness.

“It takes significant time, effort and building trusted relationships between a client and a case manager to work towards permanent housing solutions,” Therese Everly, executive director of the Lee County Homeless Coalition, told Naples Daily News in May.

The data collected during the one-night counts are then used to determine the amount of federal funding that cities receive to address homelessness. However, some say the data collected during the 2022 count is unreliable because HUD, which oversees the Point in Time Count, did not require local Continuums of Care to conduct unsheltered counts because of the pandemic. Continuums of Care are nonprofit agencies that partner with HUD to deploy homeless resolution programs across the country.

Florida Median Home Price

Since March 2020, Florida's median home price has skyrocketed by more than 61% from a low of $251,000 to now more than $406,000.

$250,000 $248,839

2020 Jan. Jan. Jan. Nov. 2021 2022 2022 $200,000

Homeless Population in Florida

Homeless population has decreased in Florida by 41% or more than 13,000 people since 2007. Many consider data from 2021 and 2022 an undercount.

Data courtesy of Zillow

Total Homeless Population by State

Florida still has the nation's third highest homeless population with 25,959 people counted in 2022. California has the highest at 171,521

Average Rent & Year-Over-Year Growth

WHAT IS CAUSING HOMELESSNESS TO INCREASE IN FLORIDA?

Despite Florida’s progress on homelessness, the state still has the nation’s third highest homeless population with 25,959 people being counted in 2022. At the same time, there are signs that Florida’s housing market could leave many cost-burdened households behind.

One issue is that rents in many cities in Florida are rising at a time when wages in the state are falling because of inflation. Tampa, Miami and Orlando all saw their rents increase in November, according to Redfin’s rent tracker. Miami led the way with a 9.2% growth rate year-over-year with an average rent of more than $3,200 per month. Tampa and Orlando saw their rents grow by 1.7% and 3.1% and both cities have an average rent of nearly $2,100 per month, Redfin’s data shows.

Wages in each of these cities have not been able to keep up with these rent increases either, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. For example, wages in Miami grew by 4.8% year-over-year in November, but inflation in the city was measured at 7.7%, meaning that workers actually saw the spending power of their pay fall by 2.9% over the past year.

But this hasn’t stopped people from needing housing, and that demand for housing is being squeezed by historically low supply of homes while natural disasters like hurricanes Ian and Nicole wiped out more homes. That’s one reason why the median home price in Florida has grown by 10% to $390,000 over the last year, as of November, according to Redfin.

“Because of COVID, because of the rental crisis that’s going on in our community, because of migrant inflow, we’re seeing tremendous new demands that we haven’t seen before,” Victoria Mallette, executive director at Miami-Dade County Homeless Trust, told the Miami Herald.

The rising housing prices have also coincided with an increasing number of households facing eviction. Meanwhile, data from the Census Bureau’s latest Household Pulse Survey shows that more than 109,000 renters in Florida feel they are “very likely” to be evicted within the next two months, up from just 13,000 households who said they would face an eviction in November 2021.

These factors have caused local leaders, like Democrat Rep. Val Demmings, to call for more protections for Florida’s low-income renters.

“We can’t let Florida families lose their homes due to emergencies outside of their control,” Demmings said in a press release

Tampa, Miami and Orlando all saw their rents increase in November, according to Redfin’s rent tracker. Miami led the way with a 9.2% growth rate year-over-year with an average rent of more than $3,200 per month. Tampa and Orlando saw their rents grow by 1.7% and 3.1% and both cities have an average rent of nearly $2,100 per month

WHAT’S BEING DONE TO MAKE

HOUSING

MORE AFFORDABLE IN FLORIDA?

Several cities across Florida have budgeted millions of dollars to preserve and create affordable housing within their jurisdictions, but the efforts may be too little too late.

For instance, Palm Beach voters recently approved a $200 million ballot measure to create 20,000 affordable homes over the next 10 years. But that is only half of what is needed to provide affordable housing to the more than 51,000 extremely cost burdened households in Palm Beach County, according to a housing needs assessment conducted by Florida International University in 2020. These households pay more than half of their monthly income on housing and utility costs.

“It’s staggering, the increase that we’ve been seeing. But it’s also tied to supply and demand,” Kevin Kent, a local realtor, told WPBF in April. “There is very, very little supply and there is a huge demand for our area and that continues to push pricing both on rentals and on sales and purchases.”

For some experts, solving homelessness comes down to a simple choice: Do local leaders care enough about the problem to put forward solutions, or not?

“It’s not that we can’t solve these issues, it’s that we won’t,” Justin Barfield, outreach and development director of Capital City Youth Services, told the Tallahassee Democrat.

Year-Over-Year Wage Growth vs. Inflation

According to data from the Census Bureau’s latest Household Pulse Survey

More than 109,000 renters in Florida feel they are "very likely" to be evicted within the next two months, up from just 13,000 households in Nov. 2021

Median home price in Florida has grown by 10% to $390,000 over the last year, as of November.

According to data from Redfin

West Palm Beach Jacksonville Orlando Tampa Miami