Homeless Voice; Rent Control, In or Out?

Rent Control,In or Out?

Rent control was functionally outlawed across Florida in 1977. Now, for the first time in decades, a county has it on the ballot.

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Originally made by a team tasked to raise money from the streets for the shelter, the Homeless Voice was born from the knowledge that freedom of press was a way to raise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.

Publisher Sean Cononie

Editor-in-Chief Andrew Fraieli

Executive Editor Mark Targett

Contributers

Mary Stewart

Jim Lunsford

Olivia Love

Michael Koretzky

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Photo by Miranda Schumes

Rent Control, In or Out?

A contentious issue, rent control is on the ballot for one county for the first time in decades.

By Andrew Fraieli

Check out our previous issues and other stories at Homelessvoice.org

FEATURES

"Too Late For Smiling"

From foster care, to homelessness, to writing, Michael White tells his journey.

By Olivia Love

FIRST PERSON

6What I Learned While Homeless

A reflection on homelessness and its lessons after 10 years of sleeping on the streets.

By Mary Stewart

Miami's Homeless Island

The Miami Herald calls it “a sick joke.” One county commissioner says “Hell, no.”

By Michael Koretzky

CREATIVE NON-FICTION

Smeagle Gets Liver Cancer

A short story about a man born with addiction.

By Jim Lunsford

Last Wish Granted

Larry’s wish on how to die.

By Jim Lunsford

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Smeagle Gets Liver Cancer

By Jim Lunsford

Bill’s addiction to Valium happened while he was still in his mother’s womb. Her doctor never let her pregnancy interfere with her prescriptions. He told me when he was born, they had to wean him off those prescriptions in the hospital with Valium that was either in milk or an IV — I forget which. But her addiction never left him.

For a long time, we were in that phase somewhere between acquaintances and friends while we were on the streets. We didn’t seek out each other’s company, but we would talk for a while when we met. We would also keep an eye out for each other’s request — he even got a bike for me once after he found out another one of mine had been stolen.

When I first met him, he said he had just left the woods so that he could get all of the drugs out of his system. He told me it took him several weeks to do so, and that the smell of those toxins he was sweating out were horrible. I can only imagine how bad it had been.

Like many addicts, it wasn’t advisable to share a story of hardship with Bill. It’s as if the truly addicted feel agony at anyone else’s discomfort. Maybe they are like the great poets in that regard, in that they simply feel too much pain. Maybe that’s why he loved taking anything that would blot out his awareness of life. I think that’s too much like seeking death, but I’m not an addict, so I can’t say what it’s like.

Bill seemed to be doing okay, but what we see is just the surface of a lake on a sunny day. You would have to dive in to get past the reflection, and no one did that for Bill. There didn’t seem to be any reason to do so either.

Then two things happened that finished him off: he got a shed to live in from this mean old woman, and he started going to the VA for medical attention. Though he sought them both out, it doesn’t seem all that fair.

This old woman was addicted to pills as well. It had started

after she had her foot run over by one of her ex-husbands. He’d done it on purpose, as she was screaming at him one day and he’d had enough. Having been married to a woman who spent most of her time screaming at me, I can relate. There is only so much of a shrew one can take.

She didn’t rent Bill her shed out of kindness — she had not one kind spot in her heart. She rented it to him so he could get her those pills and so she could vent her rage on yet another man. She was that kind of woman, and Bill could get her those pills.

He also started going to the VA in hopes of a pension. They held that bait out, though I don’t think he ever got one. They were nice he said — they even let him do his own diagnosis.

After a while, it seemed Bill was always so high that he couldn’t be trusted with the simplest of tasks. We started calling him Gollum after Smeagle in “The Lord of the Rings,” as he would act just like him. He would find the strangest things and just hold them and wonder at their beauty.

It was an eerie sight, watching him hold some bit of trash and revering it as if it were the One Ring.

He used to ask me to look up his symptoms on the internet, and I would. The last time he asked me though, I did the search based on drug interactions. He was taking about half a dozen of the drugs on that list. While he said he was going to stop taking those, that doesn’t mean he wasn’t still taking a handful a day.

The last time I saw him, it was as if he were a zombie. I already knew he had liver cancer from all of those decades of pills. He was in a Wal-Mart with this woman from the VA to escort him. She knew me, though Bill probably didn’t anymore, as she had tried to get me to use their medical services.

She said to me, “I’m just trying to help you.” I thought to myself as I looked at Bill, who didn’t seem as if he was even aware of where he was at, that I didn’t think I needed any of her kind of help. But I just said, “I know”, and left it at that.

A short story about a man born with addiction.

Bill seemed to be doing okay, but what we see is just the surface of a lake on a sunny day. You would have to dive in to get past the reflection, and no one did that for Bill.

“

What I Learned While Homeless

By Mary Stewart

Irecently relocated and reconciled with my husband to get off the street and receive the mental health care that I desperately needed. But my experience with homelessness will always be an integral part of who I am. And given my low income and barriers to self sufficiency, I'll always be one SSI check away from returning to homelessness.

Looking back at the ten plus years that I slept outside, I realize that homelessness taught me a lot about life. Sure, when I first became homeless, it felt like an utter catastrophe, but over time it was more like an extended camping trip. It's all a matter of perspective, and that applies to any adversity that we face in life — we can either allow hardships to make us, or break us.

I recall when I was growing up, I threw a fit at my tenth birthday party because my grandmother got me both a chocolate and a vanilla cake. I didn't want a vanilla cake, but now it doesn't matter if I have a cake at all.

Homelessness has taught me gratitude. The things that used to matter to me now seem frivolous and meaningless.

The best birthday party I ever had was when my homeless friends surprised me by catching catfish all day to cook me a birthday dinner. They even spent their panhandling money on buying me birthday cards from the dollar store and placed candles on my melted butter cream cupcakes. I learned that the most meaningful gifts are the ones that come from the heart.

It's really the little things in life that matter the most. After you've been homeless a while, the biggest blessing in the world is a cold glass of water. I used to be a vegan, and even though I still prefer fish, beans and vegetables, I have no issue eating a dollar menu hamburger. Once you know what hunger feels like, you learn to be thankful for just having food to eat — regardless of whether you like it or not.

I always felt alone and unloved after being disowned by my family for mental illness, that is until I became chronically homelessness — that's when I experienced true friendship and unconditional love.

I created my own surrogate family out of my homeless friends. They didn't care that I was mentally ill, low income and an alcoholic because they were also misfits. For the first time in my life, I learned the meaning of real friendships. You really do find out who your friends are when you're at the bottom of the barrel.

One of the things that I enjoyed most about panhandling was that it gave me the opportunity to see people's hearts. Sure, it was hurtful when a man told me that I was a pathetic excuse for a human being, and a woman told me that it was my own fault that I was homeless and pregnant. Those insults have seared into my soul and continue to affect my sense of self worth.

But, I also saw a lot of goodness in the world.

Homelessness gave me a chance to see both the best and worst sides of humanity. Many times, people have handed me twenty and even hundred dollar bills. Other times, they would simply smile and wave at me, and I appreciated their acknowledgment even though it did nothing to resolve my hunger.

Surprisingly, I liked it most when people took the time to get to know me and treat me like a human being.

One couple took me out to lunch at Burger King and bought me clothes at goodwill. They even gave me and a friend of mine care packages and checked up on us. I'm still friends with that couple on Facebook.

I never went without the entire time that I was

Photo illustrations by Andrew Fraieli

A reflection on homelessness and its lessons after 10 years of sleeping on the streets.

One of the things that I enjoyed most about panhandling was that it gave me the opportunity to see people's hearts.

homeless, even though I rarely went to soup kitchens or homeless ministries. Although I was never ashamed to ask for help, I turned more to prayer once the panhandling laws became stricter.

And I still received help!

I remember the one time I was sitting at a bus stop and someone suddenly jumped out of their car and ran two lanes over to give me a fifty dollar bill. Another time, someone handed me a twenty at the library. This happened several times.

I don't like to push my beliefs on anyone, but I personally can't deny the existence of a higher power. My secret to survival was praying every morning and sharing my blessings with other homeless people. Homelessness definitely increased my spirituality. When I had given up on humanity, I had no one left to turn to but God, and He always came through.

Homelessness also taught me perseverance. When I was attending college while homeless, my advisor told me that I needed food and shelter before I'd be able to focus on education. But I proved her wrong. I went on to graduate with my Associates degree cum laude.

If you think about it, a tent is a shelter, and I either panhandled for food, or ate canned goods from the campus food pantry. It took hard work, perseverance and sacrifice, but I did it.

When you're experiencing hardships and can't find

an immediate way to change your circumstances, your only option is to accept where you are at the moment and make the best of it. But you also need to know when to throw in the towel. In this last episode of homelessness I was pursuing my Bachelors degree, but the lack of mental health care in Palm Beach County led me to withdraw and relocate.

Now I live in a dilapidated house that has been in my husband's family for generations, and I must say that housing is overrated. While I do enjoy television, electricity and a way to cook, it's hard to make it without transportation. And my husband suddenly wants all the finer things in life that we can't afford. I don't need smart TVs, internet hook up, or air conditioning. I was perfectly happy in my tent without the amenities that the world has come to rely on.

I remember watching people constantly being on their phones oblivious to the world around them, and honking at pedestrians who were making them two seconds late to their destinations. In line at the gas station, I would see people spend a hundred dollars on lottery tickets with the hope of getting richer, when my friend was standing on the median hungry.

Homelessness changed my values and perspectives on life. While I was fortunate enough to stream free TV on my phone, most of my friends didn't have that luxury. The world was our reality TV, and it made us realize how different we were from everyone else. We enjoyed the company of those sitting next to us, and were rarely in any rush to get things done. If we had a hundred dollars, it would probably go to beer and a huge cook out to feed our friends — or maybe a motel room.

I learned to improvise and put my creativity to good use while homeless. I even rigged an outdoor shower, and once built an oven in the woods to bake biscuits. It was a simple life where I woke up to the tune of birds chirping in the morning and fell asleep to the sounds of crickets. I currently have a quiet place in the backyard where I can still enjoy nature's lullaby.

So, is homelessness really a catastrophe? It depends on how you look at it.

I personally think that homelessness made me a better person, and wish that others could have my learning experience. We live in a superficial world where iPhones, smart devices and designer clothes are considered necessities, but the truth is that you don't need any of those things to be happy.

Sure, it would've been nice to finish college and have a career. I would've been able to pay off debts, get my license reinstated, and rent or buy my own place. But maybe that just isn't in the cards for me. After all, I do have a disability that will continue to limit me for the rest of my life. Fortunately, homelessness has taught me how to be content on the barest of minimum.

The hard reality is that there are no guarantees in life. You can have it all, only to lose it in a heartbeat. Even the most stable person is subject to health issues, natural disasters, lay offs, divorce and stock market crashes — all of which can lead to homelessness. It's not wise to become reliant on items that can be taken from you at any time. That's not how you find true happiness.

True happiness comes from within and isn't dependent upon circumstances, objects, or financial success. Nor is it dependent upon relationships — even though you should cherish every moment with your loved ones. Everything in life is only here for a season. I may have it all today, and turn around and lose all of it tomorrow, but I know that I'll still be OK.

Homelessness gave me a chance to see both the best and worst sides of humanity.

Rent Control Goes To A Florida

Ballot, Now The Fight Begins.

By Andrew Fraieli

For the first time in a Florida county in decades, the people will be able vote to establish rent control — at least temporarily.

On the ballot this November for Orange County voters will be a rent control measure that commissioners narrowly passed on August 9. If the ballot initiative passes, it would tie rent increases to the Consumer Price Index for one year.

Immediately, landlords, realtors and apartment managers tried to stop it.

Orange county is not alone though. Other cities and counties are trying to do the same, but the fear of lawsuits by landlords and realtors, and a lack of confidence that rent control won’t make matters worse is stopping cities like St. Petersburg from trying to enact it.

Rent control, and all its contentious possibilities, is not solely limited to modern public opinion though. Whether landlords, renters or Commissioners, rent control in Florida was already shaped 48 years ago because of one Miami Beach City Council meeting in 1974.

RENT CONTROL IN '74

The early 70s in Miami Beach saw Disney World opening in Orlando and siphoning tourism from the beach, an influx of retirees from the north, and, in 1974, the Miami Beach City Council passing a law freezing rents on almost 50,000 apartments. Rents could only increase up to 6%, and similar to Orange County today, landlords at the time immediately sued.

According to the Miami Herald, apartment-building owners at the time depended mostly on fixed-income seniors moving to the beach to retire.

“It was very popular,” Bob Goodman, a council member in the early 1970s, told the Miami Herald. “There weren’t a lot of high-rises. Condos didn’t exist then. But the renters of the apartments were in favor of it.”

Prior city rent-control ordinances had been overturned, but 1974’s lasted until Florida legislators passed a law restricting pricing rules that local governments could impose — including on landlords and therefore rent — in direct response. A year later, the state Supreme Court ruled that the 1977 state legislation overturned the rent control bill for the city.

This state legislation functionally limiting local government’s ability to impose rent control, the same that still stands today, has one exception though — a “housing emergency.”

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 average rent of $250 at the time.

This defining of luxury though may be the greatest hindrance in the law for passing rent control.

“HOUSING EMERGENCY”

St. Petersburg’s City Council voted, in December 2021, to explore declaring the housing state of emergency necessary to pursue rent control and these other measures — per that Florida state statute requirements. In February, they declined to do it.

The main motivator was the legal opinion of the city’s attorneys that the statute’s exceptions would be

difficult to fulfill and prove, and would make the city susceptible to lawsuits they’d be “extremely likely to lose,” with possible damages in the tens of millions of dollars.

“Frankly, you can look at it as poison pills, you know, not to be pejorative, but in the statute, it’ll be very difficult for us to prevail on an attempt to defend any ordinance that implemented what they call rent control, rent stabilization,” said City Attorney Joseph Patner, in City Council’s Housing, Land Use and Transportation Committee meeting.

As City Attorney Brad Tennant explained, due to the wording of the statute, the city must prove that the only way to address the emergency is some form of rent control, that rent control will eliminate the emergency, prove that there even is an emergency, and have findings to support those claims.

Further, Tennant continued, the city starts with the burden of proof, rather than with the lawsuit’s plaintiff as is the normal standard. That means, in a lawsuit, the city’s findings must hold up under strict scrutiny in court.

“We have to hit all those boxes, and if we don’t, we’ll lose,” said Patner.

Even proving that there is an emergency could prove difficult, as Patner explained that courts have conflicting points on defining an emergency, with most examples being war, and a specific court case stating that “inflationary spiral is not an emergency.”

The largest hindrance might not even be the findings, but the statute’s definition of luxury.

According to Tennant, they do not know how to interpret the statute’s limitation on luxury rentals with $250 average building rent in 1977 to modern standards. Calculating for inflation, that standard would consider any apartment over $1,150 per month to be a luxury apartment building, and therefore rent control could not apply.

To Council Chairperson Gina Driscoll, landlords might just raise rent a dollar over by the time the rent control could actually come into effect since the council can’t freeze rent in between.

“So we could actually see this backfire this year, and put us in an even worse position as far as the cost of things right now,” she continued. “Next year it would only apply to whatever is left, before we get sued.”

Herself a renter, Driscoll said she’d prefer to focus on immediate assistance, giving those possible tens of millions in damages to renters for the long-term, rather than to landlords in litigation.

“I use myself as an example because I can’t afford most of what’s out there right now, and it seems that the state has very cleverly put into place lots of triggers that actually make this a treacherous path to go down, if we go down it,” Driscoll said.

And St. Petersburg will not, as they voted 3-1 against suggesting to the entire City Council that the city has a housing emergency.

ORANGE COUNTY PUSHES FORWARD

These exact fears of St. Petersburg is the basis of the lawsuit The Florida Apartment Association and the Florida Association of Realtors lodged against Orange County immediately after their ordinance putting rent control on the ballot passed.

“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 associations

“It is my belief that these immense rent increases only benefit the landlords and investors trying to recoup their losses from the pandemic.”

said in their complaint, calling the ordinance “unlawful and invalid.”

The county’s proof of there being a housing emergency is within the ordinance, where they point out 2021’s rental vacancy rate being 5.2% — the lowest on record since 2000. They also highlight the asking-rentper-unit in the county growing from $1,357 in 2020 to $1,697 in 2021 — the highest increase since 2006.

Lasting hours, the public comment in the Orange County Commissioners meeting that passed the ordinance saw supporters like struggling renters, parents and those who’ve relied on rent control in the past, and dissenters that consisted of realtors, smalltime landlords, and an attorney representing the suing associations.

Speaking early on, Scott Glass, a partner at the law firm of Shutts and Bowen in Florida — on retainer by those associations and representing their interests in the lawsuit — held that the burden of proof of a “housing emergency” is on the county, and that there isn’t enough.

He pointed at the population increase the county presented in the ordinance, and said it doesn't tell whether there is a housing deficit because of it. He also critiqued their eviction statistics and that they didn’t acknowledge the effects the federal moratorium on evictions might have had on them.

He claimed that none of the proof presented actually showed rent control as the “necessary and proper” solution either, and this is where many of the dissenters’ arguments went. Multiple people argued rent control would further harm the housing stock by repelling developers, “destroying” market values, and discouraging investment.

create a real and lasting solution to this problem.”

“It is my belief that these immense rent increases only benefit the landlords and investors trying to recoup their losses from the pandemic,” said Kristell Miles, who’s in support of the ordinance. Miles continued that she’s had a 30% increase in rent, and that rent control would give time to find a better, long-term solution.

Jessy Correa, a “professional, hardworking mom,” said her rent increased by $300 within the year, and pointed out that pay was not keeping pace to be able to afford them.

Dissenters vastly outnumbered supporters of the bill, with all having ties to real estate in some form. One small landlord, Andrea Schekolin, said if landlords can’t get a “decent return on our investment, we will have to turn to other sectors of the economy,” lamenting that these units would simply be withdrawn from the market, worsening the problem.

“Stock markets do not call at night complaining that the toilet is clogged,” she said.

County Commissioner Emily Bonilla, who voted in favor of the ordinance, later spoke in response to one speaker who asked the commissioners to not cause a hostile environment for housing.

“What is a hostile environment for housing right now is forcing people to live on couches, floors, in cars, tents, streets, under bridges and on benches. Landlords and developers have created a hostile environment for housing and they call it ‘Renting the American dream,’” she said.

The ordinance passed 4 to 3.

“I don’t know what a rent control would do because there’s still going to be people, regardless, who are going to struggle to pay their rent,” said Mayor Demings before the vote, and dissented, highlighting homeowners who also have the possibility of eviction and need help.

“Even if we decide to advance the rent stabilization ordinance to the ballot, it would be all for naught if we don’t do these things to keep people in their homes right now.”

OTHERS FOLLOW SUIT

Other cities are still trying, or being pressured to, pass rent control measures.

a mother of three, pregnant, on food stamps, and rent went up $300 in one month. Another speaker said his rent went up $750 as his landlord sold his rented home to another, and now his dog won’t be allowed there.

Unlike Orange County, no one spoke against possible rent control.

“I know for a fact that this measure will have a chilling effect on our housing market, and the economy as a whole,” said CEO of the Orlando Regional Realtor Association Cliff Long. He said, rather, the county should disperse federal rental funds “to assist the vulnerable, and work with the housing industry to rapidly increase inventory in Orange County so we can

Lake Worth Beach, lying between St. Petersburg’s fear of a detrimental lawsuit and Orange County’s ballot measure, has declared a state of housing emergency already. Now, they must develop proof to support their decision before they can pass a ballot initiative onto the people.

The council meeting where they discussed the issue was a similar scene to Orange County: it lasted hours, saw struggling renters, parents, and those who’ve relied on rent control in the past.

One speaker expressed that she doesn’t know if she’ll be able to keep a roof over her children’s head, as she’s

“Our state just does not care about us. Tallahassee is not going to do what needs to be done to protect renters, and our community,” said Commissioner Reinaldo Diaz. He described the state of emergency as “stemming the bleed,” not a proper solution, but it does give time. He believes the rising rents are not just inflation, but “people taking advantage.”

According to FIU’s 2021 Palm Beach County Affordable Housing Needs Assessment, 65.5% of Lake Worth Beach renters are cost-burdened, paying over 30% of their income toward rent — one of the highest

Zumper’s National Rent Report shows St. Petersburg in the top 30 cities for rent costs at $1,570, with a year over year increase of 12%. Orlando just beats it out at $1,700 and a 16% year over year increase, with Tampa at $1,800 and a 34% year over year

Income is also not matching these rent increases.

The livable wage for the Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater metro area, according to MIT’s livable wage calculator is $17.17. This supports one person, no children, and affording a studio apartment, with the bare minimum for other expenses like food

St. Petersburg may have declined pursuing rent control, but protests continued into August pushing them to put it on the ballot. In February in Tampa, after the city similarly declined to put the city in a housing state of emergency, protesters continued to fill the council chambers demanding it be put to the ballot.

Whether rent control is a solution or not, many supporters and council members pointed out that it is at least a stop-gap.

“This is not a long-term solution,” said Miles at Orange County’s public comment, who had a 30% increase in rent in one month. “But this is something that will give not only the landlords, but the tenants the opportunity to come up with a solution that can help all of us in an amicable way.”

“I don’t know what a rent control would do because there’s still going to be people, regardless, who are going to struggle to pay their rent,”

“Our state just does not care about us. Tallahassee is not going to do what needs to be done to protect renters and our community,”

Last Wish Granted

Larry’s wish on how to die.

By Jim Lunsford

Larry wasn’t an easy person to like. It took me a few years before I discovered I enjoyed his company. Even then though, it was in small doses. I don’t like being around drunks, and I never saw Larry sober.

He was a landmark in Daytona Beach. The whole time I knew him, he would spend his days near the bus terminal. He told me once he had been on the streets for over thirty years. One look at him and you knew he had been drunk every day of those years.

People would come by where he sat, he never had to fly a sign — everyone seemed to know him. They would buy him some beer, or home-cooked meals, or even cartons of smokes. He rarely had to go to the soup kitchen for one of his occasional meals. He would pass out his gifts and keep what little he wanted, and Larry was just fine with it all.

One day he confessed to me that all he wanted out of life anymore was to die with a beer in his hand.

Towards the end, Larry got ill. I’m surprised he lasted as long as he did, as he never took care of himself. His legs were swollen, and he spent his last days in a wheelchair. The doctors had told him if he didn’t change his ways, he’d soon be dead. As if Larry could, or even wanted to, change — this was all he had known for most of his life.

One night, after taking a morphine pill he had gotten from someone, somewhere, somehow, he passed away in a parking lot. By the time the cops arrived, rigor mortis had a firm grip on old Larry, and that beer he held in his hand. I heard it took them a while to pry it out of his grip. I’m glad he got his one wish.

There’s not a lot to say about Larry that we would call good. In many ways, he is a warning as to how we can all end up if we are stepped on enough. It’s hard to keep trying when all people do is kick you when you’re down. And Larry had been kicked a lot in his life. While no one else may ever understand why, I still miss him sometimes.

Photo illustration by Andrew Fraieli

Photos by Miranda Schumes for the Homeless Voice

“Too Late for Smiling”

A journey through hardship and keeping the faith

By Olivia Jewell Love

Michael White walked down Skid Row in his Sunday suits for years, learning to free himself from his past and look toward new beginnings.

White’s recent book, “Too Late for Smiling,” tells the story of his life, from being a child in foster care, to living on Skid Row, to a man living in Florida with a mission to write.

He was born in Texas, but surrendered to foster care in California — remembering the system being broken from day one.

“The system is so understaffed, the system is overrun,” he said

As a child, White constantly bounced between foster homes. In his eyes, his foster parents took on the task just for the money.

White always had a relationship with God, and he had a demeanor that made people want to hear him. With that faith and skill he entered the ministry at age 14, became a licensed pastor at 16, and soon after became the senior pastor of Calvary Baptist Church. He was a natural leader since he was a child, which lends itself well to being a preacher at such a young age.

He dealt with the disapproval from older members in the church though, those who wondered about the credibility of a young man in the pulpit. Eventually, the hateful stares and underhanded comments became too much to bear.

“After a while, I started hating the church,” White said. “It wasn't because I lost my faith in God; I lost my faith in people.”

White was diagnosed with dyslexia at a young age, which made school difficult, but his tenacious attitude and natural quality as a leader got him through, even excelling in JROTC.

Throughout his book, White describes himself as “the big man on campus,” which seems to be a position

where he naturally ended up time and time again.

“People came to me for leadership,” he said.

The first time White truly saw homelessness was when he stood in front of Skid Row in his early 20’s.

“I wasn’t afraid per say, the only thing that could come to my mind was ‘I’m going to die out here,’” he said.

White spent two and a half years living on Skid Row.

“It's the worst place you can imagine to be homeless, everyone is fighting for food, clothing, something,” he said.

White came to Skid Row with the clothes on his back, which happened to be his Sunday best from when he was a preacher.

“I looked like a minister walking down skid row and I was homeless, I had people turn me away because they didn’t think I was homeless,” he said.

While he never lost his relationship with God, White and others certainly did not want to be preached to on the streets.

“You just feel like you’re being cursed or something,” he said.

He said he constantly had to watch his back and watch others suffer. Feces and needles were spread across the ground, and overdose was so common that White and others knew that sirens from the nearby firehouse meant someone had died.

“Police would not come down Skid Row. They do now, but back then they did not want to come down or go down Skid Row,” White said.

In the end, his personal volition is what helped him survive.

“My faith got me through part of it, the other part was a determination to beat the odds,” he said.

Remembering his time on Skid Row led to a resounding sentence in White’s book: “No one ever considers themselves one step away from being homeless until it happens.”

After leaving Skid Row, White spent years traveling the world, in and out of homelessness. He would not have had the travel opportunities he did, had he not been homeless, he said. Those travels included Jamaica, South Africa, China, Brazil and more.

“I had an adventure. It was more a necessity, but it became an adventure,” he said.

As he was exploring titles for the book about his life, White found that each time he tried to evaluate a name, he considered the feelings that bubbled up to be “too late.”

“I realized that it was too late to laugh, too late to smile, because by that time you’ve been through all of the emotion,” he said. White emphasized that this idea works both ways: not allowing oneself to become tethered to the past which can no longer change.

His journey of self discovery and realization has not been a clear cut path, but White has found writing to be an important outlet and tool to understand his emotions and experiences. He’s written 13 books so far — including “No Time to Choose,” which tells about his time on the streets — and has a goal of writing 50. The writing process is cathartic for him, he explained.

“Couple years ago, I could never write ‘Too Late for Smiling’... it took me a year to write it because certain things were so emotionally binding that when I would get to them I would just break down and lose it,” White said.

Ultimately, learning to accept his past and being able to write about it went hand in hand, and now writing is a way White can process trauma and his past.

“It brought out emotions and feelings and thoughts that I didn’t know I had, I didn’t know I could express,” he said.

Michael White's book, "Too Late For Smiling," is available as a soft cover on Amazon and free on the Kindle.

Michael White receiving a donation in Dania Beach while vending the Homeless Voice.

By Michael Koretzky

Miami Proposes — Then Pauses — a Plan to Send Its Homeless to an Island in Biscayne Bay.

iami is one of the few cities in the world that needs no last name. If you don’t add “Florida,” most people on the planet still know where you’re talking about. Miami loves that international spotlight, from its beaches to its sports teams to its celebrities.

But it hasn’t loved this summer’s coverage of its “homeless island.”

“Homeless haven planned for island near ultra-rich Miami enclave sparks outrage,” read the headline in the New York Post. “Miami pauses plan to dump 100 homeless people on island,” read the headline in the Daily Mail of London. Then there was this hyperbolic headline in the Daily Beast: “Miami Is Tearing Itself Apart Over Bonkers Plan to Move Homeless to Island.”

So what happened exactly? And how did a city so adept at good PR earn so much bad press? Let’s break it down by explaining how Miami — and many cities — start out with the best intentions, only to end up with the worst ideas…

FIRST COMES FRUSTRATION

Miami has long had a homeless problem. The same tropical weather that attracts the world’s wealthiest also attracts the nation’s poorest. In the surrounding county of 2.7 million residents, officials estimate 970 homeless men, women, and children are living on the streets.

Miami has faced decades of lawsuits for its handling of its homeless problem – starting in the 1980s and continuing as recently as June, when the ACLU sued over the city’s practice of destroying the property of homeless men and women.

Since the courts have stymied the city’s efforts to bully the homeless, the next step seemed logical: Get rid of them.

ONE MAN IS AN ISLAND

The idea of sending Miami’s homeless to an island in the nearby bay started with one man – a very powerful man. Former Miami mayor and current city commissioner Joe Carollo has been frustrated over losing all those lawsuits. So last October, he lashed out at homeless advocates by publicly suggesting they “adopt homeless people.”

It was an outburst, not an actual proposal. So earlier this year, Carollo came back with a plan: Open a “temporary tent city” on Virginia Key, a small barrier island in nearby Biscayne Bay. At a little less than 1.5 square miles, it’s home to a state park and not much else, so Carollo convinced a majority of his fellow commissioners to draw up plans for “tiny homes” that would hold 50 to 100 homeless.

“No one wants this in their neighborhood, it’s always somebody else’s they want to dump it in,” Carollo told his fellow commissioners in June. “I think we could move on in looking at one particular site that does not affect any of the population areas. Then we could see if it works in one site if we want to expand it.”

WAVES OF PROBLEMS

Almost immediately, the public outcry was deafening. The local newspaper called it a "sick joke." But besides the optics, there were the logistics.

Carollo’s plan was simple, but also simplistic. A few weeks after the city’s decision, the mayor of the surrounding county quietly sent a five-page memo that was calm but damning. It cited practical issues that city leaders never considered. For example…

• “Virginia Key is in an identified high-risk area for storm surge.” Even a Category 1 hurricane could force Miami to evacuate the homeless to safety – somewhere in the very city they were booted from.

• “We will need to evaluate the availability of police and fire rescue services.” Sending cops and paramedics to an island to treat the homeless will be more expensive.

• ‘Proximity of the proposed transitional housing to the historic Black Beach would likely create significant friction within the community.” It turns out Virginia Key is notorious among civil rights historians and activists. For decades before desegregation, it was the only beach where Black South Floridians were allowed to congregate. Dumping the homeless there would be poor optics and worse politics.

Shortly after the count’s memo was released, Miami leaders were “put on hold.”

OTHER ISLANDS, OTHER PROBLEMS

If you’re going to have a bad suggestion, at least make it an original one. But Carollo’s island idea has been proposed – and in one case, executed – before.

In 2016, a popular radio host in Seattle named John Curley suggested the city declare itself a “no homeless zone” and ship its homeless to the San Juan Islands about 90 miles away. While it generated a lot of debate, there was no version of Joe Carollo to push it through the city commission.

Curley got his idea from Hawaii. Two years earlier, in September 2014, the Honolulu City Council voted to relocate its homeless to the “Sand Island Housing First Transition Center.” Sand Island, like Miami’s Virginia Key, had very little on it. And like Virginia Key, it had a sordid history: After Pearl Harbor was bombed in 1941, more than 600 Hawaiian residents were sent to an internment camp there, most without any evidence of collaborating with the Japanese.

Eventually, a public-private partnership created a $12 million affordable housing development on Sand Island that housed the formerly homeless. And in a depressing twist, in 2020, state law enforcement officers cleared Sand Island of other, unofficial homeless camps.

So even when you send the homeless to an island, it doesn’t work out.

Miami has faced decades of lawsuits for its handling of its homeless problem

Virginia Key , a barrier island in Miami, and where Miami City Commissioner Joe Carollo suggested moving the city's homeless population.