Ronald Lee Book is currently responsible for almost four-fifths of Miami's transient population, assuming his numbers are true

Ron Book claims there are only 555 "unsheltered" homeless in Miami-Dade, according to the Miami Times article dated April 13th. 

This morning, I made a count of the homeless Registered Citizen population of Miami-Dade county (i.e., persons listed on the state "sex offense registry"). Of the 1300 Registered Persons listed as living in Miami-Dade County (not counting dead, deported, incarcerated, or absconded Registrants), 432 are listed as "transient." That means 33.2% (roughly a third) of Miami-Dade's registrant population are homeless. Even this number is a misnomer, as 107 Registrants are listed at 18201 SW 12th St., Miami, FL 33194-2700, i.e., the Krome Detention Center. (Despite adjusting the search to exclude incarcerated persons, some were still listed during the search. If adjusted to remove those at Krome, the homeless registrant population is 36.2%. 

If Ron Book's claim of 555 unsheltered homeless number is to be believed, then Ron Book is directly responsible for 77.8% of the unsheltered homeless issue in Miami. 

No one else wants to call him out. I have no problems doing it, of course. Yet,Ron Book still keeps this Homeless Trust gig, desite having lived in Broward County for over half a decade. He has no business running the Homeless Trust. 

https://www.miamitimesonline.com/news/city-of-miami-doubles-down-on-homeless-sweeps/article_2e78aecc-9c9a-11eb-8d27-b718e6c44a45.html

City of Miami doubles down on homeless sweeps

Lack of affordable housing blamed by some for ongoing problem

Erik Bojnansky Miami Times Senior Writer Apr 13, 2021 Updated Apr 14, 2021

The City of Miami will ramp up its campaign to dismantle homeless encampments, in spite of concerns that such actions might violate the civil rights of the people living there.

On April 8, the Miami City Commission unanimously authorized the city to ramp up “homeless cleanup response” sweeps to twice a week.

William Porro, assistant director of the city’s human services department, said the cleanup frequencies need to be increased and improved in order to reduce Miami’s homeless population in an effective, yet humane way. As of January 2020, the latest demographic survey by the Miami-Dade County Homeless Trust, nearly 57% of Miami-Dade County’s homeless population was Black.

“We truly do want to give individuals dignified, humane assistance in referring them to the established continuum of care, [and] this includes housing,” Porro told commissioners at last Thursday’s meeting.

Since Feb. 10, the City of Miami has conducted 23 “major cleanups” utilizing personnel from 10 city departments including police, sanitation and human services’ “green shirts” – a team of formerly homeless individuals. During those cleanups, Porro claimed that more than 20 tons of garbage were carted away. The sweeps were launched four months after an appellate court scrapped a 1998 legal settlement known as the Pottinger Agreement that governed how the city could treat people living on the streets. It also accompanied legislation banning the feeding of the homeless outside of designated areas, or giving them tents.

Benjamin Waxman, president of the Greater Miami chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, said his organization has no problem with the city cleaning up the sidewalks near the makeshift encampments, or offering shelter beds. What the ACLU does object to is city employees harassing the homeless or throwing away their property.

“The city is supposed to be committed to assisting homeless people, not making their lives more miserable,” Waxman said.

The ACLU denounced the first set of sweeps in a Feb. 23 letter to City of Miami.

“City workers seized and destroyed people’s belongings, including their tents. One person reported sustaining injuries while being dragged in the street inside his own tent as it was being taken to be placed in the garbage. … While at least some (homeless) were offered hotel rooms, they were not given any information about how long they could stay or what would happen after their stay at the hotel room ended,” the ACLU letter stated.

Porro admitted he’s in the process of adjusting how the sweeps are conducted.

“I have … asked for a legal review just to clarify … the things we can and cannot do in terms of the tents and a lot of the nuances that entails,” Porro said during the April 8 city commission meeting.

David Peery, a formerly homeless individual-turned-homeless advocate, said those adjustments were apparent during an April 7 city sweep of encampments in Overtown at NW 10th and 11th Streets between NW 3rd and 5th Avenues. While a few disheveled tents were dismantled and thrown away, city workers did not touch tents that were on the sidewalks. Instead, municipal employees used pressure cleaners to clean around the tents. Peery opined that the city’s actions that day mainly had to do with the fact that several homeless advocates were present to watch the city employees.

“We had a large contingent of people show up. They were looking at us looking at them. It was kind of weird,” Peery said.

Waxman said the respectful attitude city employees displayed at the April 7 sweep was very different than what he witnessed a week earlier in downtown Miami at NW 1st Court and 1st Place.

“That cleanup effort was, in my estimation, very chaotic. It was not respectful of the people’s rights, and was much more aggressive,” the ACLU attorney told The Miami Times.

During his testimony to city commissioners, Porro said his teams are still up against “well-meaning individuals” who still insist on giving tents and food to the homeless. Porro also acknowledged that homeless encampments continue to pop up at certain “hot spots” after sweeps.

“We’ve got to tweak the whole continuum of care and outreach,” Porro said. “They’re doing an amazing job getting people referred to shelters. But shelter-resistant individuals, for a variety of reasons, are put back on the street after two weeks. Seriously, it is really a difficult situation.”

Commissioner Joe Carollo said the city has done a much better job dismantling homeless encampments in Little Havana. However, Carollo added, “tent cities” are still very visible in downtown Miami.

“I have to say that downtown is beginning to look like a war zone,” Carollo told Porro.

Porro replied that 54% of Miami’s unsheltered homeless, 355 individuals, congregate in that area. In comparison, Overtown, a neighborhood with the second-largest concentration of homeless, has 89 unsheltered individuals, or 13% of Miami’s homeless population.

Commissioner Jeffrey Watson, whose district includes Overtown, asked Porro if additional funding was needed.

“Are there any financial commitments not fulfilled?” Watson asked.

“We are all looking at that very carefully with a sharp pencil, because we don’t want to increase costs, obviously,” Porro replied, adding, “There are some positions in our outreach team that we need to fill.”

Homeless advocates insist there aren’t enough shelter beds to accommodate the county’s entire unsheltered population, which is why some people donate tents to the homeless. However, Ron Book, chairman of the Miami-Dade County Homeless Trust, insisted that the city’s estimated unsheltered population of 555 is the lowest since August 2014. At the same time, Book said he’s been able to leverage COVID-19 federal funding to obtain additional beds in local hotels.

“During the course of the pandemic, we have seen the greatest allocation in U.S. history of new federal money for housing and homelessness, and we are scaling up. We have more than 1,000 households referred to housing right now and that number grows daily,” Book wrote in an email to The Miami Times. “We want to engage people effectively and get them in the pipeline to benefit from these tremendous new resources.”

On Friday, April 9, in a press conference at Camillus House’s main shelter at 1603 NW 7th Ave., Mayor Francis Suarez announced the donation of 150 new, adjustable mechanical beds from Reach Out America, a Texas-based nonprofit that provides disaster relief supplies. Hilda Fernandez, CEO of Camillus House, said the 150 beds would be deployed within the organization’s 11 facilities throughout Miami-Dade County, which already encompasses around 1,800 beds.

Suarez said the bed donations will help Miami combat homelessness, adding that his city was even now developing plans to reduce the unsheltered population to “functional zero.”

“We want to get to the point where they are all able to reintegrate into society … in a humane fashion,” Suarez said.

The best way to do that, Waxman countered, is to build more housing that’s actually affordable for low-income individuals and families.

“That is why they keep coming back [to the street]. The alternatives are simply not there,” Waxman said.

Ron Book and his Miami-Dade cronies spend Homelessness Awareness Week by evicting homeless folks from camp

"Helping the homeless", Miami-style.

https://www.local10.com/news/2019/11/19/miami-dade-county-closing-down-homeless-camp-while-promoting-awareness-week/

Miami-Dade County closing down homeless camp while promoting awareness week
Homeless camp on stretch of 37th Avenue being shut by county

MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. – A group of people living in a Miami homeless camp is being told to leave. 

This is happening in the middle of Homeless Awareness Week. 

Some of those people built shelter out of whatever they could find.

Others are living in their cars, and some in makeshift trailers.

The homeless camp is located on a stretch of Northwest 37th Avenue in Miami.

It's now so large that the county is deeming it a sanitary nuisance and a safety issue, sending cease and desist notices to dozens who call the street home.

The order comes into effect as the county is promoting its hunger and homelessness awareness week, asking the public to be more considerate of residents without roofs over their heads.

Homeless advocate and Pastor Frank Diaz says most of the men living at the camp are registered sex offenders who have virtually nowhere to go.

"Everyone considers this a hot potato," Diaz said.

According to Diaz, unless the mayor and county officials can help these people find a permanent place to live, they’re not just going to go away.

"For the last six months, I’ve been trying to sit down with the mayor, but apparently he’s very busy," Diaz said.

Lauren Book's legacy in Miami-Dade continues as homeless registrants are forced to move again

Here we go again. Lauren Book hasn't lived in Miami-Dade County for years but the Hitler-esque bill named in her "honor" continues to be an international embarrassment. Now, I recognize that some readers don't care about folks on the sex offense registry, but it is a proven fact that lack of housing promotes crime. This means the Books are putting your families at risk for their personal quest for vengeance.

Just think about how much time, energy, and taxpayer dollars go towards all of this harassment.

Stop me if you've heard this song before: Homeless Registrants in Miami must move again

Where have we heard this before? It is like a music tour, the cities change but the names remain the same. Julia Tuttle, Shorecreast, Allapattah, Hialeah, and now apparently Brownsville.

Honestly, when can we stop citing Ron Book as if he's helping with the solution?

If there is a hell, Ron Book will have his own circle of it after his passing.

https://www.miaminewtimes.com/news/homeless-sex-offenders-booted-offered-shelter-by-frank-diazs-united-we-all-can-11191829

Homeless Sex Offenders Must Move Again
JESSICA LIPSCOMB | JUNE 11, 2019 | 9:00AM

Ever since the Julia Tuttle Causeway became an encampment for sex offenders more than a decade ago, officials have been trying to shoo the group away from the rest of civilization. Thanks to stringent requirements mandating that child predators live 2,500 feet from schools, parks, and daycare centers, the offenders have struggled to find legal housing, leaving many effectively homeless. For years, the roving offenders have been shuffled from one place to another, angering unlucky neighbors and nearby business owners.

After a 2017 New Times report about unsanitary living conditions at the group's tent city near Hialeah, county commissioners booted the group. It split into smaller factions across the county; some members even left the state.

Now the county is preparing to break up a growing colony of sex offenders living on NW 48th Street in Brownsville. An official notice posted in the area says the state has declared the encampment a sanitary nuisance, and the county considers those living there to be in violation of Miami-Dade code. The county "will be forced to take appropriate enforcement action including, but not limited to, civil penalties and/or arrest" of those who do not vacate by June 20, the sign warns.

"They put up a notice saying, 'Kick rocks — you've got to get out of here.' The question is, to where?" says Frank Diaz, a local pastor who ministers to offenders at the camp.

Diaz says he and his nonprofit group, United We All Can, already care for homeless people in faith-based shelters across Miami-Dade. He'd like to further his outreach by dedicating an entire "restoration home" to displaced sex offenders.

"What we're asking is the county give us a place in an industrial area where it's away from parks, schools, and communities,” Diaz says. “We can build that place up and house them there. We'll minister to them, but the county's gotta help us find the property."

Ron Book, the ultrapowerful lobbyist who chairs the Homeless Trust, sees merit in the idea. It could help rehabilitate some sex offenders and make it easier for law enforcement and probation officers to keep track of the population.

"If somebody wants to build something away from the general population, we would certainly encourage that," Book says.

But he says he can't seriously entertain a proposal until it's fully fleshed out. And he's uncertain about using the Trust budget for such a project.

"Taking significant funds to fund the building or the renovation — you know, that remains to be seen as to my willingness to do that," Book says.

Without any clear direction on legal homes, the offenders now rely on word-of-mouth suggestions for places that fit the county's narrow criteria. Diaz says the law actually makes residents less safe in some ways because the sex offenders can't find steady housing or work.

"The only thing they're doing is getting angry," he says, "and what we want to do is restore them so they become productive and they don't recommit these types of offenses."

In the meantime, the group on NW 48th Street will be forced to find a new home, which, Diaz says, "is not a solution that works. They're just sweeping bodies under the rug and saying this is not a problem."

While everyone was busy watching Ron Book's DUI arrest, THIS happened

It was suspected that once Ron Book and the Miami-Dade County Commission excluded registered persons from the Pottinger Agreement, there would be a push to undo the Pottinger Agreement altogether. They did. The police can now arrest the homeless for shits and giggles now. And it is all thanks to Ron Book. 

https://www.miaminewtimes.com/news/miami-judge-throws-out-pottinger-homeless-protection-law-11087371

Judge Invalidates Miami's Landmark Homeless-Protection Order From 1998

JERRY IANNELLI | FEBRUARY 15, 2019 | 3:16PM

One of the nation's landmark homeless-protection laws is now gone.

Since May 2018, the City of Miami has been trying to invalidate a 1998 legal decision that prevented city cops from arresting homeless people for living their lives outside. The so-called Pottinger Agreement, named for homeless Miamian Michael Pottinger, prevented police from, say, arresting homeless people for sleeping outside or placing their items on the sidewalk.

Even with those protections in place, the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida said Miami cops were blatantly harassing the homeless — including spraying them with power washers and arresting a woman who was in dire need of medical care and likely died due to the detainment. The ACLU also argued the City of Miami was trying to terminate the agreement as a way to sweep homeless residents out of the rapidly gentrifying downtown area.

The ACLU fought for roughly a decade to pass the agreement. In 1988, the rights group teamed up with more than 5,000 homeless Miamians to sue the city. The ACLU said Miami cops were intentionally harassing the homeless, destroying their property, and arresting them for no reason. Courts at the time agreed: In 1998, after ten years of legal battling, the city entered into a consent decree. Per the Pottinger Agreement, cops couldn't wantonly arrest the homeless or destroy their belongings anymore. Instead, officers had to give the homeless a chance to enter a shelter before arresting them for life-sustaining activity.

In its legal filing last year, the City of Miami argued the Pottinger Agreement was no longer necessary: The city said that homeless residents have more resources now than they had in 1998 and that the agreement made it more difficult for police to patrol the city.

But homeless residents strongly disagreed.

Ben Waxman, the ACLU attorney who fought to pass the agreement, last year protected it from the City of Miami's attack. He did not respond to a phone call from New Times this afternoon.

The ACLU's legal brief provided ample evidence that Miami cops were still violating the Pottinger rules:

Plaintiffs have amassed nearly two dozen declarations from homeless persons who recently have had their property destroyed, have been ordered to leave public sidewalks while committing no crime, or have been harassed by police and/or arrested without being offered shelter. Plaintiffs possess video evidence demonstrating that the City is collecting and destroying homeless persons’ property en masse. They have video evidence of homeless persons being arrested without probable cause, and without any offer of shelter.

 The filing continued.

Beginning some three to six months ago or more, the City embarked upon a “cleanup” of various targeted areas throughout Miami. City employees, typically working under the supervision of the police, have seized what are clearly homeless people’s belongings and hauled them off like trash – at times over the desperate pleadings of individuals trying to save them. Separately or in connection with these “clean-ups,” City police officers have been threatening homeless persons with arrest – explicitly or implicitly in the form of orders to move on from an area – without offering shelter, and often without even citing any legal violation. On many occasions, these hreatst have amounted to banishment from a given area, as the police admonish homeless persons to stay away from that area and not come back. Finally, City police have failed to document their interactions with homeless persons in the “clean-ups” and sweeps, as required by the Consent Decree.

The ACLU also provided New Times with video and photographic evidence of MPD officers harassing the homeless. In one instance, cops were taped "cleaning up" a homeless encampment and destroying property that had been left on sidewalks, including crucial items such as ID cards and birth certificates.

But in the most upsetting case, Miami PD was filmed arresting a homeless woman named Tabitha Bass in March 2018. Bass had been sleeping on the street with her boyfriend, but when cops asked her for ID, she said she didn't have any. Officers then took her to jail for "obstructing the sidewalk," in what the ACLU said was a transparent Pottinger violation. But Bass was also ill at the time. She spent three days in jail without access to medical care — which advocates say directly led to her death mere weeks later.

The Camel's Nose: Now that Miami-Dade excluded registrants from the Pottinger Agreement, now they're trying to eliminate the Pottinger Agreement altogether

Miami-Dade has been trying to undo the Pottinger Agreement for years after it was made. They used Predator Panic to achieve that goal. It was the old adage about the camel's nose in the tent. Now that the rights of some of Miami-Dade's homeless have been excluded from the Pottinger Agreement, the assault on the Pottinger Agreement itself can commence.

THIS is why everyone should fight for the rights of all Americans, even those unpopular ones.

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/article212189034.html

A decree bars police from harassing homeless people. Miami has moved to terminate it.
BY JOEY FLECHAS

jflechas@miamiherald.com

May 30, 2018 02:27 PM

Miami has asked a federal judge to terminate a 20-year-old legal agreement that protects the city's homeless from undue police harassment — a change that would allow the police to arrest the homeless for loitering.


The city on Wednesday filed a motion in U.S. District Court to terminate the Pottinger agreement, a 1998 consent decree that prevents police from arresting homeless people for "life-sustaining" activities such as sleeping on the sidewalk, starting a cooking fire or urinating in public. The agreement stems from a landmark lawsuit brought against the city in the early 1990s by 5,000 homeless people and the American Civil Liberties Union to stop the police practice of arresting the homeless for loitering, saying it was unconstitutional.

For two decades, the Pottinger agreement — named for one of the plaintiffs, Michael Pottinger — has governed how police can interact with the homeless. In April, city commissioners unanimously passed a resolution instructing the city attorney to takes steps toward ending or amending the agreement. That resolution was sponsored by Mayor Francis Suarez and commissioners Joe Carollo and Manolo Reyes.

Wednesday's motion solidifies the city's stance that the agreement's additional protections for the homeless are no longer needed in Miami because the city can humanely steer people on the street toward an expanded range of services that were not available in 1998.

“The circumstances have changed, and today Pottinger restricts the city from acting in the best interest of homeless persons and residents in general,” said City Manager Emilio González, in a statement. “Without the constraints of Pottinger we can better provide services for the homeless with dignity and compassion.”

The ACLU and advocates for the homeless disagree, pointing to a recent rash of incidents when they say the police violated the agreement and harassed the homeless.

"It's simply not true that the city's treatment of the homeless bears no resemblance to the way the police treated the homeless in the years leading up to the lawsuit," said Benjamin Waxman, the volunteer ACLU attorney handling the case.

Waxman cited the city's biweekly "cleanups" conducted by its Homeless Assistance Program, the team of city employees who are supposed to work with people living on the streets. Homeless people have claimed harassment, telling the Miami New Times that city workers have tried to kick them out of certain areas and destroy their property — violations of the Pottinger agreement.

In one case, a woman arrested for obstructing the sidewalk later died in custody, which activists say was because she did not receive proper medical attention while under arrest.

"They’re simply making a crime of the fact that people do not have houses,” said David Peery, an advocate who is another plaintiff in the federal settlement.

Peery recently told the Miami Herald he believes that if the woman, Tabitha Bass, had been taken to a shelter and offered services, she would have received the medical attention she needed. Footage from the body camera worn by the officer who made the arrest, Carla Gonzalez, shows the officer did not give Bass a warning or offer her shelter before arresting her. This was a violation of the Pottinger agreement, Peery said, that he feels contributed to her ill health.

"I think everyone can agree this does not help someone who is fragile from a medical condition," he said.

On the other side of the debate, downtown residents have urged the city to ask the court to end Pottinger. Some have complained that the public defecation presents a public health issue and say police should not be hampered by additional rules when interacting with the homeless. Several told commissioners they believe the homeless who remain on the street are largely there because they want to be there.

In a prepared statement, the city argued that the decree hurts the city's ability to assist people living on the street.

"The Pottinger consent decree restricts the city from taking actions in situations such as the observation of a homeless person obstructing a sidewalk, or a homeless person urinating or defecating in public," reads the statement. "It also restricts the city from offering shelter beds that are available outside of the city of Miami. No other South Florida municipality faces such restrictions."

In the motion, Miami's city attorneys emphasize the demographic changes in downtown, suggesting that the arrival of new businesses, increase in tourist traffic and growth in residential and hotel developments are reasons the consent decree should be terminated.

The city attorneys also bring up the Sept. 11 attacks and the Boston Marathon bombing, arguing that the homeless protections could threaten public safety.

"Because of the Pottinger consent decree, however, the city police department's ability to carry out security-related investigations of what may or may not be homeless property is extremely limited, endangering the public at large," reads the motion.

If the judge doesn't agree to strike down the consent decree, the city is asking for some key changes. The proposed amendments would allow the city to take homeless who accept shelter to any available bed in Miami-Dade County — currently, Miami police are restricted to taking people only to shelters within city limits. Another proposed change would allow the city to classify some homeless people as "chronically homeless" and exempt them from Pottinger's protections.

"By remaining on the streets, there is a greater likelihood that chronically homeless individuals (particularly those who suffer from serious mental illness, substance abuse, or both) may engage in aggressive panhandling, theft or violent crimes," Miami attorneys wrote.

Peery said the issues of mental illness and drug addiction are concerns that are best addressed under the decree's rules, because the decree should force police to steer homeless individuals to health programs where they can get the help they need.

After the city filed its motion Wednesday, Waxman said he would file a motion to enforce the decree. The competing motions will force a federal judge to hear both sides before ruling on the matter, likely within a few weeks.

Ron Book got his wish and Bookville IV is gone, now taking bets on Bookville V

Does someone want to take bets on the next Bookville camp? According to this website, the 10 cities below are the poorest neighborhoods in Miami. Of course, Allapattah was already a registrant hub, so I'd not put my money on them going back.

1 Model City
2 Overtown
3 Allapattah
4 Little Haiti
5 Wynwood
6 Flagami
7 Little Havana
8 West Flagler
9 South Coconut Grove
10 Upper Eastside

https://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local/Police-Move-Remaining-Homeless-Sex-Offenders-Out-Of-Encampment-482451171.html

Police Move Remaining Homeless Sex Offenders Out Of Encampment
Published at 9:25 AM EDT on May 12, 2018 | Updated 6 hours ago

All of the homeless sex offenders living in a make-shift encampment in northwest Miami-Dade have been moved out of the area, police say.

Dozens of sex offenders and predators were residing in tents near NW 71st Street and 36th Avenue due to a Miami-Dade ordinance that required registered sex offenders to live about 2500 feet away from schools and child-care centers. The make-shift homes are within those parameters, but the Florida Department of Health determined the homes were a health hazard and unsanitary living spaces.

“At night, there’s rats everywhere,” one resident said. “They crawl on your face, and when it rains you get soaked. It’s a very, very bad place. And now, to be evicted, it’s even worse.”

Alvaro Zabaleta, detective with the Miami-Dade Police Department, said officers have been communicating with the residents for more than 45 days about impending eviction.

“[…] Now they have to move, and we cannot tell them where to go,” he said.

Zabaleta said residents have to notify the department’s sexual predator office and register their new location. Once they provide the location, officials will tell them if it’s within the guidelines, Zabaleta said.

Sex offenders aren't allowed at the county's homeless shelters and there are many restrictions on where they're allowed to live.

“Because of the difficulty they have finding house, they will most likely relocate to another street corner to avoid arrest and new encampments will pop up and this cycle will continue,” said Jeffrey Hearne from Legal Service of Greater Miami.

Sex offender camps are nothing new to South Florida. From 2006 to 2010, hundreds lived under the Julia Tuttle causeway until it was disbanded.

Last week, residents in West Kendall grew angry and protested after hearing that some of the homeless may relocate to a spot along Kendall Drive and Krome Avenue, where over a dozen people reportedly are already living.

Officials are in the process of clearing out the area.

We can't trust Miami PD, either

Berlin had the Brown Shirts; Miami has the Green Shirts

Are you aware that Miami has been one of the meanest cities in America for years? Are you aware that Miami has actually tried to overturn a law protecting the homeless from status-based arrests at least as far back as 2013?

If anyone has doubts that Ron Book is bullying the homeless, look at the parallel story on the Green Shirts harassing and destroying the property of homeless Miamians.

http://www.miaminewtimes.com/news/miami-dade-sex-offenders-face-arrest-with-closure-of-encampment-on-may-6-10299920

Updated: Miami-Dade Will Close Sex Offender Camp by May 6, Threatens Jail Time for Stragglers
JESSICA LIPSCOMB | APRIL 27, 2018 | 8:00AM

In December, after New Times published its latest story chronicling the squalid conditions of the camp and its effect on local business owners, Miami-Dade's Public Safety and Health Committee took action. With a vote of 3-1, commissioners on the committee voted to amend an outdoor camping ordinance in a way that would effectively shut down the camp. The rest of the county commission passed the item in January, and Mayor Carlos Gimenez in March issued a memo giving the homeless residents 45 days to vacate.

With the May 6 deadline quickly approaching, outreach groups have been working with the sex offenders to find new places to live. But thanks to stringent local laws governing where sex offenders can live, many homeless advocates worry they have few alternatives to their camp near the intersection of NW 71st Street and 36th Court. According to the mayor's letter, Miami-Dade Police officers have the option to "remove" those who stay, a clause that refers to a local law permitting police to arrest those who trespass on county property.

"The message being given to the people living there is if you're there on May 7, that you'll be subject to arrest," says Jeffrey Hearne, an attorney with Legal Services who has represented residents of the camp.

As many as 300 sex offenders have a registered address at or near the encampment, according to state records. Under a 2005 county law ordinance named for Lauren Book, a Florida senator and survivor of child sex abuse, offenders who abused victims under the age of 16 must live 2,500 feet from any school, much farther than the 1,000 feet required under state law.

A 2017 report commissioned by the ACLU found that across the county, only 320 affordable rental units met those guidelines.

Since August, the Homeless Trust, its chairman Ron Book (Lauren's father), and the Housing Assistance Network of Dade have been distributing information about rental assistance to the homeless offenders who live at the camp. But other homeless advocates say the assistance is no good if the offenders can't find a landlord who will rent them a home.

"Many people there would love to accept that rental assistance, but they have not been able to find the housing which would permit them to accept it," the ACLU's Jeanne Baker told commissioners in December.

As the deadline looms, it remains unclear what will become of the people who stay behind at the camp. Frank Diaz, a pastor who works with the homeless residents, says probation officers are encouraging some offenders to move near the Krome Service Processing Center at the edge of the Everglades.

"They have been told starting May 6, whoever remains is gonna be taken away, have all their possessions thrown away, and possibly be arrested," Diaz says.

The Miami-Dade Police Department has not yet answered New Times' questions about what will happen after the deadline.

Update: Detective Alvaro Zabaleta, a spokesman for Miami-Dade Police, says the department’s sexual predator unit is aware of the memorandum and is monitoring the situation to determine a plan of action come May 6.

“We’re hoping everyone gets placed and everything works itself out between the county and them,” he says. “The memo says we are the last resort. We want to make sure that is the case.”

No formal directive has been issued yet because it’s still unclear if or how many offenders will remain at the camp after the deadline.

“The last thing we want is to have to take any enforcement,” Zabaleta says. “It just depends how everything lays out between now and May 6. It’s hard for us to have a plan of action if we don’t know how things are going to go.”

http://www.miaminewtimes.com/news/video-shows-miami-green-shirts-destroying-homeless-property-violating-pottinger-agreement-10292474

Video Shows City Workers Destroying Property of Homeless Miamians
TARPLEY HITT | APRIL 25, 2018 | 8:31AM

The morning of April 17, Wilbur Cauley left all of his belongings in their usual place: stacked by a fence under the I-395 overpass at NW First Court and 13th Street. It was in the middle of a four-block area where about 30 homeless Miamians live. That morning, Cauley, an Army veteran in his late 50s who served three years in Germany, went to a nearby store for a soda. When he returned, he says, a man in a dark-green shirt was kicking bags that contained Cauley's birth certificate, driver's license, clothes, bedding, and even the food he keeps on hand to avoid diabetic shock.

"I said, 'Hey, what are you doing?' and I tried to get my stuff," Cauley recalls. "But the guy wouldn't let me get anything. He grabbed my arm and then he took all my stuff... They threw it all away. They took everything I have."

Cauley's version of events is supported by photos, video footage, and testimony from a half-dozen eyewitnesses, including Benji Waxman, a Miami lawyer and volunteer at the American Civil Liberties Union, and David Peery, a local activist who has experienced homelessness himself. Waxman and Peery have been involved in homelessness advocacy in Miami for years, and they say tensions between the city and locals have spiked in recent months.

Cauley’s antagonist was a member of the Miami Homeless Assistance Program, a group also known as "green shirts” because of their signature forest-green uniforms. The program, staffed partially by former homeless men and women, is tasked with providing aid and services to the area's homeless population. Over the years, the green shirts have been both praised for their hard work and criticized for harassing and even stealing from the very people they are supposed to help.

Now, Peery and Waxman say, they are at it again — conducting biweekly "cleanups" of areas where homeless people congregate, damaging property, and throwing away people's belongings. Waxman says the green shirts, police officers, and workers from several other city departments have mounted an aggressive campaign across Miami to chase homeless people out of the areas where they live. According to Cauley, the city has been “cleaning up” the First Court area twice a week for almost six months — acting in what Waxman and Peery claim is a direct violation of the famous South Florida federal court decision Pottinger v. City of Miami.

The historic class-action lawsuit was filed in 1988 by a group of 6,000 homeless people against the City of Miami. The plaintiffs, then led by a man named Michael Pottinger, and now by Peery, argued the city had criminalized homelessness by prosecuting people for misdemeanors they could not avoid committing — such as sleeping, bathing, or building a fire for warmth. “You cannot make a person an outlaw just because they don’t have a home,” Peery says.

When the case was settled a decade later, the judge set in place certain agreements between the City of Miami and the homeless population. Homeless individuals are now protected under the Pottinger agreement from being arrested for performing necessary, life-sustaining activities in public. Instead, the city must offer shelter and services before evacuating certain areas.

The decision includes another key stipulation: City officials may not seize or damage the belongings of homeless people unless they pose an obvious threat to public health. But Cauley, Waxman, and Peery say that’s exactly what the green shirts were doing April 17.

The city has a different story. “All property and people are treated with dignity and respect,” says Eugene Ramirez, director of communications for the City of Miami. “If our outreach staff finds any documents in clean-up areas, they collect them and bring them to the office for safekeeping. They leave a notice where the property is found so people can come collect their items.”

Ron Book, who runs the Miami-Dade Homeless Trust, says the county is working with the City of Miami to reduce homelessness. “Our goal is to be as aggressive as we can to encourage people to take housing,” Book says. “I am aware that there have been street cleanings to try to clear the streets.”

Many green shirts go to great lengths to ensure the well-being of their clients — Ramirez claims they collect items to protect them from damage during street cleaning. But Cauley responds that some of the outreach personnel go out of their way to harass the homeless community, such as conducting street cleanings at ungodly hours (as early as 3 a.m.), waking residents while they sleep, and forcing people out of public areas without offering another place to go.

“It’s total harassment,” he says. “Even if you’re sitting on the curb and nothing is behind you, they’ll say you’re blocking the sidewalk. You have to sit up against the fence like you’re in the military or something.”

So what exactly happened the morning of April 17? According to Waxman, six green shirts arrived in the area around 8:30 a.m. They came with several police officers, a handful of Neighborhood Enhancement Team  members, and a parade of cleaning vehicles: a dump truck, a water pressure cleaner, three or four pickup trucks, and a street sweeper. The group stood around for a while, surveying the scene, and about an hour later, one of the green shirts announced the cleanup would begin.

"He walked up the middle of NW 1st Court and loudly ordered everyone to move their possessions immediately," Peery wrote in a complaint letter to the city. "When they walked up to Wilbur Cauley's possessions — bedding, clothes, a backpack and sheets that were stacked neatly against a fence — the large male Greenshirt shouted ‘Okay, now we're going to throw your shit away!’”

Peery filmed the incident on his phone. The video shows the green shirt moving Cauley’s possessions into a pile in the middle of the sidewalk and throwing other items on top. A woman on the sidewalk screams at the official and tells him to stop stealing her things. The man ignores her — he kicks and throws more stuff onto the pile. Only one person in the video is able to retrieve something from the pile. Others photos shows the same green shirt standing over and blocking Cauley’s stuff.

In all, Cauley lost every piece of identification he had, including his veteran bus card and his social security card. Losing your ID is always a nightmare, but it’s especially horrible if you’re homeless. Any shelter he might visit or any job he might apply for requires ID.

Peery says these regular cleanups are a less-than-subtle way of herding homeless people away from popular congregating spots.

“The campaign is working,” Peery says. “I went down to Lot 16 the other day, and no one was there.” Lot 16 is an area south of the Main Library and east of the Miami River, where some 50 or 60 homeless people used to live. After the city began conducting regular street cleanings, Peery says, everyone relocated. “And it’s happening here too. You see today, people have already left.”

The Pottinger settlement did leave in place a mediation clause — where plaintiffs can request meetings with the city over perceived violations of the agreement. Peery and Waxman requested a mediation, and one was scheduled for the morning of April 24. There is no report yet on the outcome.

“I’m hoping to convince the mediator of three things,” Peery says. “Number one, to tell the city to please stop. Number two, to compensate people for all the possessions they have lost. And number three, to please guarantee this won’t happen again.”

There has never been been a better time to use this graphic

Book Crime Family & the Miami-Dade County wants the homeless to move out to the Everglades, where there are absolutely NO resources within 2 miles of the facility, except a casino