NOTE: This story was originally published on the Winter Park Voice website.
Winter Park will launch a new program on Monday supported by a federal grant aimed at helping its police department connect homeless people with resources to find housing and other services.
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The three-year $250,000 grant through the U.S. Department of Justice’s Community Oriented Policing Services office is slated to fund a portion of two new sworn officer positions at the Winter Park Police Department dedicated to one-on-one interactions with people who are living on the street.
The status of the money was in jeopardy this week as the Trump administration issued a freeze on all federal grants, though Winter Park officials said they planned to move forward anyway.
“We have every intention of moving forward with the HART [Homeless Advocacy Response Team] program on Monday, even with the grant freeze,” Winter Park Police Chief Tim Volkerson said Wednesday morning.
By Wednesday afternoon, the administration rescinded the federal memo that froze trillions of dollars, but not before there was widespread confusion and upheaval.
City Manager Randy Knight said he met with U.S. Rep. Maxwell Frost’s office to get a better understanding of the impacts of the freeze, but there remained a number of unanswered questions. The grant for the police department is the primary piece of federal funding in the city’s current operating budget, he said.
The Winter Park program illustrates how the federal freeze trickled down to local jobs and neighborhood programs aimed at helping people in crisis.
It also showcased how local governments like the city of Winter Park, which are tasked with everything from sweeping streets and approving new development to providing lights and water to thousands of homes, are also caught in the crossfire of an increasingly combative and unpredictable political environment on the state and federal levels.
Winter Park Police not only felt the effect of President Donald Trump’s attempt to root out federal expenditures that he says don’t align with his political ideology, but also must contend with a new state law that bans camping on public property.
The Florida law — which is modeled on policy from the conservative Texas-based Ciero Institute and has also taken hold in Oklahoma, Texas, Kentucky and elsewhere — allows cities like Winter Park to be sued beginning this month if the city doesn’t enforce the ban on sleeping in public areas. It’s one of a number of state laws in recent years that has mandated new action or pre-empted existing policy by local governments, who often carry the biggest burden when it comes to carrying out policy forged in Tallahassee.
Volkerson said his goal is not to arrest people who are homeless, but to connect them with meals, a change of clothes, a shower, medical care and, when possible, permanent housing.
“While the law has changed, our function hasn’t changed,” he said. “Our parks are closed at night and that’s still the case. We want people to know we have these services available and we are more than happy to take you … we ask what they need.”
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The HART program, which his officers piloted for a few months last year, is intentional about establishing a rapport with people who are in need. The same two officers are assigned to the duty each day and they drive pickup trucks rather than patrol vehicles.
The pick-up trucks are marked, but have regular back seats compared to patrol vehicles, which are outfitted to transport people who are under arrest.
That makes it more likely, Volkerson said, for people in need to accept rides to drop-in centers, shelters or other places where they can find resources. Usually, he said, that doesn’t happen the first time officers talk with someone. It often takes multiple interactions to build up trust so that a person is willing to consider some of the nonprofits that provide assistance.
“Our goal isn’t to take them and dump them. Our goal is to get them the help that they need,” he said. “Ultimately, we want to connect them with something that is sustainable … there are some people who have no desire for permanent help. They are not interested in going to a shelter or connecting with family and friends.”
His officers have not arrested anyone for sleeping in a public space. Most arrests of people who are homeless, he said, are a result of an officer finding the person has an outstanding warrant on other charges.
“We do not see a lot of sleeping in our parks or on our sidewalks,” Volkerson said. “It’s not that common for us to encounter that.”
Most of the interactions take place on private commercial property such as at gas stations or shopping plazas.
He said his officers focus not just on building relationships with people who are homeless, but with agencies in Central Florida that provide support so that the officers can offer the best options to people who want help with qualifying for social security, Medicaid, a new ID or even just a shower and a hot meal.
The federal grant is expected to cover $250,000 over three years. The city of Winter Park is contributing about $280,000 to cover the cost of the trucks, equipment and the difference in wages and benefits that the grant would not cover.
Frost said the freeze of the grant money was akin to an attempted “theft” from local taxpayers.
“This is political posturing the president is doing on spending to free up money so he can pass it along in the form of tax cuts to billionaires and corporations,” he said. “There’s also just the gross incompetence of how it’s being done and the lack of clarity and confusion it’s causing.”
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