ORLANDO, Fla. – NOTE: This story was originally published on the Orlando Sentinel website.
Orlando arrested more than two dozen people for camping violations in January, according to an Orlando Sentinel tally of court records for the first month of a tough new law that many feared would lead to criminalizing the unsheltered.
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That marked a steep uptick over recent months – the city’s police department arrested 19 people total for the violation between June 1 and Dec. 31 last year, Mayor Buddy Dyer said this week.
It is the only known law enforcement agency in Orange, Seminole and Osceola to make a camping arrest in January, the Sentinel’s tally indicated. However, the city also has the densest homeless population in the region and has had a public camping ban on the books for years, unlike other local jurisdictions. The state law passed last year required every city and county to adopt a camping ban, and many local agencies did so for the first time in the last few months.
Dyer blamed the steep uptick in arrests on the new law, which also requires cities and counties to clear encampments within five business days of receiving a complaint from a business, resident or Florida’s attorney general.
Thirteen of the January arrests came in response to citizen complaints, Dyer told the leadership council of the Central Florida Commission on Homelessness, of which he is a member, on Thursday. “We asked them to leave and they decided they would not, so that’s why we had to arrest them,” he said.
He said teams of city officials including outreach workers and police officers with mental health counselors responded to the complaints centered on a stretch of Central Boulevard between Terry and Parramore Avenues.
The legislation signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis allows somebody who makes a formal complaint to sue a local government if encampments are not cleared.
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Eric Gray, the CEO of the Christian Service Center located near where many of the arrests were, said the uptick is what he expected, even as he doesn’t see arrests as an effective way to address the problem.
“I think the city and county are in a similar place as every other city and county in the state where they don’t feel like they have a choice,” he said. “The whole purpose of there being some type of punishment … is you’re hopefully deterring the same people or future people from committing the same act. The problem here is they’re not actively committing the crime by choice. These are people who have no other options.”
Because the region has a shortage of roughly 1,000 shelter beds, violators of the new state law often can’t be placed in a shelter and instead are taken to jail.
A single Parramore property owner, Phil Cowherd, filed two complaints with Orlando on Jan. 2 and Jan. 6, and those generated about half of the January arrests, records show.
Orange County also received 16 complaints about encampments, mostly through its 311 hotline, but those resulted in no arrests, said Lisa Klier-Graham, the county’s division manager for Mental Health and Homelessness.
The county dispatches outreach teams to respond to complaints first, and if they’re unsuccessful, the sheriff’s office is alerted.
“We want to make sure they get offered services first,” she said. “If they accept services…then that’s the ideal scenario.”
Osceola County, Seminole County and Sanford – also prime locations in the region for people sleeping outside, under overpasses and in the woods – also reported no arrests at the regional meeting.
Dyer received the first emailed complaint from Cowherd. In his email, Cowherd attached photos depicting those experiencing homelessness apparently camping near his properties.
“Over the years I have sent dozens of similar, [if] not identical, pictures to City and County officials requesting protection of our property rights in this vicinity with no resolution…” the email reads. “As I am certain you know, last year the state adopted a statute making it illegal for municipalities and counties to allow or authorize public camping or sleeping without certification of designated public property for such use. The new statute requires us to provide five (5) business days to notice you to cure the violation. Please consider this email said notice.”
A second email from Cowherd, which copied Police Chief Eric Smith and an account for the city’s Homeless Intervention Unit, came four days later.
The following day, OPD made 10 arrests along Central Boulevard between Parramore and Terry Avenues, records show.
So far no lawsuits have been filed. Dyer said OPD responds with their body cameras turned on, so the timestamped footage can be used to show the city’s efforts to clear them.
Of the 25 people arrested in Orlando, 18 of them have been found guilty and sentenced to two days time served in the Orange County Jail. Charges were dropped against one man, while the remaining cases are ongoing. Corrections chief Louis Quiñones said last week the average daily cost to incarcerate someone in Orange County jail is $144.51 per night.
Also last week, Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings convened a board of law enforcement, health care, homelessness and criminal justice experts to study the jail’s policies and procedures. At the meeting, the mayor noted a climb in the jail’s inmate population, as well as an influx of people arrested for homelessness-related offenses dating back to 2021.
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