The hope is the First Step Shelter, which will provide 100 beds and an array of help for homeless adults, will open by early next year.
DAYTONA BEACH — There's been a flurry of things happening with the homeless over the past few months, and on Wednesday night Mayor Derrick Henry decided it was time to slow down and bring some clarity to what he and city commissioners want to happen — and not happen.
In short, the mayor wants to stay focused on the new First Step Shelter soon to be under construction on the city's western edge near the Volusia County Branch Jail, and so do at least a few city commissioners.
"Once we start to go down other paths, we can lose focus and dilute resources," Henry said during the City Commission meeting. "If it loses its momentum it won't be able to succeed."
The hope is the First Step Shelter, which will provide 100 beds and an array of help for homeless adults, will open by early next year. Until that shelter opens, homeless people can legally spend the night in what has been dubbed the safe zone, a city-owned piece of property at the corner of Clyde Morris Boulevard and Bellevue Avenue.
In December and January, the safe zone started drawing more and more people, and many of them broke rules that prohibited tents and cooking equipment on the property and banned people from being there between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. Then last week, three things happened in rapid succession.
City leaders asked the board that oversees the First Step Shelter effort to provide close to $600,000 to use property owned by the Salvation Army off LPGA Boulevard west of Derbyshire Road for a new safe zone and a temporary homeless shelter that would run out of tents and trailer buildings. The board said no, so the idea was dropped.
Henry, who chairs the First Step Shelter Board, said one of his top concerns with spending $600,000 of First Step Shelter funds on a temporary shelter is that could prompt the county government to pull its critically important money dedicated to the permanent shelter.
Two days after the temporary shelter idea was scrapped, city officials cracked down on the rules at the existing safe zone, which spurred nearly every one who had been staying there to choose other places to spend their nights. And a few days after that, Halifax Urban Ministries went public with a proposal to turn its family shelter on North Street into a shelter for adults in a few months. Halifax Urban Ministries' board has not made a final decision yet.
"They will probably come before the First Step Shelter Board asking for money," Henry said. "That's not something we should support. First Step's goal is to create a shelter on U.S. 92."
The mayor said it's best to shift homeless people out of the heart of the city, where addicts get easy access to the substances that keep them off balance and live in a "bad environment" that holds them down.
City Commissioner Rob Gilliland expressed some concerns over the Halifax Urban Ministries proposal to turn its 94-bed family shelter into an adult shelter when the nonprofit opens its new family shelter in an old elementary school in a few weeks. Gilliland and City Commissioner Aaron Delgado both said they don't want to dilute or detract attention from the First Step Shelter effort.
"The money was raised with a certain intention," Delgado said.
Delgado he'll be holding his breath until First Step Shelter is fully operational, and he wants to make sure it happens. Any effort to move the safe zone should be "separate and distinct," he said.
"I don't want to confuse people when it comes to money, goals and objectives," Delgado said. "I think the money we have earmarked should stay earmarked."
City Manager Jim Chisholm said it's important for Daytona Beach, and every city in Volusia County, to have a safe zone so case law that addresses police encountering the homeless on the streets isn't violated.
Chisholm said the safe zone was never intended to be a place where the homeless camped out in tents and vehicles, received food and other donations, and were offered help — although that's what it became this winter until police cracked down.
"It was a free-for-all out there," Gilliland said. "I can't tell you how many complaints I got. Publix (on Beville Road) had to get rid of free coffee because there was so much panhandling."
Chisholm said people who weren't homeless settled into the safe zone, "masquerading" as people with nowhere to go to get the free food and cash donations. Fights also started to erupt.
"It's a very dangerous environment without it being controlled, and we said enough is enough," Chisholm said.
Police Chief Craig Capri said only about 25 percent to 30 percent of the people staying in the safe zone were "truly homeless."
"The rest sat there and got free food and used money to drink," Capri said.
Only one person appears to be staying in the safe zone now, he said. Delgado asked if the safe zone could be moved to the city land being used for First Step Shelter, but Chisholm said the site isn't ready for that now.
Asked about the timeline on the new shelter, Chisholm said design is about 25 percent complete. Gilliland was concerned that things aren't moving more quickly. Chisholm didn't respond to Gilliland's request for an estimate of when the shelter will be done, but said he'll provide "a complete report" on shelter progress soon.
Gilliland said he'd like to see it open no later than March 31 next year.
"We're working toward that," Chisholm said.
In other action at Wednesday's meeting, city commissioners also:
Voted unanimously to spend up to $75,000 to hire a Pennsylvania-based consulting firm that will try to help attract a grocery store or some other type of food merchant to the Midtown neighborhood and offer assistance to small business entrepreneurs interested in ventures in that part of the city.
Approved an agreement between the city and Florida Department of Transportation that accelerates design and engineering of the east International Speedway Boulevard project to add a roundabout, raised median, new traffic lights and other improvements along the corridor.
Voted to tackle a $767,950 roof replacement project for Peabody Auditorium. Since the leaky roof was damaged during Hurricane Matthew, the repairs are eligible for $671,956 from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and an additional $95,993 from the state of Florida.