Tensions between south side neighborhoods and the homeless - and various agencies that serve them - have boiled over in recent months.
By RON MATUS
Published May 2, 2003
SOUTH TAMPA - When unidentified donors stepped up last week to keep hot meals rolling at the Salvation Army, they did hundreds of homeless people a favor.
Bud Wacaser couldn't help but groan.
He and his family live in a restored, two-story house in up-and-coming Tampa Heights, a few blocks from the group's soup kitchen on Florida Avenue. Scruffy strangers don't phase him. Neither do occasional knocks on the door, or requests for soap or sandwiches or jobs raking leaves.
But when he has to pick up their garbage? That's when he draws the line.
Wacaser, 43, says the homeless toss their trash wherever they finish their meals, including on his lawn.
"I don't think anyone has a problem with the homeless," Wacaser said, before stooping to pick up a plastic fork and an empty potato chip bag. "But we wish (social service agencies) would exert a little more control."
Wacaser isn't the only one voicing frustration these days.
Tensions between south side neighborhoods and the homeless, always simmering behind the scenes, have boiled over in recent months. Homeless advocates say efforts to revitalize gritty areas such as Tampa Heights and Ybor City, both magnets for homeless people, may be one reason why.
Residents are "trying to make their property values rise. I don't blame them for that," said Jim Joyce, president of the Hillsborough County Homeless Coalition.
But homeless people were there first and "we can't keep pushing them from one corner to another corner to another corner," he said. "We're running out of corners."
Joyce's solution? Keep the communication lines open between agencies and neighborhoods.
"We need to have dialogue," he said. "Neighborhoods have rights. So do these folks."
Advocates know all about not-in-my-back yard sentiment.
But rarely have they heard so much all at once.
- In Ybor City, merchants asked city officials earlier this year to find a legal remedy that could shoo away panhandlers.
- On Kennedy Boulevard, the owner of the building that houses the Faith Cafe soup kitchen announced last month that it will close within a year in response to complaints.
- In Tampa Heights, residents who have wrestled with homeless issues for years got a new frustration last week: The Salvation Army won't close its soup kitchen after all, despite an earlier announcement.
- "We're not callous people. ... We just want the same standards that everyone else wants," Tampa Heights civic association President Ralph Schuler told the St. Petersburg Times for a story last week. "Tampa Heights is finally digging itself out of the gutter."
Once a hot spot for drugs and crime, Tampa Heights is now dotted with refurbished homes; upscale lofts and condos are on the way; and students will soon attend a new branch campus for Stetson University.
Wacaser said residents regularly talk with the Salvation Army about their concerns. Things get better for a while, then the same old problems re-emerge, he said. The issues are "constantly cycling."
Some residents say if soup kitchens and shelters move, the homeless will, too.
Advocates say that's not the case.
The homeless are drawn to neighborhoods near downtown because they find what they need: parks, buses, libraries - and an anonymity not possible in say, Carrollwood, said John Darby, director of human services for the Salvation Army.
"If we moved 5 miles outside of town, the (homeless) would still be here," he said.
The Salvation Army soup kitchen serves an afternoon meal to about 400 people every day. But the organization does more than dole out food. It also offers transitional housing for up to 80 homeless men and women at a time. There, they learn life skills and search for jobs without hustling for food and shelter.
"Many times people move from the feed line to the shelter to the transitional housing and then into the community," Darby said.
Along the way, neighborhoods remain uneasy.
"Nobody wants to take the chance," said Mike Scionti, president of the Gray Gables/Bon Air/Southern Pines neighborhood association, the one nearest Faith Cafe. "When you got eight or nine homeless people and a little kid playing in the street, that doesn't make people feel good."
Soon after a coalition of South Tampa churches opened Faith Cafe in fall 2001, Scionti's neighbors complained: Homeless men were shuffling down side streets, picking through garbage, loitering, staring.
Things improved after meetings with soup kitchen officials, who passed on instructions to their clients, Scionti said. But a handful of residents remain skittish.
So lawyer Jim Mikes, who owns the building, promised he would sell. He also told the churches he would find another site for them in South Tampa.
Neighbors have sympathizers where they probably least suspect it: among the homeless.
"I don't blame them," said David King, waiting for rice, greens and Salisbury steak at the Salvation Army. "If you own a business and you look out the window and see someone (urinating), you'd be upset, wouldn't you?"
King, 41, said he once built circuit boards. He has been homeless three years.
The homeless are a diverse bunch, and a few with bad habits taint the rest, said Raymond Long, 53, who was also waiting to eat.
Addicts among them will snap off car antennaes to make crack pipes, he said. Some with a sloppy disposition will turn a vacant lot camp into "the neighborhood refuse site."
Others are just waiting for a break.
Mikes said he learned from his experience with Faith Cafe.
Maybe the next soup kitchen should be placed in an industrial area, he said. Maybe it should be designed better, with bathrooms, showers and a courtyard, and buffers to shield it from neighbors, he said.
"We'll find it," he said. "We'll trust God to help us."
In Tampa Heights, things aren't as bad as they were 10 years ago, Wacaser said.
Homeless people don't knock on his door as often. Homeless providers try to be responsive.
If the soup kitchen stays, "I'm not going to pick at them or start a riot," he said.
