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Neighborhood notebook

CONA worries about 'homeless shuffle'

By PAUL SWIDER
Published February 19, 2006

ST. PETERSBURG - The message to the Council of Neighborhood Associations was that homelessness is not an issue just for the City Council, it's everyone's problem.

"Homelessness isn't just downtown," City Council member James Bennett said at a CONA meeting Wednesday. "They're in Kenwood and up by Gandy and over by Eckerd College living in the woods."

That was exactly the concern of CONA members, who see the City Council talking about helping the homeless while also preparing ordinances to remove them from downtown.

"The city doesn't want to build a shelter, but you're working on an ordinance," said Ingrid Comberg, a member of several neighborhood groups. "The homeless are going to be pushed north and south of downtown. You're going to be pushing them into the neighborhoods."

Bennett, who is championing the city's outreach efforts on the topic, said the goal was not to "push the problem around" but to create plans for the city to cope with the homeless and mechanisms to get those people help. He spoke about a 10-year plan, which raised some ire from the crowd.

"We see events outpacing a 10-year plan," said Russ Crumley of the Old Southeast Neighborhood Association. "With all those million-dollar homes going in downtown, those people are going to be less tolerant."

Bennett and Beth Eschenfelder, the city's manager of social services planning, assured that the city and county are planning on a shorter time scale, knowing that the community is changing and homelessness is changing with it.

Eschenfelder said neighborhoods might even be the best place to see the signs of people about to become homeless as a given family struggles with a medical or other financial crisis that might tip them into homelessness.

"The best way to reduce homelessness is to prevent it," she said. She suggested that people contact the city if they know of someone who needs help, because the city can connect them with appropriate resources, the prevailing theme of the strategy to eliminate a homeless problem.

Bennett shared statistics of homelessness in St. Petersburg. He noted that the city holds about half the county's estimated 5,000 homeless, that many of those suffer from mental and other disabilities, and that two-thirds of homeless people have been homeless before, showing that they try to rise from the situation but circumstances often bring them back down. He said the issues of the homeless, 20 percent of whom are children, are the sorts of things a family could help with if these people had family available.

NORTHEAST PARK NEIGHBORHOOD ASSOCIATION will hold its annual election of officers and board members at a meeting at 7 p.m. Monday at the Masonic Home, 3201 First St. NE.

HISTORICAL OLD NORTHEAST NEIGHBORHOOD ASSOCIATION will have its annual crime watch report meeting at 7 p.m. Monday at Westminster Presbyterian Church, 126 11th Ave. NE.

PERKINS NEIGHBORHOOD ASSOCIATION will meet at 7 p.m. Monday at Perkins Elementary School, 2205 18th Ave. S.

THE JUNGLE TERRACE CIVIC ASSOCIATION meeting at 7 p.m. Monday will include a conversation with KC Jones of Realty Executives about property sales and values in the area. The meeting is at the Walter Fuller Youth Center, 7891 26th Ave N.

GREATER PINELLAS POINT CIVIC ASSOCIATION will gather at 7 p.m. Tuesday at the Bay Vista Community Center. The featured speaker is T.W. Curtis of the TW Curtis Foundation.

PALMETTO PARK NEIGHBORHOOD ASSOCIATION will meet at 7 p.m. Tuesday at the Regeneration Building, 2301 Third Ave. S. Progress Energy representatives will talk about energy efficiency in the home.

LAKEWOOD ESTATES NEIGHBORHOOD WATCH will meet at 7 p.m. Tuesday at the St. Petersburg Country Club. Police Chief Chuck Harmon will speak.

TYRONE LANDINGS NEIGHBORHOOD ASSOCIATION will meet at 7 p.m. Wednesday at the Northwest Recreation Center on 22nd Avenue N.

BAYOU HIGHLANDS NEIGHBORHOOD ASSOCIATION will gather at 6:30 p.m. Thursday at the Skyway Resource Center, 1065 62nd Ave. S.

GREATER PINELLAS POINT CIVIC ASSOCIATION will plant native plants at 9 a.m. Saturday at Pinellas Point Park on Manor Way. Bring hat, sunscreen, shovel, gloves and garden clothes. For information, call Ray Wunderlich at 525-1689.

Readers wishing to submit information for the Neighborhood Notebook can contact Paul Swider by e-mail at pswider@sptimes.com or by phone at 892-2271. Neighborhood association presidents who would like to publish their organization's information directly to the Web on their own itsyourtimes.com blog should contact Swider at pswider@sptimes.com

[Last modified February 19, 2006, 01:08:19]