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Tent city a vehicle for advocacy

Two ministers keep St. Petersburg's homeless in the spotlight, fighting for their encampment.

By CRISTINA SILVA and AARON SHAROCKMAN
Published January 9, 2007

ADVERTISEMENT [Times photo: Cherie Diez] Jessica Tennyson, 20, organizes donated toiletries Monday in her home at St. Petersburg's tent city on the property of St. Vincent de paul Society. "Gotta have a clean home," she said.

ST. PETERSBURG - The creation of St. Petersburg's tent city was part organic and part political, a delicate two-step that advocates for the homeless hope will result in a more lasting solution.

As a Friday deadline looms to disband the camp of homeless people on Fourth Avenue N, social service coordinators are scrambling to find extra shelter beds. Others are offering bus tickets, rental assistance and recovery programs.

Just two weeks after 60 homeless men and women set up tents on 4 acres at St. Vincent de Paul Society, a pair of advocates continues to use the spectacle as an opportunity to drum up public sympathy and coerce city officials into dialogue.

Bruce Wright and Michael Amidei, two Christian ministers who helped found the encampment, have vowed to set up another homeless camp if city officials do not come up with a permanent living solution for St. Petersburg's homeless.

"If it takes something like this, then that's what is necessary," said Wright, a longtime advocate for the homeless and the founder of Refuge Ministries. "There has always been a crisis, but now that there is media attention on it, (city officials) are responding."

When much of the public face of St. Petersburg is pure and pristine, from the downtown waterfront to the parks to the emerging million-dollar condominiums, the reality of a homeless encampment is a black eye to the community, advocates for the homeless said.

The tents have forced discussion on a more public stage, one that surely the city had hoped to avoid. Until Sunday, when protesters picketed outside his church, Mayor Rick Baker had declined to publicly comment about the tent city or the city's decision to disband it. Even when compelled to speak, Baker's remarks remained decidedly nonspecific.

Homeless advocates said they must keep the issue on the front burner if they are to succeed.

"We are just doing what the Bible tells us to do and what we should do," said Amidei, 63, founder and director of Faith, Love and Spiritual Healing, the HIV and homeless services ministry of Episcopal Church of the Ascension in Clearwater.

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Wright, Amidei and other activists had been discussing setting up a tent city for weeks as both an effort to provide shelter to residents on the streets and a message to the city.

In December, they got their chance when a dozen homeless men and women set up a makeshift camp of tents and furniture under an Interstate 375 underpass near St. Vincent de Paul's food center and shelter.

Sophie Sampson, executive director of St. Vincent de Paul Society, and Wright then agreed to move the emerging encampment to a lot adjacent to the food center. Overnight, the population doubled, and during the next few days, dozens of homeless people entered the camp.

Amidei, Wright and other religious leaders, including Brian Pierce of Taking It to the Streets Ministries, donated tents. City officials donated a Dumpster; the Pinellas County Coalition for the Homeless contributed three portable toilets; and St. Vincent de Paul served the residents three warm meals a day.

But a week later, the city said the camp violated city code and would have to be gone by Jan. 12.

The order came as a shock to Sampson.

"We just presumed that after them being camped out at the sidewalk for a month, they would have permission to be on private property," she said.

The city's hard-nosed stance gave Wright and Amidei the conflict they needed to attract media crews.

Wright, who founded Refuge Ministries in 1992 and has been working with the homeless since the 1980s, is no stranger to controversy. He has been ostracized in the Christian community for his leftist views on abortion, economics and gay marriage.

In November, he organized a sleepout at Williams Park in downtown St. Petersburg to draw attention to the needs of the homeless. He also oversaw the protest at Baker's church and helped attendants draw signs such as "Rick Baker Didn't Learn Anything at Church" and "Real Christians Don't Evict."

Amidei, a member of the Pinellas homeless coalition, served 17 years in the Army before retiring 10 years ago. He joined his church and became an advocate for the homeless.

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A smaller homeless encampment came and went about a year ago, after the city forced about 30 residents away from the Mahaffey Theater. Nationally, tent cities have created more awareness of homelessness in Seattle, Portland, Ore., and cities in California.

The concentration of people, along with the image of tents, compels people to act, advocates said. The images on television only amplify emotions.

"Part of their goal is to prick the conscience, to be the visible reminder that all is not well," said Michael Stoops, acting director of the National Coalition for the Homeless.

People worked on the issue for months before television cameras descended on the tent city, social advocates said. St. Petersburg and Pinellas County already have pledged to eradicate homelessness within 10 years.

Wright called that promise mere window dressing.

But it remained unclear whether the kind of activism that Wright espouses will help find solutions by Friday.

Times staff researcher Carolyn Edds contributed to this report.

[Last modified February 8, 2007, 11:13:31]