Word on the street is, Lakeland is it

Kind police and helpful shelters are a beacon for the homeless.

By MEG LAUGHLIN, Times Staff Writer
Published September 10, 2007

LAKELAND - No one can find the guy's ear.

Not the homeless people who hunch over the concrete, as they walk up and down looking. Not the workers who join the search from the nearby shelters. And not the police who beam their squad car lights down the street.

An hour earlier, about 1 a.m. on this night in late August, two guys whose flattened boxes neighbor each other's got in a drunken fight. One bit off the other's ear and took off running.

Maybe in a less charitable place, that would have been the end of it. But not in Lakeland, a city that has earned a reputation around the state and even the nation as a kind of hobo's paradise. In Lakeland, a homeless man's missing ear is occasion for an outpouring of concern.

"This is a great community," Brandon Parker, 34, said even after the hourslong search for his ear proved futile. "I wouldn't want to be anywhere else."

He is not alone.

The Department of Children and Families reports that Lakeland, a city of about 78,000, has over 800 homeless. But Mark Spiker, head of the local Homeless Coalition, along with shelter directors, believes that the number is over 2,000, which would account for more than 3 percent of the state's estimated homeless population of 60,000.

"Regardless of what the number in Lakeland is," Spiker says, "we give the impression of having a large number of homeless because of the huge concentration in a small area."

Ticket to paradise

When the St. Petersburg tent city was torn down in January, the residents didn't scatter. They moved en masse to Lakeland.

About 100 of them, according to police and shelter directors, arrived on Kentucky Avenue. They camped three deep on the sidewalk on both sides of the street with piles of plastic bags, foam ice chests, canvas totes, and collapsed boxes and sheets for beds.

That Lakeland took St. Petersburg's displaced homeless is a well-known fact and a matter of pride among shelter leaders and police in Lakeland.

"We were concerned for them and wanted to help out," said Tony Fusaro, director of development at Talbot House. Several ministers in St. Petersburg said local charities paid for free bus tickets.

"Lakeland is known as 'the holy grail' for homeless so a lot of our group took the free bus tickets to get there," said G.W. Rolle, 54, one of the leaders of the St. Petersburg tent city, who chose to stay behind.

Don Fink, 47, took the free bus ticket and never looked back. On a sweltering day in late August, he lounges in a chair under a jacaranda in the fenced park that is part of the Talbot House shelter.

As he sips a glass of icy Gatorade provided by the shelter, he tells why he is making Lakeland his home: "It's not like other places in the state. Here, we get everything - good food, help from the shelters, nice police, a free clinic and labor pools."

Which pretty much sums up why Lakeland - a center for Ku Klux Klan activity until the late '70s and a city police say was once well-known for "harsh law enforcement" - is now a gathering place for the homeless.

In this area near downtown Lakeland, there are three shelters: the Salvation Army, Talbot House and Lighthouse Ministries. Their combined services provide meals, overnight stays, free medical care, counseling, and recovery and residency programs to get hundreds of homeless into jobs and apartments, and ultimately get them off the street.

There are seven labor pools in the area that find day work for the homeless for about $8 an hour. Dozens of churches feed those who don't get to the shelters in time for meals.

There's even Hollis Park, which has free fruit and vegetables - peanuts, okra, corn, peppers and oranges - for the picking.

"I mean you get really good food here. Not sloppy joes, but barbecued chicken and steak," said Duane Baker, 30, who came to Lakeland after trying New York and Winter Haven.

"It's a little too good," said Mike Dunn, who owns an Army surplus store near the homeless strip. "I think we need to stop encouraging the homeless and send them elsewhere."

Equal treatment

Recently it appeared Dunn might be getting his wish. The number of people sleeping on the strip dropped to about 65. But, says police Chief Roger Boatner, if this year is like the past two, the population will grow to over 200 by mid fall.

"We take a constitutional view of the homeless here," Boatner says. "We protect their rights like everyone else's, which means more and more people are coming here."

It used to be, he says, a few dozen homeless people lived in downtown Lakeland because the bus station was nearby and the park had public toilets. The Salvation Army had been in town since the early 1960s, but with the addition of Talbot House and Lighthouse Ministries in the past decade, Kentucky Avenue became known as "the Homeless Spot."

A few years ago, Lakeland was described as a "good place to go" on the Web site hobo.com, earning the hobo symbols of a circle with an X in it - meaning "good place for a handout." Last year the Lakeland Ledger said it was getting a national reputation.

The people on the street say they like the Salvation Army because it feeds them lunch even when they have alcohol on their breath, which Talbot House won't do when it serves dinner.

But Talbot Househas a more relaxed attitude toward the 100 people who gather in its enclosed park every day, the homeless say. If workers see alcohol or drugs, they'll tell the people to leave, but they don't do searches.

Lighthouse Ministries is the strictest, they say, but has the best food. It has a big hydroponic garden and serves fresh vegetables and fruit. It has its own cookbook for sale.

Steve Turbeville, director of Lighthouse Ministries, envisions a community where the homeless blend in with everyone else.

"We're already seeing it happen," he says.

Tony Leatherwood, 44, is the kind of formerly homeless man Turbeville is talking about.

A plasterer for years, Leatherwood lost his job in Orlando after a bad back injury. After months of homelessness with his two sons, 14 and 2, he went to the Salvation Army in Lakeland, which gave him a part-time job as a janitor and a subsidized apartment on the grounds. He pays $350 a month and gets free child care.

"I looked all over Central Florida and no shelter would take a single dad with kids," he said. "Thank God I found Lakeland."

On night patrol

As part of his job, Leatherwood patrols the homeless strip at night. In early September, the mood is festive. He walks past people drinking cold beer in brown bags and pretends not to see a crack pipe coming out.

He listens to a few complaints:

"I only got three shrimp in my jambalaya."

"They limited my free phone call to three minutes."

"We'll work together to make it better," he tells the complainers.

When police Officer Todd Edwards drives up in his squad car, Brandon Parker walks over with his head wrapped in gauze.

Edwards jokes with him, asking Parker if he's getting a permanent. Then he gets serious, and tells Parker he's sorry they couldn't find his ear.

"No problem," Parker says. "I'd say the guy ate it, but that's unlikely with all the good food around here."

Times researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report. Meg Laughlin can be reached at mlaughlin@sptimes.com or 727893-8068.

[Last modified September 10, 2007, 00:46:00]