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Letter to the editor

Tarpon wise to start dialogue on homeless

By A TIMES EDITORIAL
Published October 17, 2007

That a city as small as Tarpon Springs has such a problem with homelessness is one more indicator of the enormity of the challenge facing Pinellas County communities.

The confluence of warm temperatures and hard times has swollen the ranks of the homeless throughout the Tampa Bay area. Even as officials and organizations scramble to erect a 250-person tent city for the homeless in mid Pinellas before cool weather arrives, Tarpon Springs officials will meet Friday to talk about how to deal with their own homeless population.

Officials estimate that about 100 homeless people live in Tarpon Springs, and that number may be low. Some of the homeless have a way of disappearing from view, living surreptitiously in woods and along the river, in parked cars and abandoned buildings.

Friday's day-long meeting will be a first - an opportunity to try to identify the full scope of the homelessness issue, share ideas about why the problem is growing and talk about possible responses.

Tarpon Springs has a core group of folks with valuable experience who can be relied upon to offer practical ideas. They are people like Eddie Hayden of the Tarpon Springs Police Department; Bill Vasiliou of the Shepherd Center; Pat Weber of the Tarpon Springs Housing Authority; and Tom Henderson and the Rev. Curt Snare of St. Timothy's Lutheran Church, which has an outreach program for the homeless.

They will be joined with others who are well-informed on the needs of the homeless and the challenges of working with them, including representatives from the Salvation Army, the Pinellas Coalition for the Homeless and Directions for Mental Health.

Good information, a goal all agree on, and long-range planning are essential. Tarpon Springs will want to avoid the disturbing scenes and attendant bad publicity that occurred first in St. Petersburg, when police officers slashed the tents of the homeless, and more recently in Lakeland.

The city of Lakeland had developed a plan to provide an area of refuge for the homeless along a city street, but the situation quickly turned sour. Two weeks ago, according to a story in Tuesday's St. Petersburg Times, a team of Lakeland police officers, apparently acting without the knowledge of the police chief, ordered the homeless to stand back from their belongings and then scooped up and trashed the few things they owned. The police turned a deaf ear to their pleas to retrieve clothes, IDs and family pictures.

The reasons people live on the street are complicated, including job loss, alcoholism, mental illness or physical disabilities, bankruptcy, drug addiction, domestic abuse, personality disorders, shortages of affordable housing and the inability to save enough money for first and last months' rent and a security deposit.

It is no wonder that equally complex, multipronged solutions are essential. The homelessness problem requires the best thinking a community can throw at it.

The meeting Friday in Tarpon Springs will no doubt be the first of many, but the community is to be congratulated for its charity and practicality in starting the conversation.

[Last modified October 16, 2007, 21:36:32]