Florida is trying to keep the problems that ruined California out of the state.
Ron DeSantis will not let the state go down the path to ruin.
And a Florida sheriff gave cities a reality check about this scary problem from California.
Florida makes camping by the homeless illegal
Homelessness is a problem that is spread throughout cities on the West Coast.
A feature of places like San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Seattle is seeing the homeless camped out in tents on public property.
The homeless set up tent encampments where drugs, prostitution, and lawlessness run rampant.
Denver Police busted a homeless encampment in the city with a bar and prostitution tents that were for rent.
This phenomenon has been called urban camping on the West Coast.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed HB 1365 in March which made it illegal to camp or sleep on public property.
“Florida will not allow homeless encampments to intrude on its citizens or undermine their quality of life like we see in states like New York and California,” DeSantis said at the time. “The legislation I signed today upholds our commitment to law and order while also ensuring homeless individuals have the resources they need to get back on their feet.”
The law is one of the toughest laws in the country against the homeless taking over public places.
Cities must offer temporary shelter to the homeless and make substance abuse and mental health treatment available.
Florida sheriff lays down the law
Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd told Fox News Digital that Florida’s new law banning camping in public places would make life better for ordinary Floridians by stopping homeless encampments from popping up.
“That’s a quality-of-life issue for everyone, and because you don’t want to live in housing and because you don’t want to work and live like the rest of America, it doesn’t give you the right to lay around in the public parks, lay on the benches, set up your nasty little camps,” Judd explained.
“So that’s what we’re cleaning up. But we’ve always done that here, and at the end of the day my heart breaks for them, and we’re going to help them, but they’ve got to help themselves,” Judd added.
Judd said that his office tries to work with the homeless to keep them out of jail and get them help.
“What we’re working toward is what we’ve always done, [which] is not letting the jail be a de facto homeless camp, and that’s not going to happen,” Judd said. “We’ve got to be careful when we implement this. It’s designed so that government really doesn’t set up housing camps because that part of it is very onerous.”
The challenge for him is trying to figure out where the homeless are going to go.
Judd said that he was sympathetic to the situation that some of the homeless find themselves in but that does not entitle them take over public spaces.
“And that’s important because our family, our children, our wife, our husband, our significant other has the right to walk down a sidewalk without having to step over or walk around a homeless person that’s decided to set up camp in the middle of the sidewalk,” Judd stated.
Ron DeSantis will not let Florida’s cities go down the path toward becoming the East Coast’s version of San Francisco.
DeSantis Daily will keep you up-to-date on any new developments in this story.
