by National Coalition for the Homeless

Since early 2007, St. Petersburg has passed 6 new ordinances that target homeless people. These include ordinances that outlaw panhandling throughout most of downtown, prohibit the storage of personal belongings on public property, and make it unlawful to sleep outside at various locations.

In January 2007, the Pinellas-Pasco Public Defender announced that he would no longer represent indigent people arrested for violating municipal ordinances to protest what he called excessive arrests of homeless individuals by the City of St. Petersburg. According to numbers compiled by the public defender’s office, the vast majority of people booked into the Pinellas County Jail on municipal ordinances were homeless individuals from St. Petersburg.

On January 19, 2007, police and fire officials raided two homeless camps located near a service provider after giving encampment residents a week’s notice to relocate. During the raid, police destroyed and slashed tents, ruining nearly 20. A video was posted on youtube.com showing the police cutting tents, some still occupied, with scissors and knives. Writer Abhi Raghunathan of tampabay.com said that the video turned “St. Petersburg … [into] a national poster child for cruelty against the homeless.”

A spokesman for the Fire and Rescue Department tried to justify the actions by saying, “[The camps] were all in violation of [fire] codes.” Mayor Baker said he did not know the police chief and a deputy mayor planned this action. According to the Orlando Sentinel, a city council member called the raid an “embarrassment.”

by National Coalition for the Homeless

During the raid, police slashed tents if the owners would not take them down. The Sentinel quoted Police Chief Harmon as saying, “In hindsight, we didn’t discuss the actual property issue, and we probably should have taken that into consideration.” After the tent slashing, the City authorized a temporary tent city to be opened on a vacant lot next to St. Vincent de Paul, a homeless service provider. That tent city was closed in May 2007. In December 2007, a new tent city, Pinellas Hope, was established on the outskirts of the city and is run by Catholic Charities.
Since early 2007, St. Petersburg has passed 6 new ordinances that target homeless people.

These ordinances include prohibitions on panhandling throughout most of downtown, prohibit the storage of personal belongings on public property anywhere in the city, and make it unlawful to sleep outside at various locations.