Daytona Beach, FL – Daytona Beach’s top cop is not confident that a proposed new shelter near Volusia County Jail will completely solve the city’s homeless problem, assuming that the city and the county figure out a way to work together.
In a recent interview on WNDB’s Marc Bernier Show, Daytona Beach Police Department Chief Mike Chitwood says elected leaders need to work better together to find a solution to the homeless, especially in regards to the large group of homeless who recently started camping out in front of the Volusia County Administration Building on South Beach Street.
City and county leaders have squabbled publicly over how to move those homeless away from the building, with the city wanting to go through the Salvation Army chapter to set up a temporary 50-bed shelter until the Safe Harbor shelter is built.
Volusia County Council District 2 Representative Josh Wagner wants to rent land at the corner of US 1 and North Street and set up temporary shelters while giving Daytona Beach 60 days to get the Safe Harbor plan up and running. The city claims that’s against its code but it’s something the VCC will consider when it meets on Thursday (click here).
Chitwood says the current situation is a public safety hazard and it needs to be addressed right away because DBPD has received an uptick in reports of various forms of criminal activity to businesses along Beach Street, including some sex-related crimes.
Chitwood believes a lot of it is on the homeless who are camped out there, saying a lot of them are chronic drunks, drug addicts and criminals who don’t want any sort of help – including going to a shelter – and he feels the justice system is the only way they can be dealt with effectively.
He also called Mike Pastore – the outspoken homeless advocate known as Pastor Mike – an “organizational terrorist” who’s recruiting homeless to camp out at the county admin building as a form of civil disobedience and doesn’t care “one bit” about how the businesses on Beach Street are being affected.
Though he thinks the Safe Harbor plan won’t help people like that, Chitwood does admit that a shelter like Safe Harbor would allow his officers to force all the homeless from sleeping on the streets, provided that the city also passes an ordinance to send those who sleep on the streets to either the shelter or to jail if there’s a bed available at the shelter and the person refuses to take it.
Copyright 2016 Southern Stone Communications.