Daytona Beach, FL – Daytona Beach city leaders want their counterparts in Volusia County to put their offer of land and money for a proposed 24-7-365 homeless shelter in writing.
By unanimous vote during Wednesday night’s meeting, the Daytona Beach City Commission ordered city staff to start hammering out the details of a contract with the county so the Safe Harbor project can become reality.
The motion from Zone 2 Commissioner Pam Woods requires City Manager Jim Chisholm to update the DBCC on the contract progress by its February 17th meeting as well as get an update on the fundraising effort to have other cities help Daytona Beach cover the shelter’s estimated $1.6 million yearly cost.
This move comes 2 weeks after Dr. Robert Marbut – the homelessness consultant hired by Daytona Beach and 11 other cities in Volusia County – crafted a report on the county’s homeless problem pushing for the creation of Safe Harbor.
Under Marbut’s proposal, the 250-bed shelter would house and feed homeless while giving them job skills and other things they would need to become productive members of society.
Volusia County has offered to donate land near the county jail for the shelter and up to $4 million to get it built, but only if the county isn’t on the hook for the operating costs afterward. That’s the part that has some Daytona Beach city commissioners nervous.
Zone 3’s Kelly White insisted that the city accept the county’s offer as it stands, saying that the large gathering of homeless around the Volusia County Administration Building on North Beach Street is causing undue stress on downtown business owners and it needs to be relieved.
Those owners have complained that the homeless who started gathering around that building soon after Daytona Beach closed down the public restrooms at nearby Manatee Island Park are harassing people in the downtown area and causing a big spike in crime, a complaint that Daytona Beach Police Chief Mike Chitwood backed up during a recent appearance on WNDB’s Marc Bernier Show.
But the other commissioners – notably Zone 4’s Rob Gilliland and Zone 5’s Patrick Henry – refused to accept the county’s current offer because they didn’t want the city to be responsible for covering all the yearly operating costs if other cities couldn’t be convinced to come on board.
That large gathering of homeless in front of the county building led the Volusia County Council to give Daytona Beach a 60-day ultimatum during its most recent meeting on January 7th. The VCC threatened to pull its offer for Safe Harbor unless the city can find a way to get those homeless out of there.
During Wednesday night’s meeting, Woods said that the city is working on a temporary plan to open the Salvation Army emergency shelter on Ballough Road to the homeless currently camped out in downtown by next week for a fee. It’s expected to cost the city around $6,000 a week to operate.
On Thursday, the VCC is scheduled to consider a plan floated by District 2 Representative Josh Wagner to create a temporary shelter for those homeless using land on the corner of US 1 and North Street. It’s close to the current homeless shelter on 340 North Street.
Volusia County Manager Jim Dinneen is recommending against that plan, instead pushing to give Daytona Beach more time to figure out the situation.
The agenda item rules out using the Votran transfer station on the corner of North Palmetto Avenue and Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune Boulevard due to lack of space, insufficient services, disruption of bus services and safety concerns over buses coming and going from the station. The transfer station had been discussed as a temporary solution.
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