Gimme Shelter - The U.S. confronts a growing homelessness problem. Does Miami have the answer?

The U.S. confronts a growing homelessness problem. Does Miami have the answer?

- By C.J. Ciaramella

When Gov. Ron DeSantis needed a place to host a signing ceremony for a bill banning homeless people from sleeping in public, the Florida Republican chose Miami Beach. It wasn’t picked just for its iconic beach and breakers.

Last September, Miami Beach enacted a similar prohibition on public sleeping, which DeSantis praised at the March ceremony as a compassionate measure that would also keep the streets “clean” and “safe.”

It’s been a selling point for South Florida. Republican Miami Mayor Francis Suarez bragged last year, during his brief presidential campaign, that because of the city’s “different approach” to the issue of homelessness, there were only about 600 unsheltered people in Miami. Oh, you can see homeless people here. Plenty of them if you want to, in downtown, near the beaches, and around popular tourist spots like the Wynwood neighborhood. But it’s not like walking through Washington, D.C., or Portland, Oregon, where underpasses and public parks are stuffed with tents.

This is partly a shell game played by local authorities. The Miami Police Department has an ominously named “Homeless Empowerment Assistance Team” (HEAT) that clears tent camps, and the city recently paid a $300,000 settlement to end a lawsuit over improperly trashing homeless people’s property, including an urn containing the ashes of a woman’s mother. There are local and county ordinances to make life tougher for people living on the street, and at one time the county was considering a grotesque proposal to move them onto a small island next to a wastewater treatment plant.