Finding a place to stay
For the homeless, getting through the day is a constant struggle
About this project
This article is part of a series by Al Jazeera America highlighting the lives of America's homeless.
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — On a typical day, Ira Russell easily walks more than 20,000 steps — four times that of an average American. Russell, who has been homeless since last July, says he enjoys moving around, but he also spends so much time on his feet to avoid being harassed by private security officers.
Across the country, homeless people struggle to find places to sit, sleep and pass time. Shelters often close during the day and private property is generally off-limits. Now, more cities are implementing laws that criminalize sleeping in public areas and vehicles, making it even harder for the homeless to find places to rest. Sitting or lying in the wrong place could result in a misdemeanor or arrest, which can make it more difficult to obtain a job or qualify for certain housing assistance programs.
Florida, where Russell lives, has more restrictions on homeless people’s behavior than any other state, according to advocates, although laws and their enforcement vary by city.
“Florida is an innovator when it comes to criminalization. We develop really horrible policies, and we export them all over the country,” said Kirsten Clanton, an attorney at Southern Legal Counsel, a Florida not-for-profit law firm at which she directs their Homeless Advocacy Project. “It is directly affecting policy in other places.”
Broward County, which includes the city of Fort Lauderdale, has attracted media attention in recent months after the passage of ordinances banning panhandling, sleeping on public property and sharing food with the homeless. The laws may be contributing to an increase in arrests of homeless people: According to county sheriff department records, 18 people whose home addresses are registered as “at large” (which is often an indicator that they are homeless) were arrested between October 1 and November 30, 2013, for violating municipal or city ordinances. A year later in that same time frame, 47 people, more than 2.5 times the number in 2013, were arrested following the passage of several laws over the year.
While some cities have clauses for certain ordinances that say that officers cannot make an arrest if they cannot provide an alternative, these laws still create fear among the homeless. Advocates argue that it’s this additional stress that makes it harder for the homeless to focus on achieving financial stability.
Lawmakers say that these laws protect the community. Fort Lauderdale Mayor Jack Seiler said that the ordinances keep up the quality of life for “our neighbors, visitors and for the homeless,” citing examples of someone in a wheelchair having trouble accessing a park because of personal belongings on the sidewalk and a family who can’t use a park because of human feces.
Seiler also said the city’s focus is on improving the lives of the homeless with comprehensive programs and “not just [to] get them from breakfast to lunch to dinner on the street.”
Tim Marks, president of Metropolitan Ministries, a homeless assistance organization in Tampa, said that he thinks the laws and guidelines are proper if they come with a corresponding solution. “We need to help … those who truly need the help [more]. But we also have to hold people accountable because the community is for all of us.”
But others say that law enforcement officers need to use more discretion in how they treat the homeless. Aaron Broughton, a former law enforcement officer at the Citrus County Sheriff’s office and security guard, says he was often asked to escort homeless people off property. Before becoming homeless himself, he says he removed them without stopping to assess each individual situation. But his attitude changed once he experienced the other side. “I give them time, because I know how it feels,” Broughton said of how he approaches the homeless in his current security guard job in Tampa. “You want to leave a positive message with every encounter of a homeless person.”
Interviews with a dozen homeless and formerly homeless people illustrate the sorts of daily challenges people on the streets face. Below are their accounts.
5 a.m.
Waking up
Homeless shelters often make their residents leave in the morning. For those staying at Tampa’s Salvation Army, for instance, that means waking up at 5 or 6 a.m. to ensure there’s enough time to dress, use the few available restrooms and leave before the 7 a.m. deadline.
Homeless people living outside or in a vehicle have to wake up even earlier. Karen Zatko and her husband lived in the woods in Boca Raton for several weeks after they ran out of money. To avoid people who could report them for trespassing, they had to be up by 5 a.m.
Karen Zatko on mornings in the woods
5 a.m.
Waking up
William Taylor lived out of his 1996 Ford Explorer with his wife and 9-year-old son, for several weeks in Bradenton after his hours at a restaurant were cut and he became homeless. Taylor and his wife would try to sleep in shifts overnight and wake up at 5 a.m. to relocate. “They might give you a warning the first time, but the next time, you're going to jail," Taylor said. "I don't want to [go to jail] and leave my family. I want to be with my family.”
William Taylor on waking his 9-year old son at 5 a.m.
6 a.m.
Finding a shower
Finding a place to take a shower can be difficult and waiting for a turn can take hours.
St. Ann Place in West Palm Beach is a homeless outreach center that provides free showers and laundry to the homeless, like Ira Russell. Most days, Russell heads over to St. Ann around 5:15 a.m. to line up for showers that open at 8:30 a.m. On a quiet day, he might be 6th or 7th in line, which means he can shower around 8:45 a.m., but when it’s busy he could wait another hour for his turn.
6 a.m.
Finding a shower
In cities like Tampa, the homeless aren’t allowed to bathe in public restrooms unless they have showering facilities, making it harder to maintain good hygiene, and to get and keep a good job.
Dottie Washington on finding places to bathe
9 a.m. – 4 p.m.
Passing time
Aaron Broughton, a father of four, was a law enforcement officer for 19 years before his wife’s lupus required him to quit his job and move to Orlando, where she could get better care. He had difficulty finding a decent job, and they eventually had to move out of their apartment and into their van and motels for several months.
Aaron Broughton on needing time
9 a.m. – 4 p.m.
Passing time
Charnee Walker and her girlfriend, Latina Grant, walked twice as much as the average American when they didn’t have housing. They slept at shelters overnight but had to leave before 7 a.m. They would spend their day figuring out where to go and bouncing from place to place.
6 a.m. – 11 p.m.
Passing Time
We gave Charnee Walker a GPS tracking device to see how her movements changed when she went from living in an overnight shelter to having her own room where she could stay during the day.
This graphic shows her locations throughout two representative days and illustrates how much more she had to move around when she did not have shelter during the day.
Note: For safety reasons, we chose not to show the map associated with these data points.
9 a.m. – 4 p.m.
Passing time
Even for cities that do not have strict loitering laws that restrict where the homeless can spend their day, they still have to watch out for security officers working for private companies.
“Security guards would harass me for being in certain places because I was homeless. And they knew I was homeless because of my clothes and stuff. They wouldn't do it to other people,” Russell said. “They would come up, and say stuff like ‘You have to move along. You're not welcome here.’ I had one guy push me.”
4 p.m. – 12 a.m.
Going to work
Finding and keeping a steady job is the most common way out of homelessness. There are no national statistics on how many homeless people have jobs, but New York City figures show that 28 percent of homeless families have at least one employed individual, according to the New York Times. Keeping a job and working around the schedule of homeless services can be a challenge.
Charnee Walker on the challenges of keeping a job while homeless
3 a.m.
Using the restroom
A restroom isn’t always easily accessible to the homeless. While there are public restrooms around the city, some are locked at night.
Dottie Washington, who lives in Tampa, found herself in a tight spot one night when she needed to use the bathroom at 3 a.m. Since she couldn’t find any unlocked public restrooms and did not want to urinate in public, she chose a hotel bathroom. As she was leaving, hotel staff told her that they had called the police. To avoid trouble, Washington turned herself in. While she didn’t face any legal consequences, she says that the experience was draining. “The fact that I had to go through that was jarring and unfortunate,” Washington said. “I needed to use the restroom, which is something people should be, out of just basic dignity, able to do.”
3 a.m. – 5 a.m.
Finding a place to sleep
When Dottie Washington can’t afford to pay $10 for a night at a shelter, she is forced to find places to sleep outside. She says that she relies on her Christian faith to guide her to safe locations, but she still runs into problems. Once she fell asleep underneath a park table and woke up to an agitated man throwing glass bottles at her.
Dottie Washington on finding a place to sleep
3 a.m. – 5 a.m.
Finding a place to sleep
Even when people find safe areas where they can get a few hours of shut-eye, their spot isn’t guaranteed another night.
Kent Wilson, an Army veteran, was homeless for two days in July 2014 before he found shelter through The Lord’s Place, a nonprofit homeless assistance organization in West Palm Beach. In that short time on the streets, he witnessed beatings, drug deals and fights over food, he says. He felt too unsafe to get much sleep.
Kent Wilson on finding safe places to sleepIn recent years, homeless advocates have succeeded in using lawsuits to fight the ordinances in several Florida cities. Most recently, the Southern Legal Counsel sued the city of Fort Lauderdale over its restrictions on sharing food with homeless people, saying it violated the First and Fourteenth Amendments. Since a judicial circuit court order in December, Fort Lauderdale has temporarily stopped enforcing the law, which took effect on October 1.
“The top line takeaway is that these laws and ordinances treat homeless people as the problem, as opposed to treating homelessness as the problem to be solved,” said Eric Tars, a senior attorney at the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty, in Washington. “If we look at homeless persons not as pests to be dealt with, but rather as fellow human beings and citizens whose needs aren’t being met, that would refocus people’s efforts to try to deal with the problem.”
Several cities and states around the U.S. have considered a “Homeless Bill of Rights,” which would provide legal protections against discrimination and certain rights in public spaces. On March 2, Indianapolis became the first city to pass such a bill.
Ultimately, advocates and service providers — like Diana Stanley, CEO of the Lord’s Place — believe that it comes down to community buy-in and collaboration that involves input from both service providers and the homeless they serve. “I think the most important thing is just hearing the clients’ stories,” Stanley said.
Correction: This article was updated with the correct spelling of Eric Tars’ last name. Previously, this article stated his last name was Pars.