OPD reports no open lodging arrests since March

An unidentified homeless man sleeps in a parking lot with the Marion County Judicial Center and the Golden-Collum Memorial Federal Building and United States Courthouse shown a block away near the intersection of Northwest First Avenue and Northwest Third Street in Ocala, Fla. on Monday, July 20, 2020. The homeless people who stay and live in the parking lot have become a familiar sight recently in downtown Ocala. Many of the homeless say that drug dealers come and drive up to deal in the parking lot and that the Ocala Police Department ignores the problem. [Bruce Ackerman/Ocala Gazette] 2020.

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Posted November 19, 2021 | By James Blevins
james@ocalagazette.com

The Ocala Police Department (OPD) hasn’t arrested a person, regardless of whether they are homeless or not, on the charge of “open lodging” since March of 2021, according OPD.

First established in 2002, the original city ordinance against open lodging made a person subject to arrest in the city if they were sleeping in public and admitted to being homeless.

In February, U.S. District Judge James Moody ruled in a case challenging the ordinance that city police failure to inquire about shelter availability prior to arresting a homeless person for open lodging violated the Eighth Amendment of the US Constitution.

Moody’s ruling also put the focus on the shelter situation locally.

According to the lawsuit, on any given night, approximately 150 homeless people go without shelter in the county. But there are only 65 shelter beds available in the county for single adults.

After the court ruling, the Ocala City Council unanimously voted to amend the ordinance on March 2, eliminating the homeless reference.

Under the new tweaked ordinance, police officers would have to check on the availability of beds at nearby shelters before arresting anyone for open lodging in the city but could still arrest someone for open lodging without asking the individual if he or she was homeless.

Around the time of Moody’s ruling, Interfaith attempted to set up a temporary open-air shelter where 15 to 20 homeless people could sleep safely behind a fence, protected by armed security, and offered access to services and facilities.

The idea ran afoul of city zoning rules, though, and city council denied Interfaith’s temporary shelter a path to legal status in May.

OPD does not report an increase of complaints or other issues due to a lack of open lodging arrests, according to Jeffrey Walczak, public information officer for the OPD.

“I’m not aware of any complaints that involve a ‘lack of arrests’ of homeless people,” said Walczak. “Officers respond to complaints that involve homeless people very frequently, usually daily.

“Recently,” he added, “a homeless man was arrested for stabbing another homeless man in the back with a knife. Another incident involved a homeless man who robbed another homeless man’s backpack.”

A homeless man, Jordan Kedar Massiah Frett, was arrested for “robbery by sudden snatching,” according to the affidavit supplied by the OPD, near the Salvation Army located at 320 N.W. 1^st Ave on Aug. 17.

Additionally, another homeless man, Robert Lucky Catron, was arrested for “aggravated battery-deadly weapon,” according to another affidavit, near Interfaith on Nov. 1.

Names of all victims in both cases were redacted from the arrest affidavits supplied to the press by the OPD on Nov. 5.

“Though homeless people are not being arrested for open lodging,” Walczak said, “there are many instances where homeless people are arrested for committing other crimes.”

CEO of Interfaith Emergency Services Karla Greenway agreed with the OPD’s assessment of “zero” arrests for open lodging since March.

“I haven’t heard of any,” said Greenway. “Now, there are still some homeless who get arrested for other offenses. We just had some that were arrested for possession of cannabis. But you must realize that a lot of these people are mentally ill, living with untreated conditions. And they basically will take whatever they can get on the street, which is sad, because there is a huge opioid problem going on right now in that population.”

She stated further that it’s hard enough for a person with a lot of resources and family support to overcome an addiction. But for those that are literally alone on the streets with their addictions, it’s next to impossible.

“It’s just a very sad reality,” she added.

Greenway said that another news source had erroneously reported the stabbing involving Catron occurring at Interfaith itself. She said the incident had more accurately occurred about a block from the shelter.

“It wasn’t our property. We monitor our property. We pay a lot of money to have security on our property. But on the streets outside our property, where we have absolutely no authority, that’s where there’s a lot of drug dealing. That’s where people get assaulted. That’s why we try to make a space on our property for those vulnerable that want to be safe.”

Since the OPD has reported less open lodging arrests, Greenway can’t say for sure if she’s noticed an increase or decrease in violence amongst the homeless population that frequents Interfaith on any given day.

“It’s hard to tell,” she said. “The violence seems to ebb and flow. And it correlates, quite honestly, more with transients coming through [our community]. Our regulars that are here on the streets typically aren’t the perpetrators of those kind of violent acts. It’s typically the people coming through that beat up our homeless residents.

“And we tend to see more of that,” she added, “as the weather gets colder.”