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by Major Bob Pusins
The Fort Lauderdale Police Department recognizes that the plight of the homeless is one of the nation's most visible social problems, generating widespread calls for governmental intervention. It is also recognized that law enforcement faces the difficult challenge of meeting the expectations and often conflicting demands of the political, business and community leaders, advocates for the homeless, social service providers and the homeless population. It is clear that law enforcement agencies must provide for the safety and integrity of the residential and business communities while protecting the rights, dignity and property of the homeless population. The Fort Lauderdale Police Department Model for police response to homelessness is based on the understanding that the homeless are not "problem people" but rather "people with problems".
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by Art Levine
Reprinted from City Link, August 8-14, 2001
Are Fort Lauderdale’s men in blue friend or foe to the city’s homeless? A unique partnership suggests the former.
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by Alison Hibbert
Reprinted from The Police Chief magazine, May 2000
Richard Courtney remembers when he called the streets of Fort Lauderdale home. Sleeping in doorways of downtown businesses and City parks wasn't uncommon for him or the other homeless people who roamed the streets looking for shelter.
Today, Courtney is a volunteer with the Fort Lauderdale Police Department's Homeless Outreach Program, a proactive approach to dealing with homelessness in the City. Instead of "bum sweeps" and arrests, police officers are trained to provide aid and referrals to the displaced.
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Reprinted from Law Enforcement News, May 2000
John Jay College of Criminal Justice,
555 W. 57th St., New York, NY 10019
Web: www.lib.jjay.cuny.edu/len
Police brass in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., seeking to avoid problems that befell neighboring Miami some years back, believe they have created a plan that not only deals sensibly with the city's homeless population, but has prompted a change in the attitude of police officers toward those residents.
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By Lisa J. Huriash
Reprinted from the Sun Sentinal - November 12, 2000
FORT LAUDERDALE -- A year-old program in the city's Police Department that cajoles the homeless to leave the streets may become a permanent social-action campaign.
The possibility of continuing the homeless outreach program was announced days after Officer Scott Russell received a statewide award for his work in scouring the streets in search of homeless people and persuading them to get help.
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Effective Date: July 1999
The purpose of this policy is ensure that personnel are sensitive to the needs and rights of the homeless population, to establish procedures to guide police officers during casual and arrest situation contacts with the homeless and to reaffirm that homelessness is not a crime.
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Fortynine percent (49%) of homeless people are homeless for the first time.
Thirtyfour percent (34%) have been homeless three or more times. People in families and single people are equally likely to be in their first homeless episode, but single people are more likely than people in families to have been homeless three times or more times (37% versus 23%).
Twentyeight percent (28%) of homeless people have been homeless for three months or less, but
Thirty percent (30%) have been homeless for more than two years.
Single people are three times as likely to be in the two years plus group as people in families (34% to 13%), and half as likely to be in the three months or under group (23% to 49%).
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