Northeast
Florida sheriff issues warning for authorities enforcing homeless crackdown
Tough-on-crime Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd tells Fox News Digital that a new Florida law prohibiting homeless people from sleeping outside will increase the quality of life for regular people by clearing sidewalks and public places of homeless people who clog up these areas and make them unsavory.
However, homeless advocates say the law may put unhoused people in danger by driving them away from urban areas with critical services and potentially making them “vulnerable to predators.”
The new law, one of the strictest anti-homelessness measures in the nation, came into effect last week and bans camping on streets, sidewalks and in parks. Local governments are required to offer temporary housing to the homeless, where individuals will be prohibited from using drugs. They must also be offered substance abuse and mental health treatment.
NEWSOM VETOES BIPARTISAN ACCOUNTABILITY LEGISLATION AIMED AT STATE SPENDING ON HOMELESSNESS CRISIS
A person sleeps on a sidewalk in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., last week. Proponents of a new state law prohibiting the homeless from sleeping outside say it will increase the quality of life by clearing sidewalks and public places of homeless people in those areas. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)
Judd said the law needs to strike the right balance between providing safety for residents walking the streets while at the same time helping those in need. He said that while he’s empathetic to the circumstances of homeless people, it doesn’t give some of them the right to block sidewalks.
“And that’s important because our family, our children, our wife, our husband, our significant other has the right to walk down a sidewalk without having to step over or walk around a homeless person that’s decided to set up camp in the middle of the sidewalk,” Judd said.
“That’s a quality-of-life issue for everyone, and because you don’t want to live in housing and because you don’t want to work and live like the rest of America, it doesn’t give you the right to lay around in the public parks, lay on the benches, set up your nasty little camps. So that’s what we’re cleaning up. But we’ve always done that here, and at the end of the day my heart breaks for them, and we’re going to help them, but they’ve got to help themselves.”
The new law gives municipalities the power to arrest those not complying, but Judd said his department does regular outreach to the homeless to help them and that he wants to avoid a situation where homeless people are arrested, taken to jail and end up in the prison system.
“What we’re working toward is what we’ve always done, [which] is not letting the jail be a de facto homeless camp, and that’s not going to happen,” Judd said. “We’ve got to be careful when we implement this. It’s designed so that government really doesn’t set up housing camps because that part of it is very onerous.”
“What I hear overwhelmingly is, ‘We want food, clothing and shelter, but we don’t want to go into homes. We don’t want to go into organized places. We just want to be left alone.’ So our challenge is: Where do they go?
Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd says the law needs to strike the right balance between providing safety for residents walking the streets while at the same time helping those in need. (Fox News Digital)
Martha Are, the CEO of the Homeless Services Network of Central Florida, told Fox News Digital that the new law will push homeless people out of built-up areas, which could prove the difference between life and death. The group works to provide stable long-term housing for people experiencing homelessness in Central Florida.
“If you think about the horrendous storm that just tore up the Southeast. If people had been experiencing homelessness and had been more isolated further into the woods, farther away from other people, harder to find, they may not have even known that the storm was coming,” Are said.
“They’d have been afraid to believe it, to listen, so if they had seen a police officer coming out to try and encourage them to get to safety before the storm, they may have avoided that officer, never gotten the message and then been completely overwhelmed in a storm. Those are the kind of real-life consequences with this type of legislation.”
BLUE STATE COUNTY BUCKS TRENDS ON HANDOUTS – AND HOMELESS POPULATION CRATERS
Are said the legislation does little to tackle homelessness, which she said is driven largely by the lack of affordable housing.
She said the No. 1 demographic of homeless people in Florida is the elderly, who oftentimes are on fixed incomes and then get priced out of housing, forcing them to take to the streets. For example, the population of Orange County grew by 25% between 2010 and 2020, whereas the housing stock grew by 15%, she said.
“When you’ve got many more people moving here than you’re developing housing and transportation, then you end up with this mismatch,” Are said. “And so there are certain people that are more vulnerable in that type of market.”
The belongings of a homeless person are piled on the sidewalk on the first day the law took effect. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)
Under the new law, local governments can offer county-owned land for people to sleep on as long as they keep it clean and free of crime, and as long as the people staying there are provided access to showers and mental health services. For approval, the county must prove there are not enough beds in homeless shelters to keep up with the local homeless population and that the camp would not hurt the property value or safety and security of other homes or businesses in the county.
The legislation provides $30 million to help municipalities enact the law, and it provides the homeless with mental health and substance abuse treatment, but Are said only $10 million of new money is being provided since the remainder of the funds are already annually allocated.
If counties don’t have enough shelter beds, the law allows them to erect outdoor encampments where the homeless could live for up to a year, with the biggest counties required to equip them with sanitation and 24-hour security.
Are said it would be difficult for local governments to meet those standards, and that if a type of homeless encampment was to be set up it would pose serious safety concerns, for children in particular.
“The people experiencing unsheltered homelessness are extremely diverse … then you’re talking about putting young children, youth and families with lots of human trafficking, violence, people who are mentally ill and substance users. And unfortunately, that would become like a playground for predators.
A dog is shown as a homeless person sleeps in the backyard of an abandoned house in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)
Are said the solution to solving the homeless crisis is to invest in adequate housing and transportation and make sure there are enough shelters for people to go to.
“Short of that, we are going to continue to see more people experiencing homelessness, and then when we criminalize it, we essentially say that you’re a criminal because you’re having this experience that in many cases was absolutely beyond someone’s control.
“And then it becomes quite dangerous, and it would say an unfortunate thing about our communities and our state if we continue to pursue that strategy.”
Fox News’ Landon Mion and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
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FSU softball focuses on rival Florida. Here’s its approach on Wednesday
Here’s how Lonni Alameda and Florida State softball are preparing for its rivalry matchup against Florida. First pitch is at 6 p.m.
Jazzy Francik returned to the site of one of the toughest outings of her career and delivered a dominant performance.
The Florida State sophomore tossed her third career no-hitter and powered the Seminoles to a 10-0 win over Boston College in six innings Saturday at Harrington Athletics Village, moving FSU within one win of clinching the ACC regular-season title.
Francik (19-2) was in control from the first pitch, striking out six and allowing only one baserunner on an infield error in the fifth inning. She needed just 67 pitches to complete the no-hitter, the third of her career and one of the most efficient outings of her season.
Florida State’s offense gave its ace plenty of support, collecting 12 hits and scoring 10 runs. After a scoreless first inning, the Seminoles broke through in the second with three runs on RBI doubles by freshmen Haley Griggs and Makenna Sturgis.
FSU added four more runs in the fourth inning behind a two-run double from Jaysoni Beachum and an RBI single by Ashtyn Danley. The Seminoles put the run-rule into play in the sixth, scoring three times on an RBI single from Sturgis, an RBI double by Isa Torres and a sacrifice fly from Danley.
Beachum, Torres, Sturgis and Danley each drove in two runs as Florida State continued to pressure Boston College despite several highlight-reel defensive plays from the Eagles.
Francik and the Seminole defense sealed the no-hitter in the bottom of the sixth to end the game early.
Florida State is one win away from securing at least a share of the ACC regular-season championship. A sweep of Boston College on Sunday would clinch the title outright.
How to watch FSU vs. Boston College Game 2
- Date: Saturday, May 2
- Time: 4 p.m.
- Where: Harrington Athletics Village, Brighton, Massachusetts
- TV/Stream: ACC extra
Peter Holland Jr. covers Florida State athletics and Big Bend Preps for the Tallahassee Democrat. If you like to pitch a story on a high school athlete, don’t hesitate to get in touch with him via email at PHolland@Gannett.com or on X @_Da_pistol.
Outrage is building in a quiet Pittsburgh neighborhood.
Residents say they were blindsided by a plan to convert the former Fraternal Order of Police lodge on Banksville Road into a reentry center. The building could be turned into housing for up to 100 federal inmates, officials said.
Dismas Charities, an organization that operates federal halfway houses across the country, is behind the proposal. But neighbors say this isn’t the place.
“What will these people be doing when they’re not in the halfway house? Will they be law-abiding citizens and respect our community and its members?” questioned Judi Perry, a Shady Crest resident.
Concerns range from safety to proximity. Some fear the risk of repeat offenses, even though the facility is designed for rehabilitation. Residents point to past incidents tied to similar programs, including a case in Kentucky where an inmate left a facility and killed a police officer.
“We need to be better educated about how this facility would operate, what the parameters are for the people who stay there, and maybe, if we had more information, it would comfort us,” Perry said.
Inside a recent Pittsburgh Planning Commission presentation, Dismas Charities pitched the facility as a second-chance model.
“Over the past five years, we’ve had almost 40,000 residents participate in our programs nationally, and the rate of recidivism is .08 percent,” a Dismas Charities representative said at the meeting.
But that message isn’t landing here. Petitions are already circulating with hundreds of signatures collected. Neighbors say this fight is just beginning.
“We have preconceived notions about these people who were convicted and committed a crime. We don’t know what their crime was, and so maybe our concerns are exaggerated. But in general, you don’t like the idea of that facility being so close to our community,” Perry said.
A decision could come soon, as the commission is set to take this up in the coming days. If approved, it would still need additional sign-off before any inmates move in.
A strongly worded memo raised new questions about how much work Department of Children and Families (DCF) staff were doing from home, and whether that level of teleworking was hurting child protection.
Telework expanded during the pandemic and later became part of the state’s labor agreement, allowing some DCF employees to work remotely up to 80% of the week.
While social workers continued to handle court appearances, home visits, and foster placements in person, they were allowed to start and end most workdays at home. Staff must reapply for telework permission every six months and face losing that privilege if performance slips.
Concerns over the workflow quickly followed. The state’s Office of the Child Advocate (OCA) warned that extensive teleworking could be undermining case practice and supervision inside an agency already struggling with high turnover and many inexperienced workers.
In a critical letter sent Thursday, the Child Advocate suggested that telework should be limited unless workers met specific, data‑driven performance standards, citing the loss of in‑office collaboration, supervision, and real‑time support.
NBC Connecticut Investigates also spoke exclusively with a longtime former DCF employee who remained in the child welfare field. That former worker said telework simply did not function on multiple levels at DCF, describing widespread belief among current staff and those in the judicial system that bringing people back into the office was a necessary step toward restoring the agency.
Lawmakers from both parties echoed those concerns. House Minority Leader Vincent Candelora (R) said staff working remotely were missing daily interaction, training, and support, instead operating in silos. House Speaker Matt Ritter(D) said the newly formed oversight committee was expected to examine the policy.
Those warnings were backed up by troubling findings. According to the OCA’s report, a review of in‑home cases in 2024 and 2025 found face‑to‑face interactions did not happen in about 40% of cases—something the OCA called alarming and in need of urgent attention.
As scrutiny over DCF intensified, teleworking became the latest flashpoint in a broader debate over accountability, supervision, and whether the systems meant to protect vulnerable children were being stretched too thin.
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