Golf Club residents wary of KOTS move
Key West is taking steps not only to relocate its overnight homeless shelter to the former Easter Seals building on College Road, but to add a comprehensive center where the poorest citizens on the island can eat meals, spend the day and receive services.
"To me, it's the best location," said Mayor Craig Cates, who calls the comprehensive model for the homeless the only logical solution. "It's going to have to be somewhere. This is the ideal location. It's large enough, there are no houses adjacent to it, no families or kids running around. It's separated by a golf course and commercial property."
The all-in-one center would reduce homeless people's treks all over the island to access scattered services.
About 140 men and women hunker down nightly at the Keys Overnight Temporary Shelter (KOTS), where they can rely on a hot shower and a thin vinyl mattress. But for meals, they have to walk to the St. Mary's soup kitchen on Flagler Avenue, and panhandling is always better in Old Town than on Stock Island.
The Stock Island neighborhood includes the local animal shelter, Cates noted.
"We can have animals around there, but not humans?" the mayor mused.
For now, KOTS remains on the Monroe County Sheriff's Office property across from the jail, and the city remains the prime defendant in a civil lawsuit filed by the nearby Sunset Marina and Waterfront Residences association, which wants the shelter closed.
At issue is whether the city went through the proper permitting channels to build the bunkhouses, which went up in 2004 as a way to ensure that jail wasn't the only place police could take homeless women and men to sleep.
The city last week filed its answer to the August lawsuit, claiming immunity from such a suit and arguing that the statute of limitations ran out years ago for the legal action.
Cates recently coasted into a second term, urging residents to support more services for the homeless, along with persuading the City Commission to toughen local laws on public drinking and camping. The two-prong approach to the homeless problem -- jail for the troublemakers and help for the truly down-and-out -- hasn't ended. Cates promised to soon bring the commission a proposed ordinance forcing all panhandlers to beg in highly visible, designated "zones" downtown, or face the clink.
The mayor has been quietly, but firmly, collecting community support for the all-in-one homeless center.
"It's on the table," City Commissioner Mark Rossi said of the Easter Seals location for a new homeless shelter. "It's up to the Planning Commission to make that decision through the city planner. But it is on the table."
Ultimately, the commissioners would have to approve it as well. Rossi, one of the more vocal opponents to moving KOTS, said there are logistical issues in the way of the mayor's plan.
"I don't think you're going to be able to do it," said Rossi.
The Planning Commission is expected to vote Jan. 19 on a proposed zoning amendment, which includes declaring the Easter Seals parcel available for "homeless shelters." Cates said the city attorney believes the spot is already zoned to include KOTS, but he wants it clarified.
Cates said he couldn't estimate even a ballpark figure of what the homeless center would cost.
"The county is very supportive of having a location like that," said Cates. "Hopefully they'll help fund it."
Golf Club reaction
Key West golf course-area residents plan to meet Monday evening to collect information -- and they've already lawyered up.
"We're trying to get a feel as to what our homeowners would like to happen," said Robert Munson, president of the Key West Golf Club Homeowners Association, which represents 390 residences. One-third are year-round residents, another third are snowbirds and the rest are renters.
Munson, who has lived at the golf course for a decade, said the association hasn't made a decision over whether to support or fight the proposal.
"A lot of our homeowners are concerned," said Munson. "I would say they are more concerned about the method being done versus what may be done. It just seems it's not being done out in the open."
The group has hired attorney Barton Smith to advise on "the steps we should take to protect our interests in this volatile issue," according to an email circulated last week by a homeowner.
Smith is the attorney who filed suit against the city on behalf of Sunset Marina.
Under new management since Oct. 1, when the Southernmost Homeless Assistance League agreed to take over KOTS with input from three other nonprofits, the shelter remains the same as it has for years: a threadbare but safe place to sleep, even if the guests are drunk or high. Staff members, called "monitors," keep a close watch on the nightly crowd, ejecting anyone who misbehaves and at times helping bandage wounds or calm a detoxing man.
KOTS last week received a brand-new trailer filled with showers to replace the one that was disintegrating from age and abuse.
When the city maintenance crews went to remove the original trailer, which Director Nancy Banks said was at least five years old, it actually crumbled on the spot. The crews had to demolish it on-site.
The recent winter holidays and the Keys' cold snap didn't bring higher numbers of homeless to KOTS, she said.
"Surprisingly not," said Banks, who tallied the numbers as consistently around 140. "Although, traditionally at this time of year, the numbers stay the same. Some people manage to go somewhere for the holidays. We're not turning anybody away."
Source: http://keysnews.com/node/37059
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