A St. Petersburg reverend is urging city leaders to reconsider how they address homelessness following the death of a woman who was sleeping in a downtown alley.

The woman was killed last month after being struck by a garbage truck while sleeping in an alley. The Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney’s Office has since decided not to prosecute the sanitation worker involved.

Reverend Andy Oliver of Allendale United Methodist Church argues the tragedy is connected to St. Petersburg’s public sleeping and camping ordinance.

In a recent letter to Mayor Kenneth Welch and city council members, Oliver said the policy pushes unhoused people out of public view and into more dangerous locations.

“I think you have to really ask yourself if these policies weren’t in place, would you choose to sleep in an alleyway next to a dumpster?” Oliver told WMNF. “I think the answer would be no.”

Oliver’s letter also references a March 2025 warning from several legal advocacy organizations that urged the city to pursue housing-centered alternatives rather than enforcing public camping restrictions.

He argues that limiting where unhoused people can sleep contributes to the dehumanization of people experiencing homelessness.

“The policies that they have currently are contributing to the dehumanization of a whole group of people in our city,” Oliver told WMNF.

Oliver is calling on city leaders to invest in housing, public health solutions and safe places for unhoused residents to stay instead of relying primarily on enforcement measures.

The city has not announced any changes to its public sleeping and camping ordinance.

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New technology unveiled Wednesday addresses healthcare for the unhoused. 

A  unique “clinic in a box” provides virtual healthcare to the homeless in Tampa. 

The OnMed Care Station is a small booth, slightly larger than an SUV. 

It resembles a small doctor’s office on the inside, with medical tools and a large screen allowing patients to video chat with a doctor.  Patients are connected with a certified nursing assistant, who begins an intake process and then connects them with an OnMed clinician for a live, virtual visit.

Local leaders unveiled the new device at the homeless shelter Tampa Hope – where Sammie Harris has lived since May.  Tampa Hope has roughly 235 residents. 

He became unhoused after having heart surgery. 

“It’s a wonderful machine because you can get to talk to a person on the screen, you get to talk to a person, it’s wonderful because you don’t have to make doctors appointments,” Harris said at the ribbon cutting for the device.

Mayor Jane Castor spoke at the ribbon cutting about how beneficial the machine is to the community.

“People can go in at the beginning of symptoms and get those diagnosed, get those treated so that it doesn’t turn into something that will, God forbid, take their life prematurely,” Castor said.

The project was funded by Tampa General Hospital and The McNamara Foundation.

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A federal appeals court will hear arguments in January in a battle over Florida’s restrictions on treatments such as puberty blockers and hormone therapy for people with gender dysphoria.

After a series of hurricanes left beaches and dunes flooded, sea turtle nesting season was cut short, but conservationists still documented more nests in Pinellas County than last year.

The City of Tampa cut the ribbon on a new 48-acre park in South Tampa. The $51-million project is more than a park, it also provides flood relief.

The University of South Florida Tampa campus broke ground recently on its new football stadium. The 35-thousand-seat stadium is scheduled to open in Fall of 2027.

The Environmental Protection Agency is asking people to comment on modifications to the permit for an aquaculture project planned for the Gulf of Mexico off of Sarasota County. The deadline to comment to the EPA is November 25th.

The Scoop producer Kiley Petracek

WMNF anchors Chris Young, Lisa Marzilli, Josh Holton, Seán Kinane

Theme music, Fresh06, by Stian via archive.org – CC-BY-NC-SA 2.5

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The City of Tampa cut the ribbon on a new 48-acre park in South Tampa. The 51-million dollar project is more than a park — it also provides flood relief. 

City leaders celebrated the opening of the MacDill 48 Park on the hot morning. 

Tony Mulkey is Tampa’s Parks and  Recreation Director.

“This park is not just a park, it’s not just a place for recreation, to get out and enjoy nature a little bit, a break from the city. That urban relief and that natural habitat restoration is so important – but it also serves a function for resiliency and sustainability,” Mulkey said.

The park also will alleviate flooding by storing stormwater runoff in a pond. 

And it will treat the runoff and remove pollutants to improve water quality.

But, to make the park, unhoused people were moved. 

Jean Strohmeyer, president of the Inner Bay/ South of Gandy Neighborhood Association, says the Tampa Police helped “clean” the site of homeless people.

“Nobody would come in because there’s homeless here and whatnot. Once I became the neighborhood association president, we started cleaning up the homeless,” Strohmeyer said.

This year, Governor Ron DeSantis signed a law banning unhoused people from sleeping in public.

The park is open now, the stormwater project should be fully completed by next spring.

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A new report shows some Florida residents need to work way more than the standard 40-hour workweek just to afford rent in the state. The report is by financial technology company Self, and published in Newsweek. 

It showed that some Florida residents need to work 63 hours a week to cover rent. That’s based on Florida’s 2024 median rent of $2,033.

It’s a problem that Kimberly Overman, founder of the Housing Leadership Council in Tampa Bay, said has wide-reaching effects.

“When people can’t afford the rent, when they can’t provide shelter for their kids, when they’re unable to provide various different basic needs because their rent is so high, they’re not going to be happy. They’re not going to be comfortable,” Overman said.

And it’s not just families being affected.

“We’re finding that a lot of our high school and college students are choosing to stay with their parents because they can’t afford to find a place on their own that they can actually earn enough to be able to afford on their own, even though they may have a college education,” Overman said.

She says by the end of 2022, Hillsborough County added 29,000 rental units within Hillsborough County.

“We needed the rental units. The challenge is we got units that people here don’t earn enough to afford,” Overman told WMNF.

On average, the report found 50 work hours per week are needed to cover monthly rent costs in the U.S.

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With widespread evacuation orders across the Tampa Bay region, many are fleeing to shelters. 

On Tuesday, People hauled trash bags and personal items into a shelter at Middleton High School in East Tampa.

Evacuee Eugene Van Noske, who’s lived in Tampa all his life, is currently experiencing homelessness.

“I’m worried about my family here in Tampa. They said that this is going to be a bad hurricane, so I’m worried about that. And I’m just wanting it to be over with, so we can get back to normal and wanting housing for ourselves.” Van Noske said.

Hillsborough County shelter manager Maaria Nelson said about 500 people had arrived as of noon.

“Because Helene was just, you know, it was recent, so I think that people are becoming more aware and conscious that they need to evacuate and come somewhere safe so we’re encouraging people to come to the shelters.” Nelson said.

Things to keep in mind at the shelter: they will provide meals, but no cots, blankets, or supplies will be available and each resident will have about the same amount of room as a sleeping bag, or 20 square feet.

Tampa resident Queen Tee went to Middleton High School in East Tampa Tuesday, too.

She’s lived in the city for half a year, and says the back-to-back hurricanes have become too much to take.

“I’m leaving Tampa after this. Yeah, we just went through Helene and yeah, I’m over it. We’re originally from New Orleans, so of course we went through Katrina, we went through Rita, we went through a lot. Yeah, I’m over it.” Tee said.

As of Wednesday afternoon, Hillsborough County reports having about 93 hundred evacuees in its shelters.

Pinellas has about 10,300 evacuees, Pasco about 46 hundred, and Manatee County has over 10,000.

Sarasota County shelters have about 75 hundred residents with about 750 support staff, along with 14 hundred animal companions.

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In these times we are witnessing a geopolitical realignment between autocrats and pro-democracy defenders.

CS for August 12, 2024

As much of the world votes the tension between autocracy and democracy are laid bare. Authoritarian leaders clinging to power are turning to Russia to censor and control online content and sow disinformation. Microsoft reports that Iran is accelerating online activity intended to influence the U.S. election.

Also, a new analysis by the Associated Press of federal hospital investigations finds that more than 100 pregnant women in medical distress who sought help from emergency rooms were turned away. This happening in the aftermath of the Supreme Court decision to overturn the constitutional right to an abortion two years ago.

August is Labor and Economic Justice month as Mayoral candidates all agree there is a homeless crisis plans to address varies among cities.

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