by Jeremy Morrison
Following the Pensacola City Council’s decision last week to audit a local organization serving the homeless community, Mayor Grover Robinson said Monday that it looked like Re-entry Alliance Pensacola (REAP) was addressing issues raised by city officials.
“They had totally complied with all the code enforcement issues that were brought to their attention,” Robinson said during his weekly press conference.
City Councilman Delarian Wiggins last week voiced concerns about conditions at the REAP-operated homeless camp on West Blount Street. With $42,000 of federal funds directed toward the organization by the city, council members decided to conduct an audit of the funds. REAP, meanwhile, has changed management at the camp.
Mayor Robinson said Monday that he felt the camp had been operating smoothly and was not sure what happened in August, during a time frame during which it has been alleged that the camp was not kept in a sanitary condition.
“It certainly has been functioning very well while it’s been open. It was not functioning well in August; I don’t know what the case was. Obviously they’ve changed management,” Robinson said, adding that the camp’s former manager, Melissa Johnson, had been “incredibly helpful” in the city’s mission to work with the local homeless community but that perhaps she wasn’t the right fit for the REAP site: “I don’t know, maybe her talents lay in a different place other than camp management.”
Robinson said that he also felt that REAP’s camp should host a limited population.
“I think the camp can function well,” the mayor said. “I think the camp needs to function with a lot fewer people, and I think REAP also agrees that the number of people they should be handling is smaller.”
Mayor Robinson also said that the city’s code enforcement department would be a regular visitor to the REAP homeless camp, which he thinks will help ensure that conditions at the camp remain up to snuff.
“Just stop by there, proactively, and see what’s going on,” Robinson said. “We don’t normally do that, but in this case, because of things that have happened, we’re more than happy to take a little bit of a proactive look and just stop by and see what’s going on every week and checking those things out.”
These regular visits from code enforcement, the mayor said, will not be serving as the additional oversight that the city council requested last week. The oversight of operations, he clarified, falls to REAP.
“We have contracted with REAP. REAP needs to provide the oversight; they need to do something like that,” the mayor said. “I think what code enforcement does is to make sure that they’re are no violations that we know that are there and perhaps not being addressed.”
Funding in the Future
There is about $3 million worth of federal funds — stemming from the pandemic-era American Rescue Plan Act, or ARPA funding — floating around, benefiting efforts to address the issue of homelessness. The city of Pensacola provided these federal funds to be used towards this effort. Monday, Mayor Robinson said it would be up to future elected officials to ensure that new funding is found so that such efforts can continue for the long term.
“What we were able to do with ARPA gave us a couple of years, and what will have to happen is future councils, future mayors will have to figure out how that gets incorporated into the budget,” Mayor Robinson said.
In particular, the mayor said, the incoming administration of mayor-elect D.C. Reeves will need to wrap its arms around the issue of homelessness and the related issue of affordable housing.
“The whole idea is that this is going to take the next administration. This is going to be a big issue for them,” Robinson said. “Between where they go with the permanent situation of homelessness and where they go with affordable housing, it’s going to be a challenging part on both fronts, but I think we’ve got it set in the right direction on both points.”
Actively pursuing solutions on the multiple fronts of this issue, the mayor stressed, will be key.
“The hard part about homelessness is not any one thing, the hard part is that you’re having to do multiple things at one time,” he said. “You’ve got to be doing all of it at the same time.”
Soccer Season Kick-off
This Thursday, the city will hold a formal ribbon-cutting for the Hitzman Optimist Park Soccer Field. The new soccer complex off of Langley Avenue has been in play for a while, but this is the facility’s official kick-off.
“We were able to get some play done last year, but we had a number of other things we were working through — obviously, still continuing to go through some COVID things, so we did not do as much of a recognition as we wanted to,” Robinson said.
Pointing to the rise of youth soccer over recent years, as well as the in-the-works women’s team at Pensacola State College, Mayor Robinson said he was glad to see the city investing in the sport and hoped the new facility on Langley Avenue would help continue to foster the sport locally.
“It’s just amazing to see [how] soccer has taken off and what it continues to do,” the mayor said. “I think soccer, like no other, is a great sport that offers opportunity for play regardless of gender — in fact, it’s very active, both men’s and women’s — so, again very excited to see this sport doing so well. We’re excited to see it happening with such strength here in the city of Pensacola.”