FORT LAUDERDALE — Antoinette Wright says she has nothing against the homeless — she just doesn’t want them camping out near her house, sleeping on the sidewalk or asking her for money.
With a new state law that targets a growing homeless crisis kicking in on Tuesday, Wright is hoping the fear she feels when she enters her own neighborhood will soon turn into relief.
Wright’s home in Fort Lauderdale’s South Middle River neighborhood sits next to property owned by HOPE South Florida, a nonprofit organization that helps the homeless — everything from providing mobile showers to delivering mail and serving 8,000 meals a month. But some of HOPE’s guests don’t leave the neighborhood when the meal is done. And that created a situation neighbors say the city ignored until now.
For seven long years, Wright’s family and her neighbors say they have been forced to put up with a nuisance situation city officials now agree should have been rectified much sooner.
“They bring 300 people into our neighborhood to feed them and half of them would stay in the neighborhood,” she told the South Florida Sun Sentinel. “You see homeless people walking down the street heading to HOPE to get breakfast. Kids are walking to Northside Elementary School with the homeless people laid out all over the sidewalk. People are pooping all over. Residents have to come out and wash down their sidewalks.”