Advocate for homeless was paid $5 million to leave town. Now he wants back in.

Sean Cononie, pied piper to the homeless, got millions from Hollywood to get out of town and never come back.

Now the man who riled city leaders for years by running what many considered an eyesore of a homeless shelter wants to pop back into town for what he regards as a noble purpose: vaccinating the homeless against COVID-19.

But Hollywood isn’t rolling out the red carpet.

The deal he made with the city six years ago doesn’t allow him to conduct such an operation, City Manager Wazir Ishmael reminded Cononie in an email responding to his request.

In 2015, Hollywood paid Cononie $4.8 million to leave town and turn over his homeless shelter and other properties to City Hall. In return, Cononie promised he’d stay out of Hollywood for 30 years.

If he violates the agreement, he can be fined $30,000 per violation.

On Tuesday, Cononie says he’s willing to take that risk.

“I’m going to review the contract tonight and make a decision,” he said. “I can do it and they can fine me. And then I can go before a judge to see if I have to pay it or not.”

The news alarmed resident Clive Taylor Jr., who was born and raised in Hollywood and still remembers the legions of homeless who wandered Federal Highway when Cononie’s shelter opened its doors.

“He is persona non grata in the city,” Taylor said. “Talk to any business owner along Federal Highway. No one was sorry to see him go. The city paid dearly to get him out of our hair.”

Cononie’s Homeless Voice shelter, a presence on Federal Highway since 2002, closed in 2015 and was torn down months later.

Cononie left town, but soon returned to a home he owns in Davie.

For the past six months, Cononie said, he and his team of staff and nurses have already administered more than 300 doses of the vaccine to homeless people they’ve found under bridges and camped out on the streets.

They’ve traveled in Cononie’s COVID-19 mobile unit to Fort Lauderdale, Dania Beach, Hallandale Beach, Davie, Pembroke Pines and even Delray Beach without incident, he says.

“Hollywood is the only one saying no,” Cononie said.

In his email, Hollywood’s city manager sought to reassure Cononie that the city had been proactive in offering COVID-19 vaccines to the public.

“Just to be clear, free COVID-19 vaccinations have been and continue to be available for anyone in Hollywood, including the homeless,” Ishmael wrote.

Hollywood’s police officers have been telling homeless people about free vaccination sites at the Broward Outreach Center, state Department of Health pop-up sites and CVS and Walgreens stores, the city manager says.

That’s not good enough, Cononie argues. The way he sees it, the city needs to send teams out in search of homeless people who want a shot.

“If they were going under bridges and going to encampments we wouldn’t need to be doing this,” he said. “But they’re not doing that. They want the people to come to them. And they’re not going to do that. It’s a hard-to-reach population.”

Cononie says he’s been getting calls from homeless people in Hollywood saying they know someone who wants a shot.

“Those people deserve shots,” Cononie said. “You don’t want a homeless person positive with COVID and roaming around town going from a bus stop to Publix to a 7-Eleven. That spreads the virus.”

Cononie sent the city manager an email Tuesday arguing that point.

“The last thing any city needs is to have positive homeless people going from store to store spreading COVID,” he wrote. “I am sure your residents would not be happy if they found out that the city turned this down and then someone died because of it.”

Mayor Josh Levy suggested Cononie head on along with his COVID-19 vaccines to any other city but Hollywood.

“Years ago, Mr. Cononie entered into an agreement to effectively end his operations in our city, and I encourage him to focus his efforts in those other South Florida areas where there may be a need,” Levy said.

Taylor wasn’t at all surprised.

“He did not leave under good terms,” he said of Cononie. “It was like a bad breakup, and now he wants to come back? It wasn’t a good divorce, let’s say that.”

Susannah Bryan can be reached at sbryan@sunsentinel.com or on Twitter @Susannah_Bryan