‘Bad for business’: Homeless hot spots in Fort Lauderdale not a good look, critics say

Local entrepreneurs have a message for Fort Lauderdale: The city’s homeless crisis is bad for business — and getting worse.

The complaints take on a new urgency in light of a new state law that bans homeless people from sleeping in public. The new law, which goes into effect in October, also paves the way for critics to file lawsuits against local governments starting next year if they fail to enforce the ban.

Bernie Bedor, a business owner in northern Fort Lauderdale, says he has sent email after email to City Hall, begging Fort Lauderdale officials to do something about the city’s ongoing homeless problem.

“We take investors down to the beach and they see homeless people in tents,” Bedor told the South Florida Sun Sentinel. “No one wants to invest in a mini-California. There’s a tent city next to the new police station they’re building. You have people going to the bathroom on the sidewalk. It’s like a free for all. And it’s very bad for business.”

Bedor shared several photos with the Sun Sentinel of homeless people sleeping or relieving themselves outside the stores at Imperial Square, a strip center several blocks north of Commercial Boulevard on Federal Highway. Other photos show people sleeping in tents on the beach just north of Sunrise Boulevard.

Bedor says he sent the same photos to city officials.

Charlie King, a local real estate agent, sent the newspaper photos of a nude homeless man peering into a window of a home in Victoria Park, then sitting on the front stoop. In one photo, King’s “For Sale” sign hangs out front.

“It’s embarrassing to have this going on in the city,” said King, who has been complaining for years about Fort Lauderdale’s homeless problem. “It hurts business. It makes people not want to live in Fort Lauderdale.”

King also sent photos of a nude woman wearing only a towel sitting on a bench. Another shows a man crouching down to defecate on the sidewalk in broad daylight.

“I saw a homeless couple having sex at the bus stop at Federal Highway and Commercial Boulevard,” King said. “No one wants to see this in the middle of our town.”

King says he takes photos, then sends them along to the mayor.

‘We’re doing our best’

Fort Lauderdale Mayor Dean Trantalis has said he wants the county to revisit the idea of housing the homeless at the county stockade located at 5400 Powerline Road, just east of Chase Stadium where Inter Miami plays.

The idea came up seven years ago, but was nixed by the county at the time.

Fort Lauderdale officials hope to work something out with the county in the next six months, before the new state law kicks in.

“We’re doing our best,” Trantalis said. “The problem we have is finding a shelter for homeless people. And we rely on the county to provide that. We do not have enough shelter to house homeless people.”

Cities throughout the country are anxiously awaiting a ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court that would have sweeping implications for the nation’s homeless population and the cities and states struggling to find solutions to a growing crisis.

The case centers on a local law that bans sleeping on public land with a blanket or pillow day and night in Grants Pass, a small town in Oregon.

Lower courts have ruled that local governments cannot fine or jail a person for sleeping on public land if no shelter beds are available.

But several cities, Fort Lauderdale included, say the rulings have tied their hands when it comes to keeping parks and other public spaces safe for residents, tourists and children.

Better than a park bench?

“We really won’t know if sleeping on the sidewalk is against the law until we get the ruling from the Supreme Court,” Commissioner John Herbst said. “When they hand down the Grants Pass ruling, then we’ll know whether the state law is legitimate or not. We’re waiting for the Supreme Court. But even after that we have to have a place to put them. And Fort Lauderdale can’t be the only place.”

Herbst, the district commissioner for Fort Lauderdale’s northern section, fields complaints all the time about homelessness and its impact on residents and business owners.

Herbst likes the idea of opening the stockade to house the homeless as long as it doesn’t impact the surrounding neighborhoods.

“We can’t bury our heads in the sand and say, ‘No, we can’t consider it,’” he said. “Personally, I think it’s better than sleeping on a park bench. In fact, right now I’m sitting in front of the stockade and looking at the barbed wire. But I’d prefer to be in a safe environment with barbed wire than being out there on the street.”

Doing nothing is not an option, he said.

Herbst recently traveled to San Francisco, and says he saw firsthand what the homeless crisis has done to that city.

“As I walked down the street, I saw people defecating on the street,” he said. “They had tents up. There were piles of trash everywhere. It has taken one of the greatest cities in the country and made it uninhabitable. People are fleeing San Francisco.”

‘It’s getting worse and worse’

An estimated 8,263 people are living on the streets of Broward County, according to a yearlong study that ended in September 2023. Nearly half of them are based in Fort Lauderdale

Bedor, the business owner, says the cost of doing business is getting higher while Fort Lauderdale’s leaders struggle to manage a growing problem.

“It’s getting worse and worse and worse here in Fort Lauderdale,” Bedor said. “It’s not that we’re not empathetic. But it’s to the point now where we’re having to pay $30,000 a year for private security to patrol our buildings at night. That cost is being passed on to the business owners.”

More homeless people started hanging out at Imperial Square and the nearby county library a few years ago, said Brenda Bertnoli, owner of the strip center.

The library has become a day-care center for the homeless, Bertnoli said.

“They leave their stuff around outside,” she said. “And they sleep there. We found one the other day in the stairwell waiting for the library to open.”

Two years ago, she hired a security company to patrol the property at night.

“If I want them to stay all day and night it’s much more expensive,” she said. “It’s not affordable. I can’t afford what I want. If I could, I’d have them there all day.”

Not long ago, Bertnoli got a call from a tenant complaining about the smell outside.

“There was excrement outside his door, right in the walkway,” she said. “My maintenance man had to clean up with bleach.”

Bertnoli said she holds out hope that the state’s new homeless camp law is going to make an impact and turn things around.

“I pray that it does,” she said. “We have tents everywhere, on the beach and downtown. We’re becoming a mini-San Francisco.”

Susannah Bryan can be reached at sbryan@sunsentinel.com. Follow me on X @Susannah_Bryan