Escambia County homeless problem worsens as squatter population grows

After months of delays in complying with an Escambia County magistrate’s order to clean up tents, trash and debris from camps of people who are homeless and living on his property, Pensacola businessman Collier Merrill said he is going to move those still camping on his family’s land in Brent “by whatever means” is needed, within the next few weeks.

“We've been working on another project, hoping they would go ahead and move on their own, but actually they're not going to do that,” said Merrill, “so we are now making this a priority to get in compliance with the county.”

Merrill has said before that he would remove and trespass people still living on the property. He cleaned up homeless campsites there in August, months after the magistrate’s April deadline, because he said he wanted to give people living on the property time to find another place to live.

He hauled away dumpsters full of trash and temporary living structures and most of the people living there moved, but so far, no action has been taken to remove those who he allowed to camp “temporarily.”

Next door neighbor Gwen Gibson and other residents said not only are people still camping on the Merrill property, but more come every day, trespassing across her property to get to his, which is behind her house.

Each day it’s normal for Gibson to deal with trash and fires as well as people camping along her back fence. Sometimes she finds them on her property passed out from drug use or injured from a fight.

At one point, the campers regularly used the bathroom around a tree just over her property line on Merrill’s land and in direct view from her kitchen window. She said the area was so disgusting, the crews Merrill hired to clean up the property became sick during the work.

Merrill has since posted “No trespassing” signs and installed cameras to deter trespassers, but they’re still camping there.

He said he has talked to Escambia Sheriff Chip Simmons and his staff about the situation, and while the sheriff said he will trespass violators on private property if called, Merrill has not called him to trespass anyone.

Bad for business: Hundreds of homeless people live where others work. It's not safe, sanitary or easily solved

“There are so many people going back and forth it’s ridiculous,” said Gibson. “I’ve been on the phone with code enforcement and the sheriff’s department. There are at least 15 to 20 people constantly walking down my driveway to get to their (camp) to buy drugs, prostitution, whatever they’re doing back there.”

“We had it solved when he cleaned it up and most of the people left,” she continued. “Now once again everybody keeps blowing smoke. All Merrill has done is make it a real nice place for them to live. The longer they wait to move people, the more people who come.”

Why are so many people camping in Brent?

The Merrill property, which is owned by multiple members of the family, is part of a wider area in Brent where hundreds of homeless people have been camping in and around private and county-owned property.

A couple of blocks from Merrill’s wooded land, Escambia County is allowing people to camp on vacant property off North Palafox, where earlier this year Escambia Code Enforcement counted another 130 campsites.

Many had moved there from the camp the city of Pensacola closed under Interstate-110.

Outreach organizations that provide services to the indigent and homeless are in the Brent area and people end up living on the street or in the woods nearby. Church groups and individuals also regularly bring food and other supplies to the unsheltered campers, which neighbors understand, but say is problematic because it encourages some to stay.

While some campers are there because they can’t afford housing, others choose to live that way for a variety of reasons.

In early March, an Escambia County magistrate ordered the Merrills to address nuisance conditions that accompanied homeless campers living on their property.

At the time, the county said there were about 70 campsites and at least that many unsheltered people living there.

The magistrate’s order stemmed from a case Escambia County Code Enforcement opened on the Merrill property a year ago.

Nowhere to go: Hundreds of homeless find refuge in Brent. Many of the 200 campsites came from I-110 camp.

To address issues identified by code enforcement, the county ordered the Merrills to remove trash, rubbish and overgrowth, as well as temporary shelters and inoperable vehicles and “maintain clean conditions to avoid a repeat violation.”

The work was to be completed within 45 days of the magistrate’s order, and when it hadn’t started by April, the county found the property owners non-compliant with the order.

Since then, daily fines of $30 have accumulated and now total more than $5,000, because the county says the property is still not in compliance.

Escambia Code Enforcement filed another complaint against the property on Oct. 10. It’s a “Building without Permits” complaint and is in reference to a homemade tent/lean-to structure currently on the Merrill property. It has been included with the case already open on the property.

“In the next week or two, we're going to go ahead and remove, however we need to do it, whoever's left,” Merrill said.

Repeat problems in lower income neighborhoods

Across Pensacola and Escambia County, local leaders say they’re getting more complaints than ever about problems associated with homelessness, like camping, panhandling, trespassing and trash.

“That is the biggest, No. 1 problem in the county,” said Escambia Commissioner Mike Kohler, who represents District 2. “There's no other complaint I get more than, ‘What are you doing about the situation?’ And I know the other commissioners have to be getting it too.”

Kohler said there are areas in his district where complaints related to homelessness are chronic from business owners and residents about everything from breaks-ins by people looking for shelter to others passed out in yards and rights-of-ways.

Like the issues Brent is seeing, the problems seem to be worse in lower income neighborhoods.

“I see it place after place I go, and a lot of the places are in really poor communities where people basically just want to live in a decent neighborhood,” said Kohler. “Now they’re just like, ‘Why do I have to live like this? I'm paying my taxes. I shouldn't have to come home and have homeless people laying in my yard.'"

Escambia County Code Enforcement gets similar complaints, in part they say because the issue is more in the public eye.

“We're definitely getting more calls than we have historically ever had,” said Tim Day, Escambia senior natural resources manager. “We're getting a lot more calls because although there may have been a camp 100 feet back in the woods before, that may have been a harder place to get to, now it's close to the right of way.”

Day believes part of the reason for that is a result of the lockdown of homeless and others during COVID-19.

During the pandemic, the county didn’t move campers like they normally would, to avoid the spread of the virus. As a result, campers and people living on the street became less inclined to “hide,” even after the lockdown ended.

“Before COVID, they would have been deep in the property and there may not have been as many,” said Day. “They would have been working hard to keep their encampment hidden from everyone so it's just not in your face. That's the result of what happened with COVID and the new normal that developed during COVID.”

One example of that is a large camp on about eight acres of wooded property in Warrington owned by the Area Housing Commission.

There are at least 15 campsites on the land and it’s right next to Jones Swamp Wetland Preserve & Nature Trail, near the intersection of N. Navy Boulevard and Highway 98.

The campsite is on the other side of a county fence that lines the public walking trail, and there are multiple places where people have cut holes in it to get through. Within a few feet of the path, some campers were sweeping around their sites, listening to music, and a baby could be heard crying briefly from one of the tents.

Day describes the camp as organized and maintained for the most part, but there are piles of trash. Kohler said he’s heard from neighbors who are reluctant to use the walking trails and enjoy the preserve because of how close the camp is.

While most campers may be trying to live and let live, others show signs of mental illness and substance abuse and that creates a sense of uncertainty and concern for neighbors and business owners.

“If I start getting complaints on it, then I've got to talk to the housing authority about working to address the conditions,” said Day. “Then it'll be up to them whether they're going to allow camping or if they're going to keep them moving.”

Pockets of problems across Pensacola

A few miles away in Brownsville, the county is taking steps to move a group of squatters who moved into a vacant house on “V” Street.

Neighbors say over the past five years different groups of people have lived there. Most recently an out-of-town corporation bought the property through a tax deed sale, but it sat empty and squatters moved in permanently.

Complaints about the property ranged from dilapidated conditions to loud music and drug activity. Neighbor Chris Christoffersen lives next door.

“They need to go,” said Christoffersen. “I just hope they just don't move to your house, your neighborhood. The only way you keep them out is the home has got to be lived in.”

County code enforcement has been working the case for about year. It took longer than usual because the owner did not respond to multiple efforts to address the situation.

“I did a partial abatement, which just means I had one of the contractors go out and essentially clean the whole yard and there may have been an outbuilding we destroyed, but basically, they cleaned it up and then we let it go five or six months to see if once that lien hit if that would get the attention of the out-of-town owner. It didn't get their attention and so we've moved forward to demolish the house.”

Day expects the house will be demolished in two to three weeks and the people living there have been warned to leave.

He said throughout Brownsville and the county there are similar issues, people taking up residence wherever they can, but the lower-income neighborhoods seem to be hit the hardest.

The county is addressing pockets of problems as they pop up, but the process can take time.

“You may have more conditions that make it more conducive for unsheltered people,” said Day, “because you may have vacant lots that have become overgrown. A very popular site for homeless is properties in probate. I've met perfectly nice people who were camping and keeping up the property, keeping it clean and in a good state, but since there's not a clear owner, there's no one for me to cite as code enforcement, and there's no one to sign a trespass order for the Sheriff's Department and so that could be a vacant lot or a vacant house in probate.”

What’s being done about homelessness

County and city leaders as well as homeless advocates have been discussing solutions for years, but there’s no simple solution to a complex problem.

Some county leaders are considering beefing up ordinances on vagrancy, panhandling and camping, but any changes must be balanced with consideration of civil rights or the changes won’t hold up in court.

Also, there is only so much money to go around and a variety of needs to meet, including veterans and homeless youth, parents and caretakers with children, and people just getting out of prison.

Many people are also coming to Northwest Florida from out of the area, looking for help here because Pensacola has a reputation for providing services to people who need it.

Only there isn’t always enough help for those who want to get off the street and people often must wait for services.

Opening Doors of Northwest Florida is the area’s Continuum of Care or leading agency on homelessness. The agency has begun the process of creating a new governance board to align the organization with the federal government's strategic plan to reduce homelessness by 25% by 2025. The changes could make more funding available in the future, but it will take time, officials say.

The local Homeless Task Force has also recommended building a low-barrier shelter, but some worry providing more services will only bring more people to the community and create an even larger population of unsheltered people.

A federal expert on homelessness said a unified, community approach is what’s needed to best help the most people, but local leaders are still deciding on what that approach should look like.

“We have several million dollars for homelessness,” said Kohler, “so we need to figure something out.”

Some property owners, like Gwen Gibson, feel stuck with little help from local leaders. She loves her home and the land that it’s on has been in her family for years, so she doesn’t want to leave.

For speaking out about the problems she’s having, she said she has received threatening calls from advocates for the homeless, had men with machetes stand on the edge of her property and stare as she left her house, endured screaming insults from church groups who were upset when she declined to let them cut through her property to feed campers on Merrill’s land, and she recently found a stack of burned News Journal newspapers in her driveway.

“I’ve been dealing with this for years. I feel very unsafe,” said Gibson. “It’s been hard and sometimes I think I can’t do this anymore, but I’m not giving up. I haven’t done anything wrong. Why should I have to leave?”

This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Escambia County homeless problem worsens as squatter population grows