A Catholic Char­ity had hoped to cre­ate a tent city for the home­less in Tampa, Florida. But local gov­ern­ment offi­cials rejected the plan after protests from peo­ple in a neigh­bor­ing community.

Once again, the home­less are being told to stay in their own lit­tle cor­ner of Amer­ica, wher­ever that is. The prob­lem with that is, the reces­sion has cre­ated many more home­less, and the reces­sion has closed many more shelters.

From the New York Times, writ­ers Damien Cave and Lynn Wad­dell tell us how the plans were rejected.

Frank Mur­phy, pres­i­dent of Catholic Char­i­ties for the St. Peters­burg Dio­cese, said the com­mis­sion­ers side­stepped a prob­lem that had been ignored for years. “They just don’t think it’s impor­tant, I guess,” he said.

The plan would have used a 12-acre church lot to serve 250 peo­ple for up to 90 days in tents and small “casitas” that look like wooden sheds with win­dows. The dio­cese opened a sim­i­lar camp two years ago in nearby Pinel­las County, and Mr. Mur­phy empha­sized that the plan for Tampa would have included back­ground checks for the peo­ple placed there, along with fences and a round-the-clock police presence.

“Peo­ple call it a ‘tent city,’ ” Mr. Mur­phy said. “It’s more a social ser­vice model where peo­ple come in and do a lot of case work, where we ask, ‘How can we help this person?’ ”

The clos­est res­i­den­tial neigh­bor­hood, East Lake, is across a divided high­way and behind a row of busi­nesses — 1,200 feet away in all. That was not nearly enough for Ran­dall Woosely, 46, an unem­ployed for­mer cab dri­ver liv­ing with his sis­ter in East Lake, who came to pres­sure the com­mis­sion to vote no.

“I’ve been in jail; I know this crim­i­nal ele­ment,” Mr. Woosely said, not­ing that he had just served 10 months on a charge related to stolen prop­erty. He added: “I’m not opposed to help­ing home­less peo­ple. It’s just this is no place for that.”

County lead­ers agreed. Three of those who voted no — Al Hig­gin­botham, Kevin White and Ken Hagan — said there must be a bet­ter place for the home­less. They also cited crime as a con­cern, despite tes­ti­mony from the police in Pinel­las County, who called the camp there a suc­cess. Mr. Hig­gin­botham ini­tially seemed to favor the idea. “In these tough finan­cial times, some­one has stepped for­ward and has been will­ing to reach out a hand of gen­eros­ity,” he said. “That’s what this coun­try has been founde­don.”
…

Linda Hin­son, 61, a retiree in East Lake, said defeat of the camp plan meant “I don’t have to go out and get a gun.” She declared that there were already enough shelters.

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