A long-awaited consultant's report on addressing homelessness in the greater Sarasota area has generated support and controversy in the county's most prominent city, the locale where transients are most visible.

The report from Robert Marbut, a nationally celebrated expert on handling homelessness, said there needs to be a shift in the region away from such enabling gestures as public feedings, but he supported creation of a shelter where transients, even if under the influence of drugs or alcohol, could come and stay while the effects of substances work their way out of the body.

"As is true in most public-good site location efforts anywhere in the USA, there is no 'ideal' location," Marbut writes. "It is therefore important to remember the mission is to come up with the most viable location that is available, and not to endlessly pursue a hypothetical location that does not exist in the real world."

Proposed sites include a Washington Street facility where Trinity Without Borders now operates. Other sites include spaces near Ed Smith Stadium on Lewis Avenue, as well as a site on Osprey Avenue and one on East Avenue which lies partially within and partially outside the city limits.

Suggestions for the site of a come-as-you-are shelter have divided officials. Many Sarasota city leaders are concerned such a shelter would both attract transients from around the region into the city, but others say it is critical to stay unified in a regional approach to handling homelessness.

City Commissioner Susan Chapman, who has been critical of the Trinity site's operation, said she was supportive of other aspects of the Marbut report, including greater use of Homeless Management Information system data in proactive case management and the openings of intake facilities in the north and south county. But she remains concerned about the shelter proposal. She is skeptical of whether allowing addicts to a shelter and then releasing them into the same environment the next day will be helpful.

"One component of recovery is you have to get in a recovery group situation rather than an addicted group situation," Chapman said. She worries that Sarasota will continue to take on an undue share of the homeless burden with such a shelter located in the city, and that it will do little to curb problems with addiction if people go right back into the downtown scene where individuals were fighting addiction in the first place.

But others say the report needs to be adopted in its entirety. Commissioner Paul Caragiulo has been vocally supportive of Marbut's efforts, hoping Sarasota can replicate successes from other jurisdictions, and said the report needed to be embraced in its entirety. Caragiulo went on a tour of a similar shelter in Pinellas and came back impressed.

"At the end of the day, everyone is putting a premium and focus on the location of this facility, but I think either you adopt the entire action plan or you don't adopt any of it," said Caragiulo.