I am fascinated by the amount of column inches devoted recently in our local media to Homelessness.

Check it out:

“A’s and E’s for efforts to help homelessness-Dr. Marbut’s report card on Sarasota County Homelessness”- Sarasota Herald-Tribune

“Wrong for homeless shelter”-Ed James II guest column Sarasota Herald-Tribune

“Common Sense on Homeless”-Sarasota Observer editorial

“City, County talk homelessness”-Sarasota Herald-Tribune

“A plan for the homeless”- Jim Ley guest column Sarasota Herald-Tribune

“Troubling angle to ideas on homeless”-Tom Lyons commentary Sarasota Herald-Tribune 

“Can Homeless Debate Reach Satisfying End?”-Jacob Ogles, SRQ Daily

And then:

“Joint city-county deal collapses”- Sarasota Herald-Tribune

This last headline is the most disconcerting and does not bode well for future collaboration between the two bureaucracies on this important issue.

I was optimistic that solutions were beginning to emerge.

The Salvation Army has opened their Quality Life Center Social Service Complex on 17th Street, which has helped alleviate the situation that existed outside their facility on Central despite the out-of-date photos the Sarasota Herald-Tribune continues to publish every time it reports on this issue. 

Doug Logan’s report and recommendation that we create a business model that is similar to Salt Lake City’s “The Road Home” agency bears merit.

Dr. Marbut gave the County an ‘A’ for its response to families and children (kudos to the Gulf Coast Community Foundation and Harvest House) and the community’s efforts to fight hunger.  

Jim Ley bought to our attention a potential funding source for helping those with mental health issues by creating a County Health and Welfare Special District as enabled by Florida Statue 154.31 by which could tax ourselves up to 5 mills. We have special districts for St.Armands and Downtown; why not mental health? 

The really difficult political hot potato is, of course, the location of a facility or facilities that would provide temporary shelter—not a jail diversion facility—for the chronic homeless throughout Sarasota County. This seems to be where the rubber hits the road. City leaders acknowledged at the recent joint meeting of the City and County the need for some type of emergency shelter for adults. From the City’s perspective just not in their back yard and not a jail diversion facility masquerading as an emergency shelter. The efficacy of such a facility is questionable. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it is a duck. Was it necessary for the county to publicly reject the 45-day deadline so soon after the recent summit? Did this action serve the best interests of “the homeless?” Could we not have taken the 45 days to come up with a workable solution?

Marcelo Gleiser, a theoretical physicist at Dartmouth College wrote: “It would be quite naïve to expect a life without conflict, naïve and boring. After all, as we struggle to find solutions, conflict leads to new ways of thinking. Nothing ever changes in a world without discord.”

I sincerely hope that out of all this discord and conflict change is possible. 

That’s the way I see it.

Ian Black is the founder of Ian Black Real Estate.