Commissioner Murman mentioned and quoted in this Creative Loafing article on homelessness:
Hillsborough County officials say they can end homelessness in a “business-like way.”
Mitch Perry,
Dec 4, 2013 at 7:14 PM
In October the Tampa Bay Times reported that since 2011, Hillsborough County’s Homeless Recovery program has sent at least 130 ailing men and women to Bay Gardens, at a cost to taxpayers of more than $260,000. That ultimately led to County Administrator Mike Merrill to say that his staff was unable to review those cases listed by the paper because of the way the county’s records were kept.
Shortly after that, the county announced that it was working with non-profit organizations to transition to a new model for delivering assistance to the homeless. As part of this transition, the County’s Homeless Recovery Office will now close at the end of the year.
At a joint luncheon with the Tampa City Council and Hillsborough County School Board on Wednesday, Merrill said the county would provide funding and support, but would no longer be in the homeless business themselves.
“We’ll leave the Homeless Initiative program to those who do the job well like Metropolitan Ministries and the Salvation Army. We’ll provide funding, we’ll provide support….it takes a longtime to unwind 16 years of bad behavior and so we’re getting to it as quickly as we can,” he said about the problems with the Homeless Recovery program.
Merrill said he was extremely optimistic about changes within the leading organization for the homeless in the county – the organization formerly known as the Homeless Coalition of Hillsborough County, now rebranded as the Tampa-Hillsborough Homeless Initiative. “We can end homelessness and we can prevent homelessness,” he boldly proclaimed. “We just need to do it in a business-like way. Achieving social objectives, but business models work.”
Commissioner Sandy Murman chimed in that it was important for the county government to take control of both the homeless and animal services divisions, both troubled agencies that have had their problems extensively chronicled in the local media.
And she lavished enthusiasm about the teamwork going on between the city and the county when it comes to dealing with the homeless. “I’m very encouraged about that.”
Also at the meeting today Tampa City Council Lisa Montelione described her collaboration with Pinellas County state Representative Kathleen Peters on a social marketing campaign involving the Art Institute of Tampa. “They’re designing a media package that can be handed over to a community,” Montelione said.
