An agreement reached by the Florida American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and City of Miami retains the core protections afforded the homeless by the historic 1998 Pottinger Settlement Agreement, which protects Miami’s homeless from police harassment; the new agreement reaffirms and clarifies rights of homeless individuals, according to an ACLU release, and ends the city’s efforts to modify the historic Pottinger Settlement, which has full force of a court order.
The Key West City Commission has scheduled a workshop on potential homeless shelter sites for Wednesday, Dec. 18 at 6 p.m. at Old City Hall, 510 Greene St.
“The original Pottinger Agreement was won after a decade of litigation involving two trials, two appeals,and nearly two years of mediation in which a federal court found intentional and systematic violations of the constitutional rights of homeless persons by the City of Miami,” ACLU reported, continuing, “In September 2013, the city filed a motion in federal court to modify the agreement, potentially enabling a resurrection of the policies which were found to violate the rights of the city’s homeless in Pottinger. . . .Today’s agreement puts a two-year moratorium on further motions by the city to modify the agreement to allow ‘Housing First’ efforts to solve the issue of homelessness in the city to have a chance to succeed.” Benjamin Waxman, an attorney with the law firm Robbins, Tunkey, Ross, Amsel, Raben & Waxman, P.A., and lead counsel in the Pottinger case, stated “The modified agreement is something that Miami residents should be proud of, and prevents a return to the failed policy of criminalizing homelessness that led to the widespread violation of people’s rights without even solving the core problem.”
“Miami-Dade County’s Homeless Trust is already implementing the program, which is far better for our community than the changes originally proposed by the City,” said Maria Kayanan, Associate Legal Director for the ACLU of Florida. “For fifteen years, the Pottinger agreement has protected the dignity, property, and constitutional rights of Miami’s homeless persons while downtown Miami has thrived. Addressing homelessness through the criminal justice system is counter-productive.”
A copy of the addendum filed is available here: http://aclufl.org/resources/pottinger-agreement-addendum/ For general information, visit www.aclufl.org.
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