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A weekly, local news podcast for Gainesville, FL and Alachua County, covering business, government, education and events. StreetSmart is produced by Mainstreet Daily News, the source for local news that matters to you.
Hello from Gainesville, Florida. It's Monday, August 31, and you're listening to StreetSmart. I'm Lillian Hamman. StreetSmart is a weekly podcast from Mainstreet Daily News, where we cover local news that informs, engages, and inspires listeners like you.
Lillian:A big thanks to our sponsor Forest Meadows Funeral Home, where compassion meets experience. Check out their beautiful gardens, funeral home, and tribute center. With exceptional care and personal attention, Forest Meadows is here to honor every life with care.
Lillian:Here's the top headlines we're rounding up.
Lillian:Zion Lutheran Church of Gainesville completed construction on its long awaited sanctuary. The project started nearly ten years ago before hitting construction issues, but the now open sanctuary emphasizes light and sound.
Lillian:The city of Gainesville is moving toward eliminating two historic district buffers at University Avenue. Commissioners said the buffers created red tape that made it hard for new development in a primary corridor of the city.
Lillian:The Alachua County Library District will hit its fortieth anniversary in October. Leading up to the celebration, the district will host a series of library themed events and craft activities.
Lillian:A 500 home development in Newberry will move forward after approval. Last week. The city commission has greenlighted more than 2,000 new homes so far this year that will be built over the course of the next few years.
Lillian:The Alachua city commission finalized the rezoning for the farmland's commercial development last week. The development is expected to bring a Walmart to the rural city. At the same time, commissioners approved utility rate increases for the next fiscal year and gave evaluations of the city manager.
Lillian:Ben and Jerry's has reentered the Alachua County ice cream market with a new storefront in Jonesville. The store is currently in soft opening mode and the chain used to operate two locations in Gainesville before closing in the mid twenty tens. For more details behind these stories, visit mainstreetdailynews.com. Every day we're adding new information to keep you informed and the best part, it's all free with no paywall. Thanks to our generous member.
Lillian:Welcome to another episode of the StreetSmart podcast. I'm Lillian Hamman, and with me is Seth Johnson here to help wrap up this month of August.
Seth:Yeah. It's always fun to end the month exactly on a StreetSmart episode. And August has been, I think, pretty good for listeners with the bonus episode and hearing from some voices you don't normally with publisher JC Derrick getting to visit us last week, and then our new photojournalist Walker Smith earlier in the month. So a lot of fun here in the studio.
Lillian:And for this episode with our feature stories, we're going to touch on Alachua County homelessness. What you got there?
Seth:Yeah. It was kind of an interesting meeting last week. A story that wouldn't typically be a story, but ended up being one because of the actions of, the County Commission. So there was a contract on the consent agenda for the normal outreach, homeless outreach services that the county provides. They've been doing this the last couple of years.
Seth:And normally, contracts like that get approved on the consent agenda. There were, you know, 24 other items last week on the consent. Know, those are a lot of contracts, a lot of stock standard kind of business, and there's one vote and all the items get passed. But commissioner Anna Prizia asked for one item to be removed, and it was this homelessness contract for the outreach team, which the county provides $350,000 that goes to the task force for ending homelessness, who is the lead agency for the local continuum of care, which coordinates all the homeless efforts in the area. And then that continuum of care puts out a request for proposals for someone else to bid and actually do the work.
Seth:Now, I'm gonna give you a little more background here before we get into this particular item that I think will be helpful. So there's two kind of models for administrating homelessness services. There's the housing first model and the treatment first model. And so kind of like the name suggests, housing first says, you know, place people in housing with no strings attached and then work forward from there, you know, even if they don't necessarily want rehab or help or other services. The treatment first model says, you know, individuals need treatment for mental health or drugs or alcohol and other issues that they're working through, and that treatment needs to be prioritized with any housing.
Seth:So those are kind of the rough ideas behind both of them. And the county has adopted a housing first model a while ago and has been plowing ahead in that vein. But the federal government recently switched tracks, they're now pushing for a treatment first model for, you know, local governments and other people that they're funding. Now, even though the federal government isn't funding this particular street outreach program, staff said they wanted to be careful with how they put out any homelessness service requests for, you know, an outreach team or a shelter or things like that because the federal government might look at that at their full suite of services when the county is asking for federal grants for homelessness. And Claudia Tuck, who's the director of Alachua County's Community Support Services, said the local Alachua County gets, you know, a million dollars from the federal government each year just on homelessness services.
Seth:So that's certainly something they don't want to jeopardize if the federal government is looking at this treatment first model. However, because that request for proposals for kind of that street outreach team started including some language around treatment options and treatment first and things that are kind of mimicking the federal government language, Some people like Grace Marketplace, along with county commissioners, were concerned that the county staff were shifting away from that housing first model that they believe is best. And so, that's why it came up at that meeting.
Lillian:That's pretty interesting. How did it all parse out at the meeting?
Seth:Well, staff for the county, along with the Task Force for Ending Homelessness, kind of reiterated their commitment to the Housing First approach. And they kind of said they're trying to appease the federal government with some of the language and resemble it, so that anyone providing a treatment first, you know, option feels free to apply for the request for proposals. And that, you know, they're not excluding that option, but at the same time saying, you know, we're fully behind Housing First. And so, one of the attorney, the board attorney for Grace Marketplace said, you know, it seemed like a bait and switch because on the county's backup documents, there's no mention of treatment first. It's all about Housing First, but then the actual request for proposal has, you know, this wording about treatment.
Seth:However, you know, Claudia Tuck mentioned it was almost a reverse, you know, the bait and switches the other way, where they're they're showing, you know, treatment first being an option even though they really wanna go forward with the housing first and, have no plans to switch outside of that. But the county commissioners asked, you know, if they could clarify the language in the request for proposals and make it clear the county does want to do housing first and this is money that the county is providing for these homeless outreach services. And so they get to determine kind of the wording around that. And county staff said, yes, you know, you can. And they asked if that would jeopardize federal government funding, and they said, no, it won't.
Seth:And so even though the initial fear, it seemed, was that if we don't show this treatment first wording, we could jeopardize federal funding. By the end, they said, you know, it'll be fine and we can move forward, and no, there's no fear of it. So, it's kind of an odd way for it to all wash out and kind of acted like it was moot Indian whether or not they had language or not. And so, that's the plan. Staff is gonna work with the task force for ending homelessness to make it very clear in the request for proposals that they are still very much on the housing first train and want to continue in that direction.
Lillian:When is the county gonna be following up on these actions?
Seth:Yeah. So the county fiscal year ends at the very end of September. And so the new contract for Street Outreach should start October 1. And it won't actually come back before the county commissioners. And that was one of the concerns was if they mess with the language, you know, the verbiage of the request for proposals, would it delay a start to that Street Outreach team?
Seth:Would October 1 come around and there's no one doing that work? And so, they authorize staff to make the changes without it coming back before the commission. And so, they should, you know, that request for proposals is on the street. They should get bids and be able to implement a new contract to start October 1. And so that's what's going on there and a lot of other things happening in the homelessness sphere right now with St.
Seth:Francis House closing and looking at cold night shelters, even though that's still a few months away and kind of give me the infrastructure in place there. There's some conversations with the city Gainesville and others. And so, definitely a, area we wanna be, looking at and seeing what's changing.
Lillian:We're going to take a quick break to hear from our sponsor before we get to the news forecast and event segments.
Sponsor:At Forest Meadows, our commitment is simple. Exceptional care, personal attention, and respect for every family we serve. Forest Meadows offers every option in one trusted place. Visit our beautiful gardens and glass front niches, or plan ahead for cremation, funerals, and memorials at our funeral home or tribute center located on our cemetery grounds. Forest Meadows, where compassion meets experienced and every life is honored with care.
Seth:Now for this week's news forecast, the Gainesville Downtown Advisory Board will meet tomorrow morning and hear a presentation about business improvement grants. The Florida Department of Transportation will hold an open house from 04:30 to 6PM on Wednesday at the Matheson History Museum. The meeting will present information about potential changes to University Avenue. The Gainesville City Commission will convene Thursday for a regular meeting.
Lillian:Now for our event segment covering upcoming family friendly events this week. Early stage startups can hone their skills and pitch their business ideas this Thursday and Friday at San Felasco Tech City and Santa Fe College's Blunt Hall. The free pitch Gainesville competition will start at 8AM and includes a $20,000 prize pool. Bring your own instrument and join the Gainesville Ruckus on Wednesday. The open rehearsal will be at Hartwood Soundstage at 06:30PM with brass, woodwinds, marching drums, and all other instruments encouraged to try out.
Lillian:The Alachua Audubon Society will hold a field trip to Palm Point Park on Newnans Lake this Saturday at 9AM. Join experts to look for fall migrants before driving to the other side of the lake to walk through Powers Park. Frogsong Organics will hold a farm to table meat and greet dinner on Saturday at 05:45PM. Stroll through the farm and learn about the operation and taste the results. Tickets start at $20.
Lillian:It's a civil war edition of plays in the park starting at 9AM Saturday at Morningside Nature Center. Visitors will tour a one room schoolhouse and enjoy a corral performance of spirituals and freedom songs. And college football has officially returned with the University of Florida facing Florida Atlantic University on Saturday. So be prepared for game day traffic. Fan Fest at the O'Connell Center will start at 04:45PM and Chomp the Block at Celebration Point happens the night before.
Seth:And even though college football is just getting up to speed, high school football has been around for a couple of weeks now, and Mainstreet Daily News is providing coverage for that with sports director Mike Ridaught and his crew doing live broadcast of games and recaps and everything else you need to stay up to date with the Rams, the Raiders, the Panthers, the Hurricanes, the Bobcats, and everyone else here in Alachua County and throughout North Central Florida.
Lillian:And if you even wanna catch his show live on the prep zone, head over to Sonic on Wednesday nights.
Seth:You can also find recordings of all his shows and the game broadcasts at mainstreetdailynews.com.
Lillian:And that's all we've got for this week's StreetSmart podcast brought to you by Mainstreet Daily News and made possible by our generous members. You can access more free news at mainstreetdailynews.com. We'll be back next week with more stories that matter to you because they take place right here in Alachua County. Take a minute to share StreetSmart and help us continue the work. Our theme music is Sunset Sonata by Gainesville ska band, Now Leaving Space.
Lillian:This episode is a production of MARC Media.