New angle to oust open air camps

A proposed ordinance targeting open air camping has drawn mixed reaction from the East Naples community. If approved by county commissioners, the new law will give sheriff's deputies the power to arrest trespassers without first contacting the property owner.

"There's a whole mix of people living in the woods in this area," says District 1 Collier County Commissioner Donna Fiala, a supporter of the new law. "They're some good guys out there, who keep their camps orderly and go to work. We're concerned about the ones that are destroying other people's property."

East Naples Community Oriented Policing deputy Cpl. Mike Nelson agrees. He says the homeless population is a constant source of litter and crime in some areas of the district. Nelson says the county recently placed a lien on the owner of a property frequented by homeless and it took only two days to fill a commercial waste container with trash from the six-acre site. Less than a week later, the site is littered again.

No surprise there, according to Fiala. "Build it and they will come," she has been known to say in reference to the food kitchen, labor pools, jail center, health department, and assistance programs like St. Matthew's House that call East Naples "home." According to Nelson, deputies are spinning their wheels with the current legal process, which requires the county to notify the property owner for permission to pursue trespassing charges on vagrants. The process can take weeks.

"By the time we get the right person in a corporation or find the owner overseas, the trespasser has packed up his cardboard box and blankets and moved to the next site," he says.

Officials have also tried removing vagrants by charging them with littering, but Nelson says proving who is responsible for the mess is too difficult to be effective. Open-air campers would be easier to catch in the act, he says.

According to Nelson, there are about 80 woodspeople in the county at present, including five women. He added that while there is relatively little drug use among them, most spend whatever money they have on alcohol.

St. Matthew's House director Van Ellison believes the number of homeless may be double that. He says criminalizing their existence is not the answer.

"Making homelessness illegal doesn't end the problem or make them not poor," he said. "It just moves it somewhere else. Thirty-five percent of people in jail have no address, but they're still homeless.

Ellison advocates providing additional mental health services, drug and alcohol counseling and easier access to housing.

Fiala said it's important to make a distinction between the homeless who are trying to regain control of their lives at places like St.

Matthew's House, where residents must abide by strict rules and participate in daily chores, and those who choose to live on the streets and in the woods.

Many woodspeople suffer from a variety of mental and physical ailments, but for some, living in the woods is a lifestyle choice.

"It's almost like tourist season," Nelson explained. "There're 30-35 who come here during the winter to work construction. One man has been coming here for 15 years." One of the biggest challenges undertaken by Nelson and his partner, Rob Reu, has been photographing the "residentially challenged" and gathering data on them.

"It is useful to know who they are," said Nelson. "We had a person get hit by a car, and no one knew who he was." He noted that the community oriented policing deputies' relationship with the chronically homeless is often a two-way street, and these people frequently provide valuable information to law enforcement.

"They see everything that is happening," he says. "They know us by name. They help us solve crimes when they can."