‘Your good deed is unfair’: West Palm Beach neighborhood faces growing homeless crisis

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (CBS12) — A once-quiet West Palm Beach neighborhood is grappling with an ongoing homeless crisis.

Marissa Davis, vice president of the Merry Place Estates Homeowners Association, shared photos and videos she took a few months ago. The images highlight a recurring scene: makeshift campsites surrounded by piles of trash cluttering the sidewalks in front of a homeless center in the Pleasant City neighborhood. Davis said that’s where it all started.

“So these are the encampments that we were dealing with in February of this year,” Davis said. “They closed Currie Park and overnight we were overrun with encampments. Like literally overnight. People went from just people coming to eat to scattering around closing time. To like , they set up campsites on 20th Street.

CBS12’s Katie Bente met with some of the homeowners living in Pleasant City, just north of downtown West Palm Beach and just west of Currie Park.

Over the past few months, they have worked alongside police, city officials and the housing authority to tackle what they see as a chronic homeless problem right in their backyard.

“We have strength in numbers and that has been proven,” said Denise Smith-Barnes, head of the Coalition for Stubborn Neighborhoods and a local community activist.

See also: Palm Beach County nonprofit receives $200,000 grant to combat youth homelessness

Dozens of no-property signs now line the fields, a security car can be seen patrolling the streets and police are making sure passersby and property owners know they are watching.

“The police were just showing up, going in and out of unmarked cars and just showing their presence,” said Bernita Banks, vice president of the Pleasant City Neighborhood Association.

“One of the challenges was they were all over the neighborhood and they were walking the streets at different times of the day and night,” said Pleasant City homeowner Jacquie Pauldo McCullough. “We got together, we did a tour, and after the tour, there was a limited amount of activity from the homeless in that neighborhood, and it seemed a little more comfortable.”

Although progress has been made, residents say the problem is not entirely resolved.

“We’re still dealing with people randomly walking and talking and screaming in the space and we’re like, okay, yeah, round up the kids,” Davis said.

At the end of 20th Street is St. Ann Place. During the day, the center provides sanctuary to those in need, providing showers and food. A few doors down, a new pop-up opens its doors in the evening and serves dinner to passing travelers.

“You can’t just close the doors and say, hey, I did my good deed,” Davis said. “The waste that is left behind, the devastation that we have left in our community because of your good deed, is unfair to the property owners here.”

John Pescosolido, executive director of St. Ann Place, told CBS12 News they are actively working with the West Palm Beach Police Department to resolve these issues.

Driving past the property on Tuesday, there was a noticeable change. Previously cluttered sidewalks, filled with trash and tents, are now clean. Residents remain hopeful.

“I just want to see a nice city be what we call a nice city,” Banks said.

The homeless problem is not only concentrated in this region. it’s a growing problem in Palm Beach County. The latest point-in-time count shows more than 2,100 transients living in the area.