St. Pete police to homeless: Move your belongings or lose them

Authorities are poised to confiscate the property of a group of homeless people camped outside the St. Vincent de Paul soup kitchen - or at least those belongings the homeless can't carry off on their own.

A posting outside the kitchen at 15th Street and Fourth Avenue North appeared Tuesday morning. It gave the homeless until 10:45 tonight to remove their things or they will be stored by police at 1675 Fifth Ave. N.

On Jan. 24, 2008, the city council passed an ordinance allowing police to confiscate the effects of the homeless that block sidewalks and other rights of way. The rule is aimed at eliminating encampments on sidewalks.

"If they block the sidewalk or some public access their stuff will be picked up and stored," said St. Petersburg police spokesman George Kajtsa. "That's what the ordinance says."

The Rev. Bruce Wright, a homeless advocate, said he is aware of authorities enforcing the ordinance in cases involving specific individuals, but not specific locations. There is also information circulating among the homeless that Williams Park and Mirror Lake are being targeted, Wright said.

Raine Johns, the homeless outreach coordinator for the public defender's office, was outside the soup kitchen today to monitor the situation. She said her office received information that police were going to confiscate anything a homeless person couldn't carry off on their own.

Gary Bush, an operation for the St. Petersburg codes enforcement department, said the posting was not unusual. No specific complaint was made regarding the soup kitchen site, but whenever a code enforcement or police officer sees belongings beginning to accumulate at a particular location, action is taken, Bush said.

One woman who has been living outside the soup kitchen said police took most of her possessions Monday.

"The cop was saying, 'There's too much stuff, you can't walk away with it, blah, blah," said Sabrina Theis, 43. "They're tougher than what they should be out there."