Melbourne clears out 17 tons of trash from huge homeless camp
MELBOURNE, Fla. - In one week, the city of Melbourne cleaned up 17 tons of trash at a huge homeless camp.
The most recent camp was located near the Melbourne Orlando International Airport off Neiman Avenue, deep in the woods near the railroad tracks. Mayor Paul Alfrey says people living in camps like this leave well before cleanup crews arrive, and he’s committed to clearing them out of the city.
"This one was pretty substantial," said the mayor while taking FOX 35 on a tour of the wooded area.
The camp was so substantial that you could see glimpses of the garbage from Google Earth.
His teams found "a lot of garbage, a lot of stolen items," said the mayor. "You get that in a lot of these encampments but a lot of trash, as well, drug paraphernalia."
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The Mayor of Melbourne says his team is not even done. On Monday, while in the woods, we found more junk, like a ditched shopping cart.
Over the years, FOX 35 has met the mayor at homeless camps. Two years ago, our crews were there when they were cleaning up a camp off John Rhodes Boulevard. Homeless advocates say clean-ups don’t get rid of the camps.
"They will simply move to another place," said Scott Billue, who started and runs Matthew’s Hope homeless outreach in Brevard County.
Billue says cities, counties, and the state need to work together on the issue. He says you can't pass laws to criminalize the homeless, and cities don’t have funding to tackle the issue on their own.
"We need to address the crisis itself. The crisis is not the trash. The crisis is homelessness," Billue concluded.
We asked the mayor about the new bill banning camping in public places. The mayor says he does not want to see people camping in parks or sidewalks, so he supports that legislation. However, even in wooded areas, he doesn’t want camps and will keep cleaning them up if and when another pops up.