Gillespie residents seek solutions

Residents in the Gillespie Park area are tired of waiting for help on issues tied to a growing homeless population in the area. Now, they’re looking for ways to fix it themselves.

On Monday, the Original Gillespie Park Neighborhood Association held a meeting that focused on a growing concern among residents. During the past three months, people in the area have noticed an increasingly large gathering of individuals at Gillespie Park, particularly within the park’s pavilion along Osprey Avenue.

With this group of about 30 people comes a host of problems, residents say — ranging from littering and the use of profanity to prostitution and drug dealing. Although the residents believe a majority of the crowd to be homeless, they said the neighborhood hasn’t had issues with homeless people in the past.

“We’re not concerned with who the people are,” said Dale Orlando, treasurer of the association. “We’re concerned with the behaviors they’re exhibiting.”

As a result, they appealed to city officials and Sarasota Police Department leaders to help crack down on those issues. More than a month has passed since the issue first surfaced, however, and not much has changed at the park. Rather than wait idly by, residents are brainstorming potential paths toward solving the problem themselves.

Demolition Plan
One such solution would stop the problem where it begins, proponents say: Demolish the Gillespie Park pavilion.

Residents at Monday’s meeting said the pavilion has led to headaches for years, and would be underutilized even if the homeless individuals weren’t occupying it. When the group attempted to gauge support for demolition, the majority of those in attendance — more than a dozen people — raised their hands in favor of removing the pavilion.

Lee DeLieto Jr., president of the Original Gillespie Park Neighborhood Association, said that could be the right move for the area, but questioned whether it would address the root issue.

“Say the pavilion is now gone,” DeLieto Jr. said. “Has that solved the vagrancy issue?”

Residents found themselves grappling with that question. David Brain, a professor at New College of Florida, said there were underlying problems that could continue to fester even if the park were made less hospitable for the individuals camped out throughout the day.

The real issue, Brain said, is that a group of people — many of whom may not actually be homeless — are using the homeless individuals to support and mask illicit activity such as drug dealing. The focus should be on addressing that issue rather than removing an asset in the park, he said.

“I think it’s a shame to talk about getting rid of a public space,” Brain said. “I do not think it will solve the problem.”

Keeping active
Even with the arrival of the undesirable crowd, residents still use the pavilion at least twice a week. Linda Jacob helps organize gatherings at the pavilion every Wednesday and Friday as part of a larger after-school program in the park.

That program is tied to the Gillespie Park Reading Room, which opened in the park’s police substation in May. Filled with donated books, craft supplies and board games, the room is a key to how residents can help restore the park to its previous state, Jacob believes.

“If we want the park to be ours, we have to be in it,” Jacob said.

By permitting the use of the pavilion from the city, Jacob was able to lay her semiweekly claim to the space. Now, she says, the individuals in the area have a Pavlovian response to her arrival at the park, leaving as soon as they see her pull up. If more eyes are on the park and more people are in the area, Jacob believes it will help discourage illegal activity.

Orlando is hoping to follow Jacob’s example by creating similar programming and space for adults through her nonprofit, Arts and Education. Residents expressed an interest in taking yoga or martial arts classes at the park, and agreed that the area could benefit from additional activity.

“We’d like to be in the park,” Orlando said. “We’d like the park to be used for arts, teaching, education and training programs.”

As a potential corresponding move, Orlando suggested one of the organizations tied to the area could lease part or all of the park to help enforce more stringent regulations and reserve the space.

Community policing
As it stands, some residents are upset with the level of attention police have given the issues at the park. Rachel Vrancken, a Gillespie Park resident and recent victim of a burglary, was critical of the police response to crime in the area.

“My concern was, watching the crime — people dealing crack, stuff being stolen — I was questioning where time is being spent,” Vrancken said.

Sarasota Police Department Chief Bernadette DiPino said that, though crime statistics are down in the Gillespie Park area, she was still focused on addressing any perceived issues. The patrol officer assigned to the area has been instructed to pay particular attention to the park, DiPino said, but the department’s staffing levels pose a challenge when it comes to diverting any additional resources to the area.

Capt. Pat Robinson, commander of the SPD patrol division, said an active community can help complement the police presence in the area. Volunteering and neighborhood watch participation has been at a higher level when similar issues have affected Gillespie Park in the past, Robinson said, and have helped eliminate those problems.

At Monday’s meeting, several residents said they’d be willing to volunteer if it would help solve the issues in the area. Robinson said participation in police programs often varies depending on the severity of neighborhood issues.

“It ebbs and flows by virtue of who does or doesn’t live in the neighborhood,” Robinson said. “It gets to be a big thing, and then issues self regulate, and then it goes down. That’s kind of where we’re at — we’re at a low point.”

One tool the SPD is choosing not to use is an overtime patrol, which has been implemented in response to similar issues in the downtown area. DiPino said the problems linked to the homeless gatherings have simply moved from location to location, and that she was more interested in addressing the underlying issues.

“If I felt overtime would work again in this case, I would authorize it in a heartbeat,” DiPino said. “The problems just shuffle to another park — all we keep doing is shuffling.”

Although she disputed claims that the neighborhood wasn’t receiving enough police attention, DiPino said the SPD would continue to work with Gillespie Park residents as they attempted to address the issues in the area.

“I understand the perception, that the crowd’s changing,” DiPino said. “My commitment to you is that we are going to continue to partner with you.”