JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — A plan is in the works to help address security concerns at a homeless shelter in downtown Jacksonville.
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This is all in response to recent violence outside Sulzbacher. One of those incidents was a shooting that happened in January. Police said a man approached another man on the property and shot him several times.
James Thompson, who utilizes the facility,, said after that safety concerns heightened at Sulzbacher.
“It’s just been alarming or surprising or even irritating because you live again across the street from the jail house and the police station, and it shows you how easy this can happen,” said Thompson.
And the safety concerns are not just coming from those who get help from Sulzbacher but also employees. According to legislation filed with city council, Sulzbacher has reported employee turnover due to safety worries.
In an effort to address this legislation, it would set aside $100,000 to cover overtime salaries for JSO officers to provide security at the facility.
“It is long overdue,” said Thompson.
Sulzbacher issued a statement to Action News Jax:
“Sulzbacher takes the security of the people we serve and of our staff very seriously. We have 24-hour private security personnel and protocols in place at both campuses. However, the isolated incident that happened on January 12th was very distressing and had never happened before. We are grateful to JSO for their very quick response and all their subsequent support. After discussions with the board, they decided that the incident has necessitated that we supplement our current private security with JSO staff at the Urban Rest Stop program that operates on our Downtown Campus. Sulzbacher agreed to take on the Urban Rest Stop in 2019-it was a priority of the City of Jacksonville’s Downtown Homelessness Task Force. Having an additional 100-150 extra people on our already busy campus 7 days per week is a service to the entire downtown community. Without the Urban Rest Stop-these folks would have nowhere else to go during the daytime hours and would be much more visible in the parks, Library and sidewalks. We will continue to cooperate closely with law enforcement as they investigate this situation while working to identify additional measures to help prevent anything like this from happening again. We are very grateful to Councilmember Salem for this legislation that enables us to pay for extra JSO security through the rest of this fiscal year. As we move forward, we remain focused on the people we serve and the staff and volunteers who do this very challenging work.”
The full city council is expected to vote on this legislation next week.
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