Homelessness is one of the most difficult humanitarian and quality of life challenges facing many cities across this nation. In Miami Beach, we refuse to look the other way.
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Too often, the conversation around homelessness is reduced to politics—critics who are far removed from reality on the ground attempt to paint a false narrative. The truth is far more compassionate, far more complex, and far more human.
Doing something is compassionate. Walking past human suffering and pretending it does not exist is not.
Our latest Homeless Trust census count is the lowest number of homeless individuals in Miami Beach’s history. Our current count is 60% lower than January 2023 and continues a downward trend for the past three years. That progress did not happen by accident. It happens because dedicated professionals show up every day, willing to do difficult work that many others would rather not participate in.
A person lying on a sidewalk, dehydrated, hungry, struggling with addiction or suffering from severe mental illness is not receiving compassion through neglect. Allowing people to deteriorate on our streets without intervention is not an act of kindness. It is cruel.
In Miami Beach, we have taken a proactive approach focused on outreach, treatment, housing assistance, mental health services, and public safety working together.
At the same time, we continue to enforce our anti-camping laws to protect neighborhoods, parks, and public spaces
Contrary to what some critics claim, Miami Beach is not “arresting its way out” of homelessness. In fact, the city has built a comprehensive in-house outreach operation dedicated to helping vulnerable individuals every single day. Annually, we spend close to $4 million on homeless services.
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Our Miami Beach Homeless Outreach Services team works directly with individuals experiencing homelessness to help them connect with shelter placement, reunification programs, mental health treatment, detox services, food assistance, medical care, identification recovery, veterans services, and long-term support systems. The city partners closely with healthcare providers, nonprofit organizations, and social service agencies to create pathways toward stability and recovery. Our city offers comprehensive, wraparound support that sets us apart. We do not simply conduct street outreach—we also operate a walk-in center where individuals can access a broad continuum of services in one location.
Miami Beach police officers are also part of this effort. Every day, officers and outreach professionals wake up with the shared mission of helping people in crisis while maintaining public order and safety for residents, businesses, and visitors.
This work is not easy. It requires persistence, compassion, and accountability.
It is easy to debate about homelessness. It is much harder to step into the arena and confront the realities cities are facing nationwide. Miami Beach is in the arena.
Our residents and businesses understand that compassion and order must coexist. We do not want Miami Beach to become a city where people are left sleeping in front of businesses, in residential lobbies, on sidewalks, or outside family homes while society looks the other way. Across the country, many cities have allowed encampments and unchecked street homelessness to severely impact quality of life, public health, and human dignity.
That is not a path Miami Beach is willing to accept.
We believe people struggling with addiction, mental illness, or homelessness deserve intervention, support, and pathways toward recovery. We also believe residents deserve safe, clean and accessible neighborhoods. Those priorities are not mutually exclusive.
No city can solve homelessness overnight. But refusing to act is not compassion. Ignoring visible suffering is not humane. And abandoning public spaces to disorder is not leadership.
As Mayor of Miami Beach, I will continue to pursue a balanced approach rooted in accountability, outreach, treatment, and most of all public safety. We will continue investing in professionals who engage directly with vulnerable individuals. And we will continue standing firmly behind the principle that true compassion means helping people move toward stability, dignity, and hope, not leaving them behind on the streets.