On Wednesday, the Miami Beach City Commission asked for the closure of a South Beach hostel that provides beds for the homeless, offering to pay $100,000 to move individuals to the city of Miami.
The commissioner said the situation was unacceptable since early November, when Miami city officials moved 53 people from the Miami city’s restricted Kamils House Shelter to a bikini hostel in Miami Beach. The city of Miami has paid for the beds occupied by homeless individuals and is being reimbursed to the county’s homeless service agency, Miami-Dade Homeless Trust. More than 100 homeless people are currently occupying beds at the hostel, increasing complaints from residents of the wealthy West Avenue area.
Miami Beach officials initially said Wednesday that the hostel’s operating license in the city, known as business tax receipts, should be revoked on the grounds that the hostel is acting inappropriately as a de facto homeless shelter.
City Attorney Ricardo Dopico said the hostel was “operating within the scope of permitted use,” and the elected officials had no authority to revoke the business tax receipt — the commissioner instead voted to instruct the city administration to investigate complaints about the hostel in the hopes of closing it.
“I think we all read between the lines and know what the final action is,” said Joseph Magazine Commissioner.
Dopico said the city currently has no evidence of criminal conduct or code violations to ensure the hostel was closed.
The city committee also voted to return homeless individuals from bikini hostels to Miami City Shelter by allocating $100,000 to the Miami Dade County Homeless Trust. Miami Beach Mayor Stephen Minor said he is offering a difference in bed prices at Bikini Hostel and Kamils House as Kamils House charges higher nightly rates. It was not immediately clear whether Kamils and the other shelters were capable of taking on so many people.
Homeless Trust Chairman Ron Book has repeatedly clashed with Miami Beach leaders over the issue of homelessness in recent months, but told the Miami Herald that the city’s offer is “non-starter.”
The amount provided is insufficient, saying that Miami residents are homeless trusts and that the city of Miami provides adequate service and food to hostel residents.
According to book and hostel owner Philip Muscat, Miami serves as an outreach staff every day from 10am to 10pm. Additional case managers and medical service providers also visited the site regularly, according to the book.
“Our clients love bikini hostels,” the book said. “They don’t want to come back to the mainland.”
In November, people who spoke to the Herald after relocating to the hostel with a few hours of notice provided a mixed response.
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Stephen Christ, 50, who lived at Kamils House for eight months, said he welcomed the change and evaluated the hostel’s relaxed environment and the lack of curfew.
“We can basically do what we want as long as you don’t act like an idiot,” Christo said.
Yadia Montoya, 35, said she recently secured a bed at Kamils after spending several months on the streets, and although she was unhappy with the sudden move to the hostel, she felt she had no other option.
Read more: Miami moves 50 homeless people from shelter to South Beach Hostel. Was it political?
Miami City spokesperson Kenya Faratt said he has “not received an official proposal from Miami Beach” regarding the potential relocation of bikini hostel residents.
“The City of Miami and our partners continue to provide ongoing support services to help individuals,” Fallat said. “Our overarching goal is to place these individuals in permanent housing.”
Camillus House CEO Eddie Gloria said she has not yet been contacted about the proposal.
Muscat, the owner of the hostel, said he believes that taking homeless individuals is the right thing to do and that it provided him with a stable clientele. The hostel has 150 beds and continues to welcome other guests.
“What sin am I really committed?” Muscat said. “We are guilty of providing shelter to inappropriate individuals.”
In the controversy over the hostel’s future, Muscat is discussing the potential for sale of the bikini hostel property with developer Michael Stern, who owns several other properties along West Avenue.
In September, a fee agenda item showed developers were interested in building public parking on their site.
Stern declined to comment on the negotiations.
“It’s not a way to rehabilitate people.”
An anonymous email was distributed earlier this month among residents of the neighborhood near the Bikini Hostel at 1247 West Ave., calling on city officials to contact them and request the hostel be closed.
The hostel, which has been operating for 15 years, is “a magnet of noise, obstacles and instability, and clearly has no place in the community to protect support and interconnectivity in the neighborhood,” the message said.
“The sense of neighborhood community doesn’t really exist because of the hostel. There’s an endless parade of short-term visitors who don’t care about the neighborhood,” the email said. “The building remains annoyed and undermines everything that makes Miami Beach the perfect place to live.”
At a meeting Wednesday, Miami Beach officials cited a laundry list of concerns.
Commissioner Alex Fernandez has shown a recent negative online review of the hostel, claiming that the guest asked if the guest was smoking weeds and that he had touched the guest’s feet.
Commissioner David Suarez played a video posted to the community’s Facebook group and showed several bikes that appeared to be painted black along the hostel fence. Suarez said it shows that the bike was likely stolen.
Others said the hostel has a “beer garden” which is inappropriate for a population that may be suffering from addiction.
“This is not the way you rehabilitate people,” Commissioner Kristen Rosen Gonzalez said. “We have to take every step of action possible, so this group will be moved to a facility that can meet their needs.”
Miami Beach police have vehicles stationed outside the property all hours, costing the city around $35,000 a month.
“If something wrong is happening, officers should be able to stop it,” Muscat said. “But nothing has happened.”
“We’ll take this to court.”
Minor and several Miami Beach commissioners said Wednesday that if the city fails to reach homeless trust and deal, they will welcome the lawsuit to resolve the issue.
“If we get sued, we’ll win because what’s going on is wrong,” Commissioner Laura Dominguez said.
In an email to residents Thursday, Rosen Gonzalez said the city would “take this to court.”
“This situation proves not only a risk to public safety, but also cruel and inhumane for the homeless population that is stored there,” she writes. “And we’ll secure a neighborhood.”
The book, previously a lobbyist at Miami Beach in Tallahassee, holds the city back on an escalating arrest for outdoor sleep in October and a decision to withdraw a vote question to impose a 1% sales tax on homeless services.
Miami Beach does not have homeless shelters, but the city pays dozens of beds at its Miami facility.
“They believe that they are the only city, the only community and should be exempt from all levels of (homeless) placement in their cities,” the book told the Herald.
Minor said in November that he believes that the move of individuals from Kamils House to Bikini Hostel is a form of political retaliation just days after the vote to cancel the question of the vote. The trust of the homeless and the city of Miami denied it. He says the move is only to ensure people are evacuated amid the conflict with Kamils over bedtime prices.
After a backlash from county leaders over the removal of vote questions, Miami Beach officials in November agreed to direct the county $10 million for homeless services and provide additional funding for the future.
The city of Miami is participating in the Homeless Trust Program, which can allow homeless people to be placed in hotels and motels. The book said the trust of the homeless is pursuing partnerships to ensure compliance with new state laws that litigate lawsuits to bring local governments to sleep on the streets.
Miami Beach officials said they believed the bikini hostel arrangement was temporary. Some have not noticed that the homeless population there has grown significantly over the past four months.
“It’s so ridiculous to see this scene,” Minor said. “This facility is not a shelter for the homeless.”
Tess Risk, a staff writer for the Miami Herald, contributed to this report.
