After much discussion Tuesday night, the Pinellas County Board of County Commissioners approved a motion for $210,000 toward utilities at the new jail diversion facility, Pinellas Safe Harbor. The decision was reached after several hours of intense debate on how the Sheriff's Department intends to run the operation, who is allowed to seek housing there, and where the money will come from to fund the project.

County Sheriff Jim Coats and Chief Deputy Robert Gualtieri are spearheading the Pinellas Safe Harbor project, with major support from St. Petersburg Mayor Bill Foster.

The intended site for the project is a vacant jail annex on 49th street, on the High Point/Largo border, that was originally built to accommodate jail overcrowding. Starting in January, the building would serve as a pseudo-halfway house for the "chronically" incarcerated homeless population.

"Pinellas Safe Harbor is not intended for the freshly homeless, those aren't the people we want," Gualtieri said. "We want the people nobody else will take."

He noted that people are often released from custody late at night and end up wandering in the adjacent area and getting arrested again. Pinellas Safe Harbor would be an option for those with nowhere else to go, but once inside they would have to stay until morning. It would also serve as a jail diversion program. Those homeless picked up by law enforcement for minor infringements like open container violations could have the option to serve community service hours through Pinellas Safe Harbor instead of jail time.

Gualtieri noted that the county jail nearby has around 150-200 people sleeping on the floor every night for minor offenses. In jail, it costs the county $126 a day per inmate. According to Gualtieri, housing in Pinellas Safe Harbor would cost only $20 a day per person.

"I think this is such a nominal fee for the county to absorb considering the alternatives we have as far as inmate housing goes," Jim Coats.

This article appears in Dec 9-15, 2010.