MELBOURNE, Fla. – Since December, if you’ve walked around downtown Melbourne maybe you’ve noticed there aren’t any benches on the sidewalk anymore.
The city put in benches back in 2012. Now, they’re gone and the homeless are being blamed.
“There was a lot of loitering that was happening on the benches, a lot of trash,” Melbourne Main Street executive director Kim Agee said.
It’s Agee’s job to bring people downtown.
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And now, Melbourne Main Street said businesses and their customers are much happier that the homeless aren’t sitting on the benches for hours each day and sleeping on them at night.
“It’s been very positive,” Agee said. “Obviously, we want benches downtown. We want to have places for the community to be able to sit and relax and just visit one another, but that wasn’t happening.”
Vice Mayor Yvonne Minus made some of the same points to News 6 reporter James Sparvero.
“There were many issues with the homeless taking over the benches where the residents or the business customers could not find anywhere to sit,” Minus said.
Agee said there are other parts of the city for the homeless to sit.
“They have plenty of places to enjoy themselves in our parks or along all different areas of our community,” she said. “We’re just trying to make sure that the businesses’ interests are also protected.”
“Definitely, I am in total support of helping our homeless, but it has to be conducive, also, to our business owners,” Agee added.
The city continues to say its long-term plan to help homelessness will be building an affordable housing community called Providence Place.
It would replace the soup kitchen and shelter, the Daily Bread, which is within walking distance from downtown.
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