Preserve Streets of Paradise (written by NCF student Willa Tinsley)

Letters
BY WILLA TINSLEY (NCF Student)

I am writing to voice how crucial it is that the city of Sarasota allow local nonprofit Streets of Paradise to provide free showers and hygiene services to our city’s houseless.

In 2019, our Sarasota community spent months raising money for a completely hygienic, disability accessible shower truck with a washer/dryer for free use by our city’s houseless. It was a game changer: hygiene is a basic need for any human being but absolutely urgent in Sarasota, one of the hottest and wettest places to live in the United States. Highly contagious skin infections, such as MRSA, have become a real danger to those on our streets. SOP’s shower truck provides the only outdoor, sanitized, COVID-19-friendly, accessible, free showers within Sarasota city limits.

City opponents of SOP’s shower services say that they are “redundant” and better offered by government partners. However, the Resurrection House showers are not disability accessible and the Salvation Army showers are not free and accessible to everyone. The SA enforces a strict 10-minute shower-time limit and they are a “no touch facility.” People in wheelchairs must undress, shower, re-dress and get out of the bathroom with no help in under 10 minutes. As an SA representative told me, the showers only work for “totally self-sufficient” disabled people. SOP makes their showers and laundry facilities work for every single person they can.

Read the rest of Willa’s letter here.