Herald Tribune | By Carlos Munoz
Streets of Paradise provided gift cards, sleeping bags and clothing for those in need Sunday at Five Points Park.
SARASOTA — The Sarasota-based street project, Streets of Paradise, hosted a holiday for the homeless on Sunday afternoon at Five Points Park. They hope to make the event a more common occurrence to aid those in need.
Homelessness in the city has dropped 18 percent since the Sarasota City Commission adopted the Florida Housing Coalition’s Homeless Crisis Response System in April of 2017, according to a Department of Housing and Urban Development survey. That includes a 26 percent drop in homeless veterans.
Streets of Paradise co-founder Greg Cruz said the project highlights the humanity of the homeless in Sarasota. His group has been combating homelessness for about seven years, and on Sunday handed out $600 in gift cards and around 50 sleeping bags.
“One of the things that plagues the holiday is capitalism,” Cruz said. “We wanted to kind of combat that a little by making a free event. We reached out to our network of people and asked them to bring a wrapped gift to give to a stranger.”
Gale Midwood of Sarasota says there’s an obvious need to help the homeless. She brought items from home she no longer needed as gifts.
“They need to know that people care,” said Midwood, who was surprised by the number of homeless when she moved to Sarasota about seven years ago. “It was appalling, just appalling. There is so much here and you have this.”
Today’s event brought a little holiday cheer days before Christmas.
Article last accessed on December 31, 2018 here. A print-ready pdf is available here.