Gainesville has a new plan for the homeless, but will they go for it?

Dozens of 10-by-10-foot platforms, set about 6 inches off the ground and a foot or so apart, are being built on a softball field in northeast Gainesville, but will the homeless come to the tents that will be placed on them?

Jon DeCarmine, executive director of Grace Marketplace, believes they will — at least some of them.

However, people who have been living in a makeshift tent city called Dignity Village just outside the Grace fence said they will be looking for someplace else to camp — sites with more room to spread out and no rules to abide by — as Dignity Village is shut down.

“They’ll have to have more staff, more resources, more security. When you have a bunch of people bunched up together, it’s going to cause a lot of problems,” said Darrius McCray, a Dignity Village resident.

“We’re not messing with downtown, we’re not breaking into your cars, we’re not robbing your stores. You close this down, we’re going to tear Gainesville up. You can’t keep pushing a cat in a corner,” he said.

It’s not as if Dignity Village is a peaceful commune. Fights are frequent, often fueled by drinking and drugs. The Gainesville Police Department at one point had officers assigned there.

Weather poses dangers as well; some residents were arrested in 2016 when they wouldn’t evacuate as ordered as Hurricane Matthew was blowing in.

City and county officials decided the effort to control the sprawling encampment was growing too burdensome and that it did not mesh with the goal of finding housing for the homeless, so they agreed to close it.

It is set to be shut down at the beginning of March, a closure that had been delayed by about a month.

People are already cutting out, leaving behind piles of old tents, clothing and general refuse. A sewing machine that looks usable is atop one pile, a spacious bird cage another. But most of the heaps look as if they are too hazardous to touch.

A tall chain link fence has been partially erected to discourage new campers from setting up there.

Grace will open its campground 15 days after the fence is fully up. Dignity Village will be closed 30 days after the fence is up.

Dignity Village campers can move into Grace, and tents will be provided. The campground will include sail shades over the tents and a few fire pits.

But residents will have to comply with rules that include no alcohol or illegal drugs, no fighting and no criminal activity — rules that some Dignity campers say are too stringent.

DeCarmine said the tent camping will be temporary. The goal is to find housing for everyone there.

“For anybody who wants to move in, we will provide a safe, managed campground,” DeCarmine said. “They will have access to all of the services 24 hours a day that Grace provides and a team of people dedicated to getting them housing as soon as possible.”

Permanent housing is the priority at Grace. In 2019, Grace found homes for 406 people and served 4,900 people in some way.

Since 2014, Grace had reduced homelessness in Alachua County by 36%, representing 900 people housed. Its one-year housing retention rate is 86%.

A roster of Dignity Village residents was compiled in October after the decision to close it was made, DeCarmine said.

Of the 222 campers on the roster, 46 have been housed, 34 have not received any services for 90 days and appear to have left town, and 28 or 29 have been assigned to other social service agencies.

Grace opened at the site of a former Gainesville Correctional Institution off northeast 39th Avenue near Waldo Road in 2014 in a partnership between the Gainesville City Commission and the Alachua County Commission.

It provides limited shelter space, meals, showers, a mailroom, computer lab, laundry and other needs.

Grace also connects the homeless with veterans services, job training, domestic violence services, and medical and mental health care.

A building at Grace will be set up for pets, including a cat room, DeCarmine said. Volunteers and veterinarians with the Home Van Pet Care Project and the St. Francis Pet Care nonprofit clinic already provide care for pets at Dignity and will continue that at Grace.

Several Dignity Village residents said they will not move inside the fence. The closeness of the tent platforms is one reason cited by several.

Jason Rumrill, Shawn Bemis and Justin Archambault moved to Florida from Boston a few months ago in hopes of finding work. They try to get hired on as day labor until they figure out where to go next in search of work, but it won’t be to the tent platforms.

“Do you know what kind of battle zone it’s going to be in there?” Bemis said. “I’m going to lay down at 2 a.m., when I’ve got to get up for work in the morning, and listen to my neighbors? I don’t want them coming by my tent dragging somebody by the toes. I’m not dealing with that.”

Dignity Village sprang up outside the fencing of Grace Marketplace shortly after it opened. Homeless people living in a swath of woods east of the Gainesville Regional Transit System headquarters needed some place to go when a sprawling, unauthorized homeless camp called Tent City was closed. The property owner no longer wanted people there.

The closing of Dignity Village will not mean a return to the old Tent City or a patch of woods off Williston Road and Southeast 16th Avenue that was also populated with homeless. People who do try to camp there will be ordered out by police.

GPD Chief Inspector Jorge Campos said trespass bans remain in effect at both and will be enforced. GPD will check with owners of other property that may draw campers to learn if they will allow homeless people on their land.

“If we come across people who are squatting on private property, we will get with the property owner and determine if they want them there. If not, we’ll refer them to Grace,” Campos said. “But ultimately they will have to vacate the property or be subject to trespassing.”

Violent crimes occurred in Tent City and the Williston Road site, and property owners could be legally liable for such crime if they let homeless people stay on their land, Campos added.

Several Dignity residents said they don’t know where they will end up and have not been scouting woods around town for potential sites.

But one, who did not want to give his name, said a higher power will set him down somewhere.

“I’ll go wherever the wind picks me up and God says is good,” he said.