{"id":631158,"date":"2026-03-04T08:14:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-04T08:14:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/631158\/"},"modified":"2026-03-04T08:14:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-04T08:14:12","slug":"duval-doge-looks-at-downtown-homelessness-as-everbank-eyes-move-to-suburbs-action-news-jax","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/631158\/","title":{"rendered":"Duval DOGE looks at downtown homelessness as EverBank eyes move to suburbs\u00a0 \u2013 Action News Jax"},"content":{"rendered":"

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 Following news that EverBank is considering leaving downtown for the suburbs<\/a>, due in part to security costs, the Duval DOGE committee dug into stats surrounding the homeless situation downtown on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

The EverBank news comes on the heels of Citizens Insurance deciding to leave the same downtown building<\/a> last year due to security concerns as well<\/a>.<\/p>\n

>>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<<<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

Duval DOGE Committee Chair Ron Salem (R-Group 2 At-Large) said he believes there have been major improvements since then.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe problem is nothing what it used to be,\u201d said Salem.<\/p>\n

The numbers relayed to the DOGE Committee seemed to back Salem\u2019s impression.<\/p>\n

Property crimes in JSO\u2019s downtown district are down nearly 12 percent year-over-year, according to the agency.<\/p>\n

Since last October, 260 homeless individuals have been relocated through the city\u2019s Homeward Bound Program, and there have been 650 arrests since the city began enforcing its public sleeping and camping ban.<\/p>\n

Downtown workers like Nino Serrano told Action News Jax they\u2019re seeing improvements firsthand.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s cleared up a lot since the last couple of years. So, I thinks it\u2019s gotten a lot better down here,\u201d said Serrano.<\/p>\n

Hali Barber, who said she\u2019s working her way out of homelessness through Sulzbacher\u2019s Mental Health Offenders Program, shared that sentiment.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor the most part, yes. Operation Clean Up has been doing the best that they can. JSO is also doing what they\u2019re supposed to do,\u201d said Barber.<\/p>\n

[DOWNLOAD: <\/b>Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks<\/b><\/a>]<\/b><\/p>\n

But Barber also told us she sees a need for more shelter space.<\/p>\n

That same concern was also relayed by JFRD to the DOGE Committee.<\/p>\n

Members discussed potentially using roughly $1.5 million in unspent funds already allocated to address homelessness issues to boost bed capacity.<\/p>\n

They also floated the possibility of using that money for a new day center near Trinity Rescue Mission to ensure homeless individuals have somewhere to go besides the street during working hours.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it would go a long way to improving our downtown area if we can get those people off the street, provide them services, job training, whatever it would be to hopefully turn around their lives,\u201d said Salem.<\/p>\n

Salem indicated the DOGE Committee will try to get representatives from the city\u2019s homeless shelters in for a follow-up meeting to discuss possible ways to address some of the concerns highlighted Tuesday.<\/p>\n

[SIGN UP: <\/b>Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter<\/b><\/a>] <\/b><\/p>\n

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Action News Jax Top Stories<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 Following news that EverBank is considering leaving downtown for the suburbs, due in part to…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":631159,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5136],"tags":[12189,5229,62949,269195,157429,269194,70719,3188,723,269197,13819,7310,48908,174645,12179,8423,425,269196,93624,16324,290,217851,269198,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":["post-631158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-action_news","tag-america","tag-barbara","tag-doge_committee","tag-duval_doge_committee","tag-duvalde","tag-everbank","tag-fl","tag-florida","tag-haley_barbour","tag-jackson","tag-jacksonville","tag-jake_stoan","tag-jake_stofan","tag-jfrd","tag-jso","tag-local","tag-nino_serrano","tag-ron_salem","tag-salem","tag-state","tag-sulzbacher","tag-trinity_rescue_mission","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116169911283413386","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/631158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=631158"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/631158\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/631159"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=631158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=631158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=631158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}