On Oct. 3, Housing and Civil Rights Advocates Will Spend ‘A Night Without a Home’ in Lummus Park to Protest the Criminalization of Homelessness
In Miami Beach, sleeping outside can get you arrested. This Saturday, Oct. 3, advocates will do it anyway.
Housing advocates, civil rights activists, and homeless allies will gather at Lummus Park, at 11th Street and Ocean Drive, for “A Night Without A Home,” the second Homeless Solidarity Sleepout, hosted by the Florida Coalition to Advance Racial Equity (FCARE). Together, they’ll take a stand against homelessness and the criminalization of poverty by sleeping outside in solidarity with neighbors who have no other choice.
“This is more than a sleepout,” FCARE Chair David Peery said about the event. “It’s a declaration that our communities refuse to accept the criminalization of poverty as normal.”
Advocacy for Housing Justice Starts Here
In December 2024, the Department of Housing and Urban Development reported that nationwide homelessness had risen an astounding 36% in just five years, reaching an all-time high. The 2024 Point-in-Time Count recorded more than 771,000 people experiencing homelessness on a single night in January. Homelessness rose 18% between 2023 and 2024 alone.
At the same time, rents were skyrocketing, and more people were forced into the crippling position of having no safe place to call home; the criminalization of homelessness was actually increasing, and fewer safeguards were being put in place to prevent people from losing their homes.
It was time to take a stand, or perhaps more fittingly, to take a rest outside, and unite with the people who sleep out there because they have run out of options. This was the idea behind the first Homeless Solidarity Sleepout, hosted in Miami Beach two years ago.
The highly visible, entirely peaceful event drew a heavy police presence. Roughly 50 police cars surrounded the group, according to Peery, and a lieutenant from a counterterrorism unit was on scene. Despite the massive fleet of cop cars blocking the activism on all sides, the event was allowed to proceed until morning and received national mainstream media coverage.
The issue of homelessness is vastly underreported in legacy media. A study of 5,703 news articles from 12 of the most-read U.S. newspapers in 2018 found that homelessness, affordable housing, and gentrification combined accounted for less than 0.002% of the news agenda that year. From a mainstream-media perspective, the first sleepout was a monumental success.
Through the first sleepout, tourists and news viewers, activists and passersby, officers, city officials, and even the mayor who kept walking past with his dog, learned a thing or two about what life is like for unsheltered individuals and families. It was a politically significant event that, as Peery said, “shook up the powers that be.” It also marked the start of a movement that Miami Beach residents and advocates nationwide can join, whether by donating, participating, or simply spreading the word.
Demonstration Details and Calls to Action: A Brief Overview of the Itinerary
While the previous sleepout sparked a national discussion and generated hundreds of dollars in unsolicited donations, the second sleepout seeks to broaden the scope of that approach by focusing on topics such as:
- Opposing the criminalization of homelessness
- Advocating for more affordable housing
- Centering voter rights, civil rights, immigrant rights, and ICE brutality
- Sparking social justice and land acknowledgment discussions
The event runs in two parts:
Part One: Social Justice Rally, 2 to 6 p.m., Saturday, Oct. 3
Supporters will stand against the criminalization of homelessness, stand for affordable housing, and stand against ICE brutality and immigrant injustice.
Part Two: Candlelight Vigil and Solidarity Sleepout, 7:15 p.m. Saturday to 7 a.m. Sunday, Oct. 4
A candlelight vigil will commemorate lives lost to homelessness. An optional overnight sleepout in the park follows.
The event will also include music, protest chants, and voter registration, with specialists on-site to register new voters and help attendees check their existing registration status. There will also be a press conference on the connection between homelessness and immigration enforcement, as well as land acknowledgment discussions.
Meals and beverages will be provided, with a dinner for evening participants and a breakfast option for those who choose to sleep over.
Attendees are not required to sleep overnight in the park. Supporters are welcome to join the rally, the vigil, or both, and anyone who prefers to stand by and observe is welcome, too. Visit the FCARE Facebook page to learn more.
Why Advocates Are Protesting
According to a January 2025 Miami Herald analysis, homeless people accounted for 42% of all arrests made by Miami Beach police in 2024. Yet an overnight count that August found just 132 unsheltered homeless people in Miami Beach. This means the same people are being arrested over and over again to no avail.
What crime are they being arrested for, you might be wondering? Well, the crime of sleeping, sitting, lying down, eating, or storing their belongings in a public place. Miami Beach, like many cities across the country, has laws that make surviving homelessness in public a crime punishable by fines or jail time.
In neighboring Miami, as of July 2026, police no longer need a written agreement or even 24 hours’ notice to clear an encampment. They can remove homeless people from the parks they are sleeping in and take them directly to jail. And under the Supreme Court’s 2024 Grants Pass decision, homeless people can be arrested for sleeping outside even when no shelter beds are available.
That is why advocates are choosing to share their struggle, if only for one night.
Organizers are also drawing attention to what they describe as rising violence by ICE and growing threats to voting rights and civil rights. Their shared goal is to highlight the stories of people who rarely get a say in where they sleep.
Peery draws a direct line between housing and the ballot box. “The same people being pushed out of public space are too often pushed out of the voting booth,” he writes, “through purges, confusion, and barriers designed to keep poor and marginalized people disengaged from power.”
Homeless Advocates Slated to Attend: Good Trouble and Good Company
Organizations standing in camaraderie with Miami Beach’s homeless population this Saturday include:
- Florida Coalition to Advance Racial Equity
- NAACP’s Miami-Dade Branch
- 5051 South Florida
- Sue’s Love Foundation
- Village Reach
- The Black Alliance for Just Immigration
- The Angie Nixon Campaign
- The Rob Piper for County Commission Campaign
- League of Women Voters
- FLIC Votes
- Ya Ya Por Vida
- Invisible People
Keynote Speakers
Speakers include:
- Dwight Bullard — Florida Rising’s senior political advisor and a former member of the Florida House and the Florida Senate, Bullard has a long and impactful history in civil and political activism, including serving as the inaugural president of the NAACP South Dade Branch.
- Dr. Armin Henderson — Miami physician and researcher who heads the Dade County Street Response and works closely with the homeless community administering street medicine. Dr. Henderson led the 2024 candlelight vigil for homeless people, where he shared the health consequences of homelessness through detailed patient stories, underscoring the true tragedy of being forced to live outdoors.
For Peery, the event’s causes can’t be separated. “Homelessness is not an accident,” he said. “Homelessness is the direct, predictable result of extreme poverty and an affordable housing crisis engineered by decades of policy choices.”
“Homelessness, racial equity, health care access, and democracy itself are not separate battles,” he added. “They are one fight.”
Your Voice Holds Power
This rally is for the hundreds of homeless Floridians who were cited or fined for being forced to sleep outside this year.
It is for unsheltered Floridians who woke up on the hot pavements this summer with second-degree burns.
It is for the mom who sleeps with her kids in their minivan and then drives it to her second job.
It’s for the dad who has to wonder what’s happening to his child in the abysmal ICE detention centers.
It is because oppression is live-streamed and still all-encompassing, and a word of truth to power is worth a thousand TikTok videos.
There is a shortage of more than 7 million affordable housing units in the U.S. right now, yet it is a crime to sleep outside. In Peery’s words, “Justice for unhoused Americans is justice for all Americans.”
