Issue link: https://newsleader.uberflip.com/i/166173
Sarasota News Leader September 6, 2013 Page 23 The $500,000 includes $289,000 in the form of a Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) that had already been allocated for a homeless center. Thus, the City Commission effectively put up another $211,000 for the proposal. Sutton noted there is "a lot of energy" right now behind efforts to find solutions for the issue of homelessness in the community; therefore, the funding vote would come at a key time. "I know the difficulty in setting aside a blank check for something you haven't seen," Paul Sutton, retired Sarasota police captain and chairman of the Community Alliance of Sarasota County's committee on homelessness, said to the commissioners before the vote. "But what I am asking is that you set it aside." Caragiulo has been the driving force behind the effort to set aside city funding. But Caragiulo faced some opposition at the City Commission dais. Valerie Guillory, executive director of Trinity Without Borders — her own initiative to help During Tuesday's meeting, the commissioners the homeless — pointed out that Caragiulo did not determine a budget source for that ex- has "achieved superhero status" among the tra money. homeless for what he has been trying to do. Vice Mayor Willie Shaw said he could not support allocating money unless it was clear a shelter would not be built in North Sarasota. Valerie Guillory has created her own small homeless shelter in the north part of Sarasota. Photo by Stan Zimmerman