>>This week on NewsNight, the city of Orlando takes its first step in renewed efforts to create a Pulse memorial.

We'll look at the next steps in the process.

Plus, the U.S. Supreme Court hears arguments over the power of governments to punish people for sleeping outside when no alternative accommodation is available.

A look at what the case might mean for states like Florida that have passed laws banning unauthorized camping.

NewsNight starts now.

[MUSIC] Hello, I'm Steve Mort, and welcome to NewsNight where we take an in-depth look at the top stories and issues in central Florida and how they affect all of us.

First tonight, homelessness and laws aimed at cracking down on sleeping and camping in public places.

The U.S. Supreme Court this week heard arguments in the case of an Oregon City that began enforcing ordinances barring sleeping on public property despite a lack of available shelter.

The justices will decide whether such camping bans infringe on homeless peoples Eighth Amendment rights prohibiting cruel and unusual punishment.

Up to now, lower courts have ruled against the issuance of criminal citations for public sleeping when there were no alternatives.

The Supreme Court's decision is being watched by jurisdictions around the country, including Florida, that have passed laws and ordinances cracking down on public sleeping.

The issue is bipartisan.

Democrat led California and several Republican led states say courts have hamstrung their ability to tackle the growing issue of homeless encampments.

In Florida, Governor DeSantis recently signed legislation to require local governments to ban sleeping on public property.

>>It will help maintain and ensure that Florida streets are clean and that Florida streets are safe for our residents.

This legislation prohibits camping on city streets, sidewalks and parks.

It creates state enforcement tools to ensure that local governments comply with this law, and it ensures that localities utilize the resources of homeless shelters to provide individuals with the safety and services that they need.

And there are needs that need to be met, but doing the San Francisco and New York model is not a way to get the job done.

>>Several states that have enacted laws on homelessness will be watching the Supreme Court's eventual decision closely.

The case in front of the Supreme Court will be the most significant for the rights of homeless people in decades and could allow municipalities to penalize people sleeping in public even if they have no place else to go.

>>Jailing people simply for not having anywhere safe to sleep at night is not only wrong, it is heartbreaking.

>>Several advocacy groups organized a gathering this week outside of federal courthouse in downtown Orlando to urge the Supreme Court not to, in their words, criminalize homelessness.

Every one of the 67 counties in Florida should have a modern shelter.

Every municipality or county district of over 100,000 people should have a modern emergency shelter.

And until that time, we'll see more adults and more children living in cardboard, in cars and in camps.

And if the Supreme Court doesn't do the right thing today, the unhoused will be marked as criminals as well.

>>Critics of laws around the country aimed at public sleeping say they do nothing to tackle the underlying economic reasons for homelessness, including a lack of affordable housing.

Central Florida has one of the most acute shortages in the country.

The only thing that ends homelessness is housing.

Housing First.

Housing now.

Permanent supportive housing.

Housing, housing.

Housing is the only thing that ends homelessness.

>>Under Florida's new law, which comes into force in October, local governments can be sued if they allow the homeless to sleep or camp in public.

But counties will be allowed to create drug and alcohol free, temporary campsites for homeless people, along with services, security and sanitation.

They can be established if homeless shelters are full and they don't adversely affect property values.

All right.

Well, let's bring in our panel now to break it all down.

Joining us in the studio this week, Peter King from CBS News Radio.

Good to see you, Peter.

>>Good to be back.

>>Thanks for coming in, Talia Blake from Central Florida Public Media.

Good to see you, Talia and Ryan Gillespie from the Orlando Sentinel.

Thanks so much for coming in today, guys.

Really appreciate your time.

Peter, let me start with the Supreme Court hearing this week.

Did we get a sense of where the justices were leaning in this case?

>>The conservative justices seem to believe.

Listen.

Listening to their manner of questioning and their comments that this is a matter for local elected officials and lawmakers to decide rather than judges.

I mean, John Roberts, the chief justice, asked basically, why are we the ones who should be deciding this?

And a couple of the other conservative justices weighed in the same way the liberal justices are saying, though, why should there be a law regulating basic rights like breathing and sleeping and that sort of thing?

But, of course, they are in the minority.

>>I mean, we heard from those who rallied in Orlando this week, Talia, about the affordability issues we just saw in my piece at the top there.

I mean, give us a snapshot of where we are right now in terms of the affordable housing shortage in central Florida and the cost of rent.

>>Even though over the past decade homelessness has gone down in Florida, we have seen a slight uptick over the last year or so.

So and that's kind of because for a one bedroom apartment right now, I want to say it's around two grand to rent, like in the Orlando area, for example, for you to afford that kind of apartment.

Say you're making $11 an hour, you'd have to work 90 hours a week.

That's twice the normal load for someone.

So you can just see right there how unaffordable things are.

Still here in central Florida.

>>We have one of the most acute shortages in the nation, as we see often.

I mean, Ryan, homelessness in the scale of years has increased dramatically in Orlando.

The city government, of course, has its own ordinance on public sleeping.

What reactions have you gotten in your reporting to these kinds of restrictions?

>>Sure.

So it depends on who you talk to.

It's very much a partizan issue like Peter was saying.

When you look at the Supreme Court.

And so when you look at the state of Florida, Republicans like Governor Ron DeSantis in the legislature see this as a humanitarian cause that they're taking back to the public square and that this is a sympathetic option and an easy way to get these people services.

But when you go down to the local level, A, the people who are unsheltered themselves are worried about what does this mean for me If I cannot get into a shelter and I cannot sleep on the street, where am I supposed to go?

And then if you're a local government, they're wondering, okay, so I have to either a build shelters which are expensive and there's not funding coming down for that.

You need to build housing also very expensive.

And we have an acute shortage.

And then if you and then if you do that and then what are you left to do?

Theoretically arrest people and then you're putting them in jail and it's even more expensive.

So it's just all around a costly endeavor.

>>Interesting that it's a partizan issue here because in states where you have much higher rates of homelessness, you see it being a bipartisan issue.

Oftentimes it's it's sort of interesting.

That's the way it's playing out here.

The Supreme Court's considering a case in Oregon, of course, Grants Pass where there's no alternative accommodation available.

I think the city there has made it quite clear that it wants to be a sort of a hostile environment for homeless people.

But Governor DeSantis says Florida's law was kind of unique in that it addresses the issue of alternative shelter by allowing counties to set up temporary camps.

What does the state say about those camps?

>>Well, DCF says it would oversee any local governments setting up those temporary shelters and temporary is is the word for the encampments.

There would be sanitation, there would be security, there would be mental health assistance as well.

But again, the word is temporary and-- >>About a year.

>>It basically up to local governments with DCF oversight.

Now, who knows how much DCF oversight there could be?

Everybody is stretched to the max from local governments on up.

>>I mean, that's right, isn't it, Ryan?

I mean, I read the bill that was that was signed into law.

Local governments have to prove to the state that there are insufficient shelter spaces before a temporary camp can be set up.

I mean, what does capacity in the homeless shelters in central Florida currently look like at the moment?

>>I mean, they're full every single night.

I think I don't think it will be an overly hard lift for any local government in the state of Florida to be quite honest with you to make that right.

There's not adequate shelter anywhere in the state of Florida, to my knowledge.

You know, if you if you look at Orlando specifically, the city itself shoulders a disproportionate burden of our shelters.

We've got like four shelters in the central Florida area.

Three of them are in Parramore.

>>One of them recently caught fire.

>>Right.

And I think in that one took out like 20 or 25% of our region's shelter beds just in that one fire.

And that was just for single men.

Single men with jobs, mind you.

So I think there's a fundamental dis misunderstanding from that respect of who these homeless people are.

A lot of them.

It's people who don't make a ton of money but are working in a lot of cases and just cannot afford to pay the rents which have gone up something like $500 over the last five years per month.

>>Well, let's talk about the practicality of setting up those shelters.

You reported on on this issue recently, Talia.

What are the factors at play for local governments in implementing that, that new legislation?

I mean, some have called it burdensome.

>>Yeah.

So really it's money and location.

So there's no real federal funding or state funding dedicated to these encampments for cities to set them up.

So it's kind of like, where do we take the money for this?

Does it come from taxpayers?

Do we partner with someone who's already in this space and and can help us fund this?

So.

Money is one big thing.

And then even though most people think that the encampments are a good idea, it doesn't necessarily mean that they want the encampment to be right next to where they live or frequent.

So that kind of continues to add on to where do we put this.

And then on top of all of that, cities also have to worry about getting sued by local businesses who will feel like, oh, well, the city isn't taking care of these unhoused people who are in front of my business and they're impacting my business now.

I'm going to sue the city because they're impacting how I make money.

So there's a whole lot of costs, money, location, there's a lot of things that still kind of need to be fleshed out.

It doesn't really seem like there's much direction for it.

>>Certainly the concerns of local governments throughout the state, and we'll see how that pans out.

You can find a link to the Florida bill on homelessness that was signed into law by Governor DeSantis on our website, wucf.org/newsnight.

Okay.

Next tonight, new Pulse developments.

Orange County commissioners this week voted to terminate an agreement with the onePULSE Foundation.

The now defunct onePULSE had planned to turn a site on West Kaley Street, which it purchased with county tourist development tax dollars into a Pulse museum.

Orange County has had to pay more than $50,000 of outstanding property taxes on that site.

Meanwhile, last week, Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer unveiled the city's first significant move since it purchased the nightclub site itself on Orange Avenue from onePULSE last year for $2 million.

It's hired an outside facilitator to get input from the community on what a memorial on the site should look like.

>>We remain committed to ensuring that we learn from the victims families and survivors to ensure that the permanent memorial honors the 49 angels and serves as a place where all those who are impacted by the tragedy can remember and reflect.

>>Certainly an important issue for the Orlando community.

Ryan, the facilitator is Larry Schooler from Public Participation Partners.

Tell us what his job will be and what has happened so far.

>>Right.

So like you said, he's he's what's called a professional facilitator.

So his job is to try to build a consensus among the survivors of Pulse, the victims families, the other people who are affected on how to build what will be the best possible permanent memorial to this tragedy.

I think it's going to be an incredibly complicated job if we consider how this has played out over the past eight years, the diverse people involved, the feelings that are involved and the distrust that's involved, quite frankly.

>>Before we get to that in a bit more detail is there a frame on getting this done Talia?

>>Yeah.

So originally they were talking about maybe mid 2026.

Now the last thing Dyer said was that it's likely going to be at the end of his term, which would be January 2028, I believe.

>>Given what Ryan was just saying about the past controversies.

Peter, I mean, I wonder whether it could still be a challenge to sort of build a consensus on this even now that we have a facilitator?

>>Well, you're right about that.

And think about it.

It's been almost eight years since Pulse happened.

We've had false starts.

We've had stops.

Start, stop, start several times in the past eight years.

And now we're looking at 2028 to get this done.

There are a lot of people who are, you know, the survivors, the families of victims who don't feel anything but skepticism right now.

But there are others who are willing to give Schooler a chance.

And, you know, his his attitude is the right one.

Keep in mind, he's had experience with this with two other memorials in Virginia and California.

So he kind of knows where the lay of the land is.

He's also saying, look, it's going to be actions, not words that count.

And he knows how hard it is going to be to build trust around here.

So.

>>Yeah.

Well, what do you think about the perspective of the survivors and families Ryan, I mean, what have you been hearing?

>>Sure.

I think it's a mixed reaction as basically everything Pulse related is I mean, if you consider just the scale of the tragedy we're talking about, 49 people died.

They all have families.

60 some odd people were injured.

That includes them in their families.

It's a lot of voices.

A lot of these people weren't Orlando residents.

They're not central Florida residents.

They're in Puerto Rico, in New York and other states.

So you've got this broad range of perspectives.

Obviously, the emotions are high and now the tensions are high.

There's a ton of distrust about this process dating back to the onePULSE Foundation that is now defunct.

And so I think for a lot of people, it's maybe hard to separate the city from onePULSE because, you know, the city's asking them to essentially do the thing that onePULSE asked is to trust us.

And that failed once.

So I think from what I've heard, there's quite a bit of distrust.

>>People have burned before, and they fear that happening again.

I mean, several Pulse family members, Talia, actually wrote an open letter complaining about the city's approach.

Is that broadly what their complaint is?

What are they concerned?

>>Yeah, they basically think that the city is following in onePULSE's footsteps.

Misguided footsteps, by the way, is what they said.

They feel like the city isn't doing anything differently.

So recently the city said they plan to revive the foundation's community Rainbow Run fundraising event.

And just that specifically, some of the survivors and those that have spoken out are saying people shouldn't be running joyfully along the path where people were running for their lives.

Like that is not what this is about.

We need something that's really going to address what happened that night, the fact that people are still struggling to this day.

Survivors are still dealing with what happened that night, something that really brings all of that together.

And I think the survivors and their families right now, their complaint is that you're still not listening to us.

You're still not listening to what we want for for this memorial.

>Talking about the OnePULSE Foundation, your colleagues at the Sentinel recently did an in-depth look at the failure of the OnePULSE Foundation.

I mean, what were the sort of the main headline findings there as to why we're still without a memorial, as Peter says, nearly eight years later?

>>Yeah, I can't even begin to encapsulate all the things that Amanda Rabines found in that story.

I think it's worth everybody to take a look and read for themselves.

But but generally, from a top line view, the foundation had bold plans.

They wanted to build not only a memorial, but they also wanted to build this museum.

These things are very expensive.

The construction costs of their kind of grand designs were something like 100 $100 million, if not more.

OnePULSE was not raising that kind of money.

You know, they had something like three fundraisers.

At one point, they hired a professional fundraiser for something like $305,000.

And that group came in and raised $310,000.

So they weren't anywhere near their financial goals.

And then on top of that, there was also concerns with Barbara Poma, who owned the nightclub very famously, and then also started the OnePULSE Foundation.

There were issues involved with securing the land.

I think the foundation assumed that she was going to donate the land.

She assumed they were going to pay her for it, which she also received insurance money for.

So there was all sorts of distrust with her.

There was all sorts of distrust with the foundation itself.

And now here we are with with no foundation and no memorial.

>>And of course, also issues with that land on Kaley Street as well that that I mentioned in my piece at the top.

And we'll put a link to Amanda's reporting on our website as well.

In the meantime, be sure to join the conversation on social media.

We'd like to hear from you on this or any other topic we discuss here on the program.

We're at WUCF TV, on Facebook, X and also on Instagram.

Well, while we have Ryan here, we should mention another important story involving the city of Orlando this week.

The city council voted to approve an incentives package for a large entertainment development around the Orlando Magic's Kia Arena, including a $40 million tax break.

The Orlando Sports and Entertainment District development will be called West Court, and construction is expected to begin this year.

Firstly, Ryan, what is the Orlando Sports and Entertainment District?

And who's behind it and who's building it?

>>Sure.

So behind it is something called JMA Ventures and the Machete Group, as well as maybe most common place around here with the Orlando Magic.

The DeVos family.

And the Magic owned something like a 20% stake in this venture.

It's going to be a massive development right next to the Kia center, expected to have something like $500 million, if not more, of private investment.

It's going to bring a lot of things that city leaders have wanted for a long time, and that's hotel space and meeting space and offices and apartments and all kinds of things like that, really comparable to some developments we've seen in other NBA cities like Orlando.

But if you look in Sacramento and L.A. Live and things like that.

>>At the moment, that's kind of an unoccupied lot, right?

Just next to the Kia Arena.

>>Yeah, it used to be the Orlando police station before they moved it over more deeper into Parramore and as well as a public parking garage.

And it's like a giant grass lot if you think of the Kia center.

>>How much is the city paying?

>>So the city is paying out of something called the Community Redevelopment Agency 2.5 million in direct cash toward building this meeting space, which they think will attract conventions That could be as much as a thousand people and bring some more foot traffic to downtown.

But most significantly, there's a $40 million tax break, something called a a property tax in re incrementally.

It's a very complicated term, but essentially like this development would pay its property taxes.

And if they are meeting what the incentive package requires, which isn't an overly heavy lift, they would be refunded up to $40 million, which will probably take about a decade to get that money back.

>>So that's a pretty big incentive.

And there's been some pushback on this incentives package.

What the critics say, Talia?

>>Critics are talking about like we were talking about earlier, affordable housing.

So there is there's going to be some apartment units that will be at this district.

I want to say right now, first phase is looking at maybe like 270, but only ten of those are going to be earmarked for people making 80% or less than the area median salary.

So affordable housing still at issue.

We have all this money.

Basically, critics are saying we have all this money to put towards this district.

Well, what about shelters?

What about affordable housing?

What about actually helping the people already living here?

>>What have you been hearing on the pushback?

How does how does the city respond to that?

>>So basically, the city sees it as without a public contribution.

And this is from the city and from the development side.

Without this public contribution, this would not happen.

This development that's been talked about since 2014 would just die on the vine.

It would never get built.

So they see it as an investment in in reviving downtown, but also when you talk to people who are on the other side of it, it's like, hey, you know, this thing is going to come out of the ground.

It's going to require law enforcement.

It's going to further strain our infrastructure.

We're not actually going to be getting the financial benefits for it that could do something like build a homeless shelter or subsidize affordable housing, because that's the other thing is building affordable housing is difficult because it's hard to make the dollars work.

So if you've got more tax money available, you could theoretically subsidize more units.

>>The city hoping it's going to be a revenue generator over the years.

Before we move on, we wanted to let you know about a special two part NewsNight Conversation series, looking at some of the most important environmental challenges facing central Florida.

Stakeholders and experts will delve into water issues facing our region.

Well, we want to hear from you on this important issue, what do you consider the most critical environmental challenges confronting Central Florida's waterways?

What policies and actions do you think are lacking in the current state and local response to these issues?

Let us know by sending us an email to newsnight@wucf.org.

Okay.

Finally tonight, we have Peter with us.

So let's mention an important development on the space beat involving the Mars Perseverance rover.

NASA's recently announced it would shelve its current plans to bring samples gathered by the Mars Perseverance Rover back to Earth.

But spiraling costs from an original estimate of between five and $7 billion to an independent prediction of up to 11 billion has prompted a rethink.

The independent review, released in September, also extended the likely return date from 2031 to 2040.

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson's call the timeframe unacceptably too long.

The agency is now searching for cheaper and quicker ways to bring some 30 soil and rock samples back to earth for analysis.

All right.

We all love talking about space with Peter King.

This decision, of course, Peter, comes against the backdrop of a of a NASA budget crunch.

I mean, what would have been the implications, according to the agency, if it had pressed ahead with the original plan?

>>Well, they would have had to have cannibalized other NASA programs.

And you're right about the budget crunch.

For example, the jet jet propulsion Laboratory out in California, JPL just cut hundreds of jobs and JPL manages so many of the interplanetary missions.

So that's that's a big problem.

Keep in mind, this mission for the sample return was supposed to be anywhere from 5 to $7 billion.

The independent review board found that it would cost more like $11 billion.

And instead of getting a sample return by 20, 20, 31 or 2033 or so, it would have gone out to 2040, which is a long way too long, way too long.

>>And that's basically what we heard from the NASA administrator.

>>Exactly.

>>Do you get a sense, though, Peter, about what went wrong here?

>>Space is hard.

Space is expensive.

NASA's projects tend to run over budget.

I mean, we've seen that with just about everything in the past for four years, 40 years.

So, you know, none of this is really, really surprise.

>>Which is why NASA needs a lot of oversight and often does have oversight.

>>Well, it does.

And that's why you have Inspector generals who are looking at budgets, why you have the Office of Management and Budget.

But, you know, the quarrel is always well, they're not scientists.

They don't get what we do.

NASA's has had has always had trouble living within its budget, whether it was the space shuttle, the space station, and here with Mars perseverance and the sample return.

>>Do we get a sense, though, now about what's going to happen going forwards in terms of an alternative?

You know, how does NASA's think it's going to get this done?

>>Well, you know what?

I go back to what former Administrator Dan Goldin used to say back in the nineties.

It didn't necessarily work then, but things have changed a lot.

He had the phrase faster, better, and cheaper.

And that's what they're going to try and do.

They're putting out requests for information and proposals to various aerospace companies to ask basically.

All right, so how can we get this done faster, better and cheaper?

And we should find out more in a few weeks.

>>I think the deadline is May 17th.

And before we go, I really wanted to mention something else that fascinates me.

This is some good news for from NASA this week.

Voyager one, which is now no longer in the solar system.

As I understand it, it's finally started sending coherent data back to Earth.

>>NASA's lost touch with it to a degree, back in November.

They like to say, well, we didn't lose touch.

It just couldn't answer our call.

They always knew where it was.

Well, they got signals back finally from Voyager one earlier this week.

They had done a walk around with with scientists figuring out a way to work around a bad computer chip to get the message and get the response.

So that's pretty amazing to hear back from a spacecraft that is somewhere in the neighborhood of 15 billion miles away from Earth.

And by the way, it takes about 22 and a half hours for a signal to reach it and another 22 and a half hours for a signal to come back.

So that's pretty amazing for a spacecraft that was launched in 1977.

And for Star Trek movie fans, V'ger from the very first Star Trek movie in 1979.

>>With 1970s technology as well.

That thing is still going strong.

A reminder, you can always find much more on our website.

You'll also find this and past episodes of the program as well.

It's all at wucf.org/newsnight along the bottom of your screen.

But that is all the time we have for this week.

My thanks to Peter King, Talia Blake, Ryan Gillespie.

Thank you guys so much for coming in.

Really appreciate your time today.

We'll see you next Friday night at 8:30 on WUCF from all of us here at NewsNight.

Take care.

And a great week.