Miami Beach has passed a controversial new law that gives cops the power to arrest homeless people who refuse to go to a shelter. 

The Florida hotspot, which is often frequented by celebrities from the likes of Leonardo DiCaprio to Jared Leto, has seen surging numbers of rough sleepers in recent years.  

An estimated 152 people are currently homeless in the relatively small star-studded neighborhood, according to the Miami-Dade County Homeless Trust.

Commissioner Kristen Rosen Gonzalez, who voted for the new law, said the shelter crisis has come with an increase in unsavory incidents in the city. 

‘These are people that we see selling drugs, having sex outdoors, naked,’ she told the New York Post.

‘There’s defecation, there’s masturbation in front of our children in parks, open containers and parties, and screaming. They’re harassing and they are stabbing. And they are refusing any services.’ 

Miami Beach has passed a controversial new law that gives cops the power to arrest homeless people who refuse to go to a shelter

The Florida hotspot, which is often frequented by celebrities from the likes of Leonardo DiCaprio to Jared Leto , has seen surging numbers of rough sleepers in recent years 

Gonzalez stressed that only people who refused housing provided by the city would be arrested. 

‘We want to help people,’ she said. ‘But if people don’t want to help themselves, the state and federal government have given us no option except for this ordinance.’

Along with Gonzalez, Mayor Dan Gelbe and commissioners Steven Meiner and Alex Fernandez voted for the law. Commissioners Ricky Arriola, Laura Dominguez and David Richardson voted against it. 

Arriola told a Miami Beach City Commission meeting that ‘arresting folks for being homeless is not the solution.’

‘Creating a new category of crime, which is basically the category of being homeless, is not a solution,’ he said. 

Read Related Also: Single Democrat votes 'no' on House GOP’s government funding bill

Local store owner Betty Behar disagreed – saying she supported the measure because homelessness has been ‘a problem for a while’ for business owners in the tourism-driven city. 

‘When the boardwalk took out the benches they had to find a new home, so this became their home,’ she told NBC6. 

‘They would either be in the front of the businesses or in the back going through garbage or whatever. So it is a problem – it’s been a problem for a while.’

An estimated 152 people are currently homeless in the relatively small star-studded neighborhood, according to the Miami-Dade County Homeless Trust

Along with Gonzalez, Mayor Dan Gelbe and commissioners Steven Meiner and Alex Fernandez voted for the law. Commissioners Ricky Arriola, Laura Dominguez and David Richardson voted against it 

Miami Beach is an east coast city in Florida which is home to around 80,000 people over around eight square miles

Local store owner Betty Behar says she supports the new law because homelessness has been ‘a problem for a while’ for business owners in the tourism-driven city

Miami Beach is an east coast city in Florida that is home to around 80,000 people over around eight square miles. 

It’s not the only city where an uptick in homelessness has reached ’emergency’ levels – as similar housing crises have broken out in neighborhoods across the US, and California is by far the worst-hit state. 

The Golden State has the country’s highest rate of homelessness, with 44 non-housed people per 10,000 residents. It is followed closely by Vermont, Oregon, and Hawaii. 

In San Jose, California, a Silicon Valley billionaire has resorted to leasing a two-acre plot of private land to the local council for just $1 a year in an effort to combat the Bay Area’s housing crisis.  

American real estate developer John Sobrato, 84, offered the San Jose City Council the opportunity to construct a 150-bed solar-powered temporary housing complex on Via Del Oro, Edenvale, in the south of the metropolis.   

Similar scenes of destitution have been well documented in San Francisco, where hordes of brand names including the likes of Whole Foods and Nordstrom have recently moved out of the city amid widespread crime and plummeting footfall.