Local stakeholders will be invited to weigh in on homeless outreach resources available to Atlantic Beach and the other Beaches communities.
Atlantic Beach Mayor Curtis Ford proposed adding the issue to the City Commission’s Oct. 12 agenda to address questions about Jacksonville and Duval County homeless services that are not available in the Beaches communities.
“I just wanted to bring this to the conversation,” Ford said. “I’m going to recommend that we add a segment on the next agenda on Oct. 12 regarding the homeless issues and how to properly address and support where necessary.”
The commission is expected to discuss expanding access to three programs: the Jacksonville Fire and Rescue Department’s Providing Assistance to the Homeless outreach team, known as PATH; the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office Homeward Bound relocation program; and JFRD’s Co-Responder program. Launched in late 2024, the PATH team provides round-the-clock outreach to people experiencing homelessness and connects them with shelter and services.
The Beaches have access to regional homeless services and maintain their own relationships with service providers. However, several Jacksonville-run homeless response programs, including PATH and Homeward Bound, do not extend to the Beaches under the existing interlocal arrangement.
“I’ve had conversations on both the Homeward Bound and the PATH program, and I’m assured that both of them will be funded for the beach and for Atlantic Beach coming up shortly,” Ford said. “I am finding good recognition that they should be as county services. That is the issue that’s been brought up.
“I haven’t got an address on the Co-Responder [program], but I will get an answer on all three again in two weeks, and I will ask the stakeholders to join if they so choose. Former Mayor Glasser would be one, and there are several others.”
As co-founder of the Beaches Homeless Coalition, former Atlantic Beach Mayor Ellen Glasser recently brought the issue to the attention of local officials and asked them to consider a joint resolution among Jacksonville Beach, Neptune Beach and Atlantic Beach requesting that Jacksonville expand homeless services to the Beaches.
The Beaches Homeless Coalition does not receive public funding and partners with several local churches to host cold-night shelters and other events that provide safety and services to members of the homeless community.
“It is an issue here at the beach,” Glasser said. “Because we are part of the consolidated county and we pay our property taxes for county services, there are at least four programs that we don’t get anything back from Jacksonville on. This is not a new issue.”
In January 2025, Jacksonville staff confirmed that the JFRD PATH homeless outreach team and the JSO Homeward Bound program were not serving the Beaches in the same manner as Jacksonville.
Homeward Bound provides transportation for homeless individuals to return to their home communities, including purchasing a bus ticket to another state when appropriate. According to Action News Jax, 802 people used the program from October 2024 through January 2026.
Atlantic Beach officials discussed the issue in January 2025. City officials said they also were not included in JFRD’s transportation-to-shelter process or the Homeward Bound program and questioned why an interlocal agreement should be necessary for JFRD to provide those services in the Beaches.
Commissioner Thomas Grant said he recently responded to a complaint from a resident involving an unhoused member of the community. He contacted police but acknowledged that officials must balance public safety concerns with providing assistance to vulnerable members of the homeless population.
“We are very humane and empathetic to their situation. We don’t try to move them. There are certain things we can and can’t do,” Grant said. “We want to do what’s best for them, but we also want to protect a 5- or 6-year-old walking down the street who might see something they are not supposed to see.”
Ford said the discussion will address the presence of homeless individuals in Atlantic Beach while focusing on broader community issues and how the Beaches cities can use county services to make a positive difference.
“What does Atlantic Beach do and what can Atlantic Beach support? Because right now, Atlantic Beach is not a city that is set up for success with mental, drug and alcohol issues,” Ford said. “We don’t have the facilities. Should we? That’s a conversation we can have. But we don’t, and yet we are getting slightly more homeless people.
“Observation tells me we are getting more. It may not be a lot more, maybe measured based on the time of year, but I think that we need to have the conversation. So on Oct. 12, let’s have the conversation.”
Disclosure: Ellen Glasser serves on the board of directors of Beaches News Inc., the nonprofit publisher of Beach Gazette. Board members do not have a role in editorial decisions.
