FORT MYERS, FLA — Jasmin Miller is a woman struggling with homelessness in Lee county.
"Pretty much he insulted me."
And she says she's upset after a heated exchange between herself and Lee county Commission Chariman Brian Hamman, at Tuesday morning's meeting.
After she got up to demand affordable housing and claimed the county could do a better job of helping the homeless, Hamman responded with this message:
"Hey Ms. Miller, you seem to make it every meeting on time without fail. You probably could make it work every day on time without fail and solve a lot of your own problems," he said.
FOX 4 caught up with Commissioner Hamman to talk about it, after a concerned viewer reached out.
"She needed to hear the truth and the truth is if you put the same kind of effort into showing up at a job as you are into coming here to every meeting, you could probably help yourself out of the situation as opposed to coming and yelling at us," he said.
Hamman also says the county has tried to work with Miller for the last six months, but Miller says that's not the case.
"That's a big lie. A blatant lie. And god doesn't like liars."
She adds that while she's forgiven Hamman, going out and getting work won't be easy for her.
"I'm disabled. I've been disabled since 2011. I got into a very serious wreck and I broke my two hips and my back," Miller said.
Both Hamman and Miller tell me they're looking to move on and find solutions to chronic homelessness in our area, though their solutions may look a little different.
"All I want from the city and county is a million dollars minimum and that million dollars I plan to come together with the movers and shakers like ms. Ramona miller to start a small house project. We want to give the homeless people tiny homes," Miller said.
"That's the big reason why I wanted to get together with our best minds who are looking at these problems in a room so we can talk about the chronically homeless problem. Those who refuse the help, those who have gotten used to the lifestyle, how can we help them get into the programs," Hamman said.
The county commission will be holding a workshop with the sheriff's office and other groups on October 20 to discuss the issue of chronic homelessness in the area.
When comes to Centennial park, FOX 4 also wants to do a little fact checking, after Lee County Commissioner Cecil Pendergrass made this statement Tuesday morning:
"People were not living in the park prior to the closure, just for the record. Some people were brought in. Because they weren't being allowed to live there before this happened up until a week ago. Some are bring brought in to try and make a statement. Some were even brought in from rescues as far as Sarasota," he said.
The commissioner claimed that the park wasn't as full as it has been in the last few days and that people weren't living there before this week because they weren't allowed to.
Fox 4 has been at centennial park on and off, for months, checking in on the situation. And we can confirm that people have in fact been living there throughout the pandemic, with many of them have telling us that they turned to the parks because shelters were full or closed.
Pendergrass also said that people were being brought in from Sarasota to "make a statement" at the park and claimed the city is investigating.
But both the city of Fort Myers and Pendergrass have not returned out requests for more information on this alleged investigation.
A county leader told a FOX 4 reporter Tuesday that he wasn't aware of those claims and wasn't sure if they were true or not.
