With COVID in the general population easing, so too, are cases aboard ships.

The number of COVID-19 cases reported on cruise ships leaving U.S. Ports has declined each month since last summer, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention obtained by the South Florida Sun Sentinel.

Fewer than 4,400 cases were reported on ships leaving from U.S. ports during January, compared to 13,238 in July 2022. Nationally, people stepped onto cruise ships to sail 13 million times in January, versus last summer when cruise ships were sailing at limited capacity.

So is it safe to go on a cruise now?

“The risk is less, but there is not zero risk,” says Dr. Preeti Malani, an infectious disease specialist with University of Michigan.

Gauge risk, take precautions

Three years ago, on March 10, 2020, the World Health Organization declared the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak a global pandemic. After several COVID waves that took hundreds of thousands of lives and created severe illness, the worst appears to be over. The Biden administration is planning to let the coronavirus public health emergency in the United States expire in May.

Major cruise lines have eliminated their precautions and no longer require vaccination or pre-boarding testing. As the COVID rate continues to drop, sailing mostly has returned to normal with some crew members and the occasional passenger wearing a mask,

However, some changes remain: Most cruise lines have improved air filtration and placed more hand sanitizer stations on deck.

It’s now up to individual passengers to gauge their risk tolerance and take precautions. The CDC still recommends getting vaccinated and taking a coronavirus test before boarding a cruise ship.

Ellen Dill, a 70-year-old retiree living in The Villages in Central Florida, calls her experience “a cautionary tale for cruisers.”

Dill says she is immunocompromised and has had five doses of the COVID vaccine. She said she had been excited for an eight-day cruise of the Western Caribbean and tested herself before boarding.

But her third day on the ship out of Cape Canaveral, severe cold symptoms triggered a visit to the infirmary. She tested positive for COVID.

Dill says she had been so careful throughout the pandemic and it was her first time having COVID. She saw hand-sanitizing stations, but noticed passengers rarely using them.

“I took a risk. I know that,” she said. “I had a mask and I should have worn it more, but people stare at you.”

Dill spent the rest of the cruise quarantined in her cabin, joined eventually by her husband who tested positive three days later.

Carnival delivered her meals to her cabin, provided free internet, and gave her a credit for a portion of the trip, she said. “We will go on a cruise again.”

Cruise lines report symptomatic and asymptomatic cases to the CDC for all passengers in a cabin when one has symptoms that trigger a visit to the ship’s medic. Some international ports also still require testing to disembark. However social media is abundant with passengers posting about getting COVID while cruising and choosing not to report it to avoid “being stuck in a cabin.”

Dill said she does not agree with that route. “Trying to hide that you have COVID just puts everyone around you at risk.”

Carnival Cruise Line did not respond directly to questions on its reimbursement policy, additional sanitation on ships with COVID cases or whether ships are stocked with Paxlovid or other antivirals to treat coronavirus.

A Carnival spokesman offered this written statement: “Our commitment to the health and well-being of our guests, crew, and communities we visit has enabled us to safely welcome back millions of guests since resuming sailing in 2021.”

Nearly every cruise line that reports to the CDC had cases on their ships over the last nine months. However, the top nine ships by case count were all owned by Royal Caribbean Cruise Line and Princess Cruises.

The Caribbean Princess, owned by Princess Cruises, had the most cases — 3,542 — since May 2022, more than double the number on the ship with the next highest amount reported, CDC data shows. The Caribbean Princess caters to a 60-plus crowd, leaves out of Fort Lauderdale, and sails for 10 days to ports in the Caribbean and South America.

Princess Cruises did not respond by Friday evening to the Sun Sentinel’s requests for comment, nor did Royal Caribbean.

Princess has struggled with coronavirus cases on its ships since the start of the pandemic. Its Ruby Princess drew international attention as an incubator for coronavirus in early 2020 when at least 28 people died and 700 cases were linked to the ship. It also had an incident as recently as November 2022 when the Majestic Princess carrying 800 COVID-positive passengers docked in Sydney after being hit with a major outbreak. The ship had returned from New Zealand and had more than 4,000 people aboard.

The cruise lines have had a difficult few years during the pandemic. In March 2020, after reports of ships loaded with COVID-positive passengers being turned away from ports, the CDC issued a No Sail Order that grounded all ships. After eight months, the CDC transitioned to a conditional sail order and cruise lines figured out how to sail safely and limit capacity. All restrictions now are lifted and travel agents say almost all ships are back to sailing at full capacity.

In Fort Lauderdale, for example the 40 ships based at Port Everglades are at an average 83% occupancy rate, said spokesperson Joy Oglesby. “We’re on course for a full recovery.”

In 2023, Americans want to get back on ships

Cruise line passenger counts are rising, and more Americans are planning to vacation on ships in 2023

A survey from AAA Auto Club found 52% of U.S. adults are as likely or more likely to take a cruise this year than before the pandemic. That’s up from 45% last year.

“The cruise lines are offering good rates to keep momentum going,” said Clara Lopez Boyden, a travel agent with Boyden Travel in Orlando. She said some international ports still want passengers to be vaccinated for COVID. “I do a lot of research and educate my clients about what’s needed at the time of booking. It can change.”

Even when vaccinated, Boyden advises clients to buy travel protection. She hasn’t had a clients’ tickets refund because of COVID, but a few have been offered discounts on a future cruise. “I think that slowly but surely any consideration of giving cruise credit back for COVID might be going away,” she said.

Malani, the infectious disease doctor, said for anyone considering a cruise, it’s possible to manage your risk.

“If you spend time in a packed space that’s not well-ventilated, you could have exposure,” she said. “But there are a lot of outdoor spaces and decks, and you could spend more of your time there.”

Get boosted and avoid crowds in the days before departure, she advises.

For someone at higher risk of complications because of age or health issues, it is important to have a plan in place before the cruise, she said. “It may be harder to get healthcare once you are out to sea, so that’s a consideration.”

Malani emphasized COVID is less virulent than in 2020 and most people have some immunity, making it likely if someone did get infected at sea, their symptoms would be mild.

“I think most people will be okay,” she said. “I think this will be an almost normal summer.”

‘Industry is doing well’

In Florida and nationwide, there has been a continued decline in newly reported cases and COVID hospitalizations.

Most Americans are comfortable traveling again, according to a new AARP survey conducted in November and December of 2022. Just one in four say COVID-19 is a barrier to travel, compared to about half who felt that way a year earlier.

Miami cruise critic Stewart Chiron said higher bookings in 2023 signify travelers feel confident again about the wane of the pandemic and safety of cruising.

“The industry is doing well,” he said. “Assuring cruising is as safe as possible for passengers and crews has been a herculean effort. Now that requirements are lifted, you are not hearing about large outbreaks or people dying or medical centers on board filling up.”

“People want to get back to their lives,” Chiron said. “They are rethinking their vacations, and cruising continues to be a good option.”

Sun Sentinel health reporter Cindy Goodman can be reached at cgoodman@sunsentinel.com.

The law would prohibit forced depositions of victims or witnesses of any age, as well as any person with intellectual disabilities, unless “good cause” can be shown to justify it. Depositions are witness interviews conducted by attorneys before a trial.

A Sun Sentinel investigation found that Florida is just one of three states where a victim of sex abuse and trafficking can be deposed without requiring the court’s permission first. Traffickers have used the lax protections to intimidate their victims out of testifying against them and to secure plea agreements on reduced charges.

“As attorney general, I work every day to stop human trafficking in our state, and this session I am advocating for legislation that will further protect victims, as well as help our law enforcement partners bring traffickers to justice,” Moody said in a statement Wednesday announcing her support for the bill. “This legislation will shield victims from unnecessarily reliving traumatic experiences, making it easier for them to come forward and help prosecutors secure convictions for their perpetrators.”

Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle has repeatedly pushed for legislation that would limit depositions of trafficking victims. But each time, she was met with opposition from defense attorneys who believe that deposing victims is essential to their clients’ right to confront their accusers. Fernandez Rundle’s office could not be reached for comment late Wednesday.

The newly proposed law, sponsored by Sen. Danny Burgess, R-Zephyrhills, and Rep. Taylor Yarkosky, R-Montverde, would apply to any case in which a person is charged with human trafficking, or an attempt, solicitation, or conspiracy to commit human trafficking. It also would apply to a variety of sexual offenses, child abuse, cyberstalking and domestic violence cases.

That decision would be made by the courts, but only if the evidence can not be reasonably obtained another way and the value of the victim’s testimony “outweighs the potential harm to the person to be deposed.”

In making that decision, the courts would consider the victim’s age and maturity, willingness to testify and likelihood of suffering “moderate psychological harm,” among other factors, the bill says.

If passed, the prohibition would take effect on Oct. 1.

The letter raised alarms that the nation’s most widely distributed tip line for cases of human and sex trafficking is failing to help rescue victims and hampering efforts by law enforcement to find and charge criminals.

Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody was one of the signers of the letter, which was sent to leaders of the U.S. Senate and House by the National Association of Attorneys General.

“It has recently come to our attention that the National Human Trafficking Hotline, which Congress has funded for 15 years, is not reporting tips of adult trafficking to state law enforcement,” except when a victim self-reports and gives explicit permission to pass information to law enforcement, the letter reads.

“Not only do we believe this action contravenes one of Congress’ intended functions of the hotline, but we believe it disrupts the federal-state partnership to end human trafficking and help its victims,” it continues.

The letter comes amidst concerns from advocates that the hotline is a dead-end for trafficking cases, where a tip might not reach police for months, if ever.

The letter cites the hotline’s own data that shows there were 51,073 phone calls, texts, emails and other communications sent in last year. Of those, just 13,277 were submitted by trafficking victims. According to the hotline’s website, “except in situations involving potential abuse of a minor or if we believe a person is in imminent danger, the trafficking hotline will not take action without the consent of the person in the situation.”

In other words, many tips from a third party will not be given to law enforcement, the letter to Congress said.

“Possibly more alarming, some states are reporting that they receive tips from the hotline a month, sometimes two months, after a tip of suspected trafficking is reported to Polaris. If the hotline is not promptly sharing tips with law enforcement, law enforcement cannot act to help victims of trafficking,” the letter said.

Moody said in a press release this week that Polaris, the company responsible for operating the hotline, is failing to report information to law enforcement in a timely manner.

“Polaris is failing to follow this important standard, yet continues to receive large amounts of federal funding,” the statement from Moody said. “I’m urging Congressional leaders to get to the bottom of this, so our law enforcement authorities can be better equipped with the knowledge needed to stop this atrocious crime.” The non-profit Polaris has been operating the hotline since 2007 and is paid about $3.5 million annually.

The hotline’s mission is to “[facilitate] reporting to specialized human trafficking task forces, federal authorities, local law enforcement, and service providers throughout the country,” according to the website of the Department of Health and Human Services, which provides most of the hotline’s funding.

Issues with the National Human Trafficking Hotline have been on the federal government’s radar for some time. HHS told the South Florida Sun Sentinel in January that it had previously commissioned a study of the hotline and that the findings will be released over the next year. The department previously issued a letter touting the successes of the the hotline, including providing about 15,000 tips to local law enforcement.

In response to the alleged shortcomings of the tip line, some states have resorted to developing their own hotlines, including Florida.

“We cannot in good conscience continue to ask the public to share tips about trafficking in their communities if the hotline will not give us, as law enforcement, the opportunity to address those tips,” the letter from the attorneys general said. “It serves no one well to do so, least of all the victims that could be helped by a tip phoned in by a good Samaritan who sees their suffering and tries to do the right thing.”

Chase Sizemore, a spokesperson for Moody, said in an email Wednesday that the attorney general collaborated with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to create a hotline, 1-855-FLA-SAFE, that reports directly to FDLE.

Polaris has said that reporting cases directly to law enforcement without explicit approval from victims would be an overreach. Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch met with Polaris Chief Executive Catherine Chen last summer, according to the letter. During the meeting, Chen explained that Polaris uses a “victim-centered” approach that is supposed to give them more control over what happens in their case. Chen also told Fitch that the hotline would begin focusing more on connecting victims with resources instead of collecting tips, the letter said.

The attorneys general were not impressed by Chen’s proposal.

“We cannot stress enough how great a departure this is from our understanding of the current practices and purposes of the hotline or how serious a detriment it will be to our work to stop trafficking and aid its victims,” the letter read.

Polaris pushed back against the letter from the attorneys general in a statement released Wednesday.

“To serve this mission, the trafficking hotline must have the trust of victims and survivors we serve,” the statement said. “To that end, the trafficking hotline does not report their situations to law enforcement without their consent. Instead, the trafficking hotline works with victims to determine what they need to begin to break free and rebuild their lives,” the statement read.

But not all victims are on Polaris’s side of the argument. Tsvetelina Thompson, a trafficking survivor and advocate in Fort Lauderdale, said that people calling into a hotline are normally doing so because they need immediate help. When a survivor is only able to get away from a trafficker for 10 minutes to make a call for help, they might not be in a position to make a second or third follow-up call.

“A hotline is, you call and you get immediate help. And that’s not the case,” she said. “If you want to be an assistance line for providing information or resources, that’s great. But then don’t call yourself a hotline.”

Clarification: a previous version of this story was amended to clarify that some third-party tips are sent to law enforcement.

With the 2023 session looming, state legislators have filed at least 16 bills related to human trafficking. The bills address everything from limiting depositions of victims, to creating task forces on the foster care system, to establishing a victim trust fund.

But while the new bills indicate a surge of interest in combatting trafficking, advocates have pointed to flaws in proposed language that could harm victims or make it more difficult to combat the problem.

The experts, mostly members of an informal working group on human trafficking, told the South Florida Sun Sentinel that legislators are pitching legislation without consulting with them or victims, leading to well-intentioned misfires.

Earlier this month, Rep. Fred Hawkins, R-St. Cloud, filed a bill intended to improve the process for trafficking survivors trying to have their records expunged.

Under Florida Statutes, victims can file a petition to have charges scrubbed from their record if they were related to their time being trafficked. The Sun Sentinel previously reported that the bill would increase privacy measures for victims, hiding all records related to their expunctions from public view.

But provisions buried within the bill would amend the law so that only crimes “directly related to” a trafficking operation could be expunged. The current standard allows expunction of any crimes “committed or reported to have been committed as a part of” the trafficking operation.

It’s a three-word change that would raise the bar for victims of human trafficking when it comes to getting their names cleared, according to experts.

Marianne Thomas, a survivor and founder of anti-trafficking non-profit My Name, My Voice, said that it’s difficult to prove exactly when someone was being trafficked and, therefore, demonstrate that the charge was ‘directly related to’ being trafficked.

“It’s not like I have a W-2 where I can show you how long I was trafficked,” she said. “And even though maybe I no longer am being trafficked, was my crime committed because of trafficking?”

Brent Woody, a Tarpon Springs attorney who helped write Florida’s trafficking expunction law, worries that some prosecutors would use the higher standard to oppose efforts by victims to clear their records.

“Lots of prosecutors, they’re on board, they’re victim-centered, they’re not going to care about that. But believe me, there’s some who will,” Woody said. “There’s some who will push back, and they’ll look at every possible thing they can to figure out, ‘how can I object to this?'”

Woody was also concerned by by a provision of the expunction bill that would increase penalties for survivors who provide false information — an issue that has never come up in the roughly 175 petitions he has filed over the years.

“We’ve had prosecutors push back on cases, but not suggest our client was lying on an affidavit,” he said. “Why increase that offense level for a problem we have never had? I have no idea where this is coming from. I’m baffled by that.”

Hawkins’ bill isn’t the only one that raised eyebrows for trafficking advocates. The experts flagged multiple other proposals that they fear were drafted without input from advocates or victims and missed the mark despite good intentions.

The proposals are all very early in the legislative process, and it is common for bills to be overhauled before they ever reach a vote in Tallahassee. Hawkins’ bill was referred to its first subcommittees Tuesday, where it can be amended or even scrapped.

While Woody said he believes that the expunction statute can be improved, he’d “rather live with what we’ve been living with for ten years,” unless the bill is amended.

Easy wins, or bad policy?

Tomas Lares, founder of the anti-trafficking group United Abolitionists, is concerned that political opportunism is driving the rush to file bills without talking to those in the know.

“I think that because of the amount of awareness, human trafficking is on a lot of peoples’ radars,” Lares said, adding that passing a trafficking bill this year could be a win for legislators. “Who’s going to be against [human trafficking legislation], except for the traffickers?”

But that win can come at the expense of good policy.

Lares is part of an informal working group of human trafficking experts. Several members of the group who talked to the Sun Sentinel expressed concern that months of careful policy work could be undone by the sudden onslaught of bills.

Lisa Haba, a trafficking attorney and member of the working group, worries that other proposals will substitute work that her group painstakingly drafted.

“Our working group subject matter experts spent months crafting language, methodology and a process that would effect real change, that would positively impact survivors in the state of Florida,” Haba said.”What will not effect change is a bill without the right background, understanding the status of what things are and how to change them. While we support the effort 100%, the language has to be effective.”

While members of the working group are worried about some bills currently on the table, each said they were hopeful that they could collaborate with legislators to create more comprehensive and effective laws.

“Everybody who has raised one of these bills has the best interests of our state at heart,” Haba said. “Ideally, we’ll all come together on the same bill and rally behind the same cause.”

Benjamin Rembaum, a legislative aide for Hawkins, the sponsor of the House expunction bill, said that the representative won’t be answering questions about the proposed legislation until it is placed on the agenda by the committee chair. Their office takes criticism of the bill “very seriously,” he said, and they are willing to work with advocates who have raised concerns.

‘Toothless’ legislation

The bills flagged by trafficking advocates aren’t far off the mark, experts said, and could be corrected with just slight adjustments to the most concerning provisions.

For example, a bill filed by state senator Rosalind Osgood, D-Tamarac, would create a trust fund for human trafficking victims to help pay the costs of having their records cleared.

Woody is generally supportive of the idea, but said he was concerned about how expunction attornies would be paid. Woody said that he would feel more comfortable with funding going directly to law firms so that there is never a financial transaction between the attorney and victim — and, therefore, no concern that the attorney would stop working on the case if the victim ran out of money.

“The thought of an attorney making money off of an expungement, off of a human trafficking victim, bothers me,” Woody said. “Just as a sort of moral principle I suppose. But also because I know those services are available.”

Woody said that he had previously sought funding to support his organization’s expunction services but wasn’t able to get traction. His non-profit, The Justice Restoration Center, will help any victim that approaches them, he said, but they are constrained by the number of cases they can take on simultaneously.

Woody said he has spoken with legislative aides for Osgood regarding the bill. Osgood could not be reached for comment by the Sun Sentinel.

Subtleties, like the difference between Osgood’s and Woody’s visions for a trust fund, can get lost without input from experts and victims, according to members of the anti-trafficking group. Without feedback, Lares is concerned that the state will have a repeat of a weakness in Florida’s anti-trafficking regulations on hotels. The Sun Sentinel found that Florida has never issued a fine for laws meant to prevent trafficking at hotels, despite thousands of violations.

Rushing forward on new legislation without talking to the right stakeholders “can backfire,” Lares said. “It either won’t have teeth, like before with the hotel bill … or it will just bring kind of more confusion.”

“It makes me scratch my head that our elected officials are not kind of doing their homework,” he said.

Correction: A previous version of this story said that Woody had filed thousands of petitions for expunction. He has filed an estimated 175 petitions and gotten over 1,000 charges expunged.

Massive pushback from cities has killed any hope of building a new county-funded homeless shelter in Broward for the foreseeable future, according to Rebecca McGuire, a manager with Broward’s Homeless Initiative Partnership Administration.

“I think we have to abandon the idea for now of having a [new homeless assistance shelter] anywhere in Broward County,” McGuire said at a meeting Tuesday, citing the pushback from cities.

The scrapped plans for a new shelter are just a symptom of the county’s deeper inability to grapple with homelessness. A resource crush spurred by COVID, the housing crisis and NIMBY-ism (‘not in my back yard’) has led to the reappearance of smaller tent cities around the county, according to McGuire.

Broward is home to at least 2,000 homeless folks, according to its most recent head count, a conservative estimate that captures just one moment in time.

After a Hollywood partner shelter backed out, Broward was left with two county-run shelters — the North Homeless Assistance Center in Pompano Beach and Central Homeless Assistance Center in Fort Lauderdale — plus a partnership with the Salvation Army. All told, those three shelters provide just 595 beds, McGuire said.

While an array of smaller private shelters in Broward can pick up some of the slack, a new center could have added anywhere from 300 to 400 beds. Without local approval, the shelter is a non-starter.

With a new shelter off the table, advocates have decided that their best bet is to get people into affordable housing as quickly as possible.

Facing opposition

As the county struggles to find a place to put up homeless people, some cities and their residents have sent a clear message that they will not be the destination for those seeking shelter.

“It’s not just the municipalities. It’s the neighbors, it’s the homeowner associations, it’s the businesses. There’s just not an appetite for a very large homeless assistance center right next to you,” McGuire said.

“There’s a lot of NIMBY-ism,” said Sandra Einhorn, chair of a subcommittee on needs and gaps for the county’s housing division. While shelters can get homeless people off the streets, Einhorn said she gets why some might not want chronically homeless folks — those that have been displaced in the long run, often because of mental health and drug issues — moving en masse to their neighborhood.

“I think that it’s not out of the realm of understanding to understand why someone would sort of balk at the idea of a homeless shelter being next door,” she said.

McGuire explained that Broward wasn’t nearly as dense when the county-operated shelters were built in 1998. “When we built the North [Homeless Assistance Center], there was nothing there. There was just this industrial area. And when we built the Central HAC, it was the result of a tent city that was right across the street; everybody wanted the tent city gone,” she said.

But times have changed. The county is rapidly running out of space to develop. And as the landscape has changed, so have attitudes.

There hasn’t been great precedent for communities’ desire for homeless shelters in South Florida. For example, years ago, Hollywood paid local advocate Sean Cononie $4.8 million to shut down his shelter, the Homeless Voice, and leave town for 30 years. At the time, Cononie took as many as 100 homeless folks with him on charter buses bound for Central Florida.

So where should Broward’s unsheltered people go?

Resource crush

The plans for a new shelter foundered under especially bad circumstances.

The affordable housing crisis is more pronounced in South Florida than almost anywhere else in the nation. Just 5% of families can afford Broward County’s median home price of $600,000, according to data presented at an affordable housing workshop last week. Rent is skyrocketing in parallel, forcing lower-income renters out of their places.

The crush from the affordable housing crisis on shelters is twofold. Not only are more people flocking to the shelters, but they are staying for months on end. The average stay at Broward’s Central Homeless Assistance Shelter was 247 days — over eight months, according to data from Tuesday’s meeting. The north center reported an average stay of 98 days. That’s longer than they have hung around historically, according to Einhorn. “People are being forced to stay longer because they can’t find anything that’s affordable for them,” she said.

Meanwhile, the shelters are still dealing with staffing shortages, leaving them hard-pressed to meet the demand for services, Einhorn said.

“If we don’t have enough people holding up the social service safety net, what happens? People fall through the net,” Einhorn said in an interview. And simply giving staff more cases to juggle isn’t an option, she said.

“You can’t ethically have a case manager taking on a case load of 100 cases,” she said. “So you’ve got some challenges with shelter bed capacity because of the staffing issue.”

And to top it off, the county lost its partnership with Broward Outreach, which operates The Caring Place in Hollywood and provided 100 beds to the county, according to McGuire. A director at The Caring Place couldn’t be reached for comment.

With no real chance of opening a new temporary housing option, advocates have decided that their best bet is to go all in on affordable housing.

“You have to prioritize,” McGuire said. “Am I going to go and advocate for affordable housing or another shelter? I think affordable housing is going to win every single time.”

But it’s a major tide to reverse. From 2016 to 2020, the supply of rental units under $1,250 shrunk 28.7%, according to data from Broward County. While the overall supply of rental units actually increased during that time, all of those lost units were replaced by more expensive rental options.

The county currently has a pipeline of nine affordable housing projects expected to provide about 1,100 new units of affordable housing, with some reserved for seniors. Two more would rehabilitate an additional 180 units. But that doesn’t come close to making up for the 36,250 units under $1,250 that were lost.

Simply put, the county is tasked with placing people who often lack employment in rental units; in the least affordable rental market in the country; and with no signs that the tide will come back out.

As a stop-gap measure, the county is experimenting with paying $1,000 bonuses to landlords willing to house homeless folks. The extra compensation makes up for the risks associated with housing clients with bad credit scores, criminal records and other issues that would make them poor housing candidates to many private landlords. So far, 37 people have been placed this way, McGuire said.

While it’s a long road toward fixing Broward’s housing market, advocates still agree that the way out of the issue is to create affordable housing and shelter options.

“I would say in every meeting where we talked about homelessness that the solution to homelessness is affordable housing,” Einhorn said. “If we’re not making larger investments in housing, then we’re just sort of spinning our wheels.”

The bill, HB 841, filed by State Rep. Fred Hawkins, R-St. Cloud, would make any petitions for expunction filed by human trafficking survivors exempt from public records law.

“Persons who are victims of human trafficking and who have been arrested for offenses committed, or reported to have been committed, as a result of being trafficked are themselves victims of crimes,” the bill reads. “The fact that the victims are seeking expungement, as well as the information contained in related pleadings and documents, would expose these victims to possible discrimination due to details of their past lives becoming public knowledge.”

But Hawkins’s new bill would also close off most of the petition process from public scrutiny by adding an extra layer of privacy for victims.

A Sun Sentinel investigation previously found that the petition process is highly secretive and difficult to track by design. Once a criminal charge is expunged, any record or mention of it is supposed to be destroyed. Under the new provision, almost no public information would be available on how victims are being treated in court.

Hawkins could not be reached Friday for comment.

In addition to limiting transparency, the bill makes it a more severe crime to provide false information when applying for expunction and includes a ‘sunset’ provision that would roll it back unless reapproved by 2028.

Hawkin’s bill is one of at least 14 anti-trafficking laws working their way through the state legislature. Following the Sun Sentinel’s investigation, numerous legislators filed bills focused on oversight for the foster care system, enforcement for the hotel industry and modifications to the expunction process.

A bill introduced last week by state Senate Minority Leader Lauren Book, D-Plantation, would step up enforcement against the hotel industry. The Sun Sentinel found that no hotels have been fined for violating anti-trafficking statutes since the law was passed in 2019. More than 100 hotels had violated the Book’s law would issue mandatory fines to repeat offenders.

Citing the Sun Sentinel investigation, Sen. Rosalind Osgood, D-Tamarac, also filed a bill last month that would help human trafficking victims cover their legal fees while seeking an expunction. Victims are often caught in a vicious cycle, unable to pay for an attorney to help clear their names after they are hit with criminal charges, the investigation found. Osgood’s bill would attempt to short-circuit that pattern by providing financial assistance.

The Sun Sentinel also found that Florida is one of just six states that allow lawyers to depose witnesses in criminal cases without the court’s permission, and that it is one of just three with no exception for sexual abuse victims. Osgood introduced a 15th bill that would limit depositions of victims, but withdrew before it could be considered by the legislature.

The city was ranked as the suburb with the sixth-highest number of co-working spaces in the nation, according to a study published by CoworkingCafe. The study defined a suburb as any city except the largest one in a particular metro area.

The renters run the gamut: shoestring startup owners, crypto traders, car-part suppliers, an Invisalign competitor, and real estate agents, to name a few.

And it looks like the odd officemates are there to stay. Even though coworking spaces were conceived of as temporary solutions, many are staying for years because of the national shift towards hybrid workplaces. Others are using them as launching pads for their startups before they can upgrade to a long-term office lease.

Maximillian Ramirez, a manager at The One Cowork, said that turnover is remarkably low for a venture based around the idea of allowing people to pick up leave without multi-year leases.

“I’ve had clients out here that have been with us since opening day,” Ramirez said. It took some time create an initial client base, “but I’ll say most of these clients that we’ve had here since then have stuck around with us,” he said.

Demand for some Boca co-working spaces has been consistent since they opened their doors. The One hit 92% occupancy about four months after it started promoting its space, Ramirez said. An annex that nearly doubled their square footage in June last year is already at about 80% capacity. Brooke Howard, a coordinator at CoSuite, said her company’s Boca location is at capacity and has created a waitlist for new customers. She expects demand to only go up in coming years.

Howard attributed the popularity of co-working in Boca to its reputation as a startup incubator. Smaller companies on shoestring budgets might not want to sink money into a multi-year office lease, especially if there’s questions about whether the business will work out in the long-term. CoSuite decided to offer options that cater to those smaller companies and one-person startups that don’t need a whole office space.

To some extent, co-working spaces are also riding the coattails of the COVID economy. The shift towards remote and hybrid work models gave co-working spaces a boost. Some companies have eschewed traditional leases altogether and now rent co-working offices and desks for employees, Howard said.

Plus, with a shift to remote work, many people are just lonely. Many are opting for a work environment where they know they’ll see other faces, even if they aren’t their actual colleagues.

“A lot of people, they’re getting sick of being in their homes, and they want a sense of community,” Howard said.

Even though life has largely returned to normal three years into the pandemic, the owners of the co-working spaces are optimistic that the boon to their business model is permanent. Both CoSuite and The One have plans to expand their operations in the near future.

Congressman Jared Moskowitz and Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz announced a $5 million federal grant Thursday to improve road safety in the county, with a $1.25 million match from the county. The net $6.25 million will be overseen by the Broward Metropolitan Planning Organization and used to study how to improve road safety.

The $5 million is just an entry point to a much larger pot of federal funding that will be used to perform the improvements. MPO executive director Gregory Stuart said at a press conference Thursday that as much as $500 million in additional funding could come down the pike eventually.

But that money isn’t guaranteed. Wasserman Schultz said that the funding streams are competitive. Broward will have to demonstrate that it has greater need than other municipalities and that it can pull off the projects it proposes to keep people safe.

The first part shouldn’t be too hard. Broward is in of one of the deadliest areas in the nation for pedestrian traffic accidents. Smart Growth America, a non-profit organization, found that the metro area that includes Miami, Fort Lauderdale and Pompano Beach has the 14th-highest rate of pedestrian traffic fatalities out of 101 metro areas. Florida has the second-highest rate of pedestrian deaths of any state.

Elected officials held out the county’s uniquely dangerous road conditions as clear evidence that they will need the extra dollars, and quickly. “The need for change is urgent,” Wasserman Schultz said.

But even if Broward is able to get the funding for construction, the county is at least years out from fixing the roads. Locals should expect to see safety improvements to their roadways by at least 2028, according to Stuart’s deputy director, James Cromar.

Many streets in South Florida are unwalkable. Cromar pointed to evidence just outside the front door of the Coral Springs safety building where Wasserman Schultz and Moskowitz held their press conference. The sidewalk ends abruptly and drops straight into grass. And on the other side of the street, the only place for pedestrians to walk was an uneven field being used for parking Thursday.

Gaps in basic walkability measures, like crosswalks and crossing signals, can make a stroll through the neighborhood a gamble. At the press conference, Moskowitz highlighted a recent accident, when a 76-year-old man from Pompano Beach was struck and killed while walking.

Broward residents are acutely aware of these problems. A recent survey conducted by a Broward advisory board found that transit safety was one of the top priorities among hundreds of respondents, even more than congestion in some locations. Among respondents, very few felt safe commuting, especially cyclists and pedestrians.

This is a developing story, so check back for updates. Click here to have breaking news alerts sent directly to your inbox.

He’s now in his first year of high school at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

Five years have passed since the mass shooting that killed 17 students and injured 17 more at Stoneman Douglas. On Tuesday, Parkland and other communities across South Florida came together to mark the day and honor the victims.

“We feel like we had to come out here today,” said Thompson’s mother, Cari, who has lived in the area for 20 years. “To pay tribute to the victims, and also the survivors.”

17, the count of those lost in the tragedy, is a number that ran through the commemorations. At 10:17 a.m. Tuesday, 17 Stoneman Douglas staff members placed flowers on plaques for each of the 17 victims who died at the school in 2018.

Pine Trails Park is where the community came to grieve the loss of the 14 students and three teachers at vigils in the immediate aftermath of the shooting. Hundreds have since come on Feb. 14 each year to remember them.

People strolled through two rows of black and white portraits of the 17 victims, a hallway of their faces. Each portrait was paired with a clear box for people to drop notes and cards written to remember them.

Lauren Laski, a longtime Parkland resident, graduated from Stoneman Douglas in 1994. Her son was in eighth grade the day of the shooting, now in his senior year at Stoneman Douglas. Her daughter will soon attend Stoneman Douglas.

Laski said she worked with victim Nicholas Dworet’s dad and taught at the preschool victim Jaime Guttenberg attended. At commemoration events, Laski said it feels like she’s gone back in time to the day in 2018.

“Unfortunately, I think that as a society we’ve become numb to mass shootings and when it hit home here, it brought an awareness to everything. And it’s heartbreaking,” she said.

While the wounds remain deep five years later, for some people, time has made them less raw.

Two teachers, Felicia Burgin and Cindi Helverson, stopped by a small public commemoration at a garden outside of the school Tuesday morning, at the corner of Holmberg and Pine Island roads. It was the first time either had decided to spend Feb. 14 on campus since the attack.

Burgin, an English teacher, said she wasn’t sure how she would feel once she stepped onto the property, but it felt like it was the right next step in the healing process.

“It’s year five, and it seems like a very [momentous] year for some reason, like a shift of sorts,” she said. It’s the first year since the tragedy that she plans to celebrate Valentine’s Day.

“For a long time, we just felt like that was disrespectful or sad, or like somehow we weren’t remembering them by celebrating,” she said. “But it feels like it’s come to a point where maybe we can celebrate them on Valentine’s Day.”

The school district’s “Day of Service and Love” was designated as a day for students, staff and volunteers “to come together to support each other through a variety of community service activities at schools across the county,” the district said.

For Diane Wolk-Rogers, a former AP world history teacher at Stoneman Douglas who retired in 2020, healing has been about the word “and.” She allows herself to feel pain and grief as well as love and joy; one emotion doesn’t negate the others.

“I think when people get stuck and frozen, it’s when they can’t feel that ‘and,'” Wolk-Rogers said.

While the five-year mark holds significance for some, for many in the Parkland community, the milestone is arbitrary when it comes to their trauma and grief.

Zurine Iza still can’t sit with her back to the door.

“I didn’t realize it was five years,” said Iza, a Stoneman Douglas student on the day of the shooting who graduated in 2020. “I was like, five? It feels like it was one year ago.”

She stood outside of Eagles’ Haven on Tuesday afternoon, a wellness center created by the Children’s Services Council of Broward County for students and the surrounding community. The center held a ceremony to mark the day of the tragedy, as it has done since 2021, with therapy ponies and dogs, a candle-lighting and the release of 17 doves.

Families of the victims, former students, teachers, law enforcement officers and community leaders hugged and talked around stations for bicycle machines that make smoothies, butterfly face painting, and massage, while a group of Irish dancers performed in the center, in honor of Cara Loughran, one of the 17 victims.

“It’s important to have these communal times,” said James Gordon, a psychiatrist who helped lead a district-wide wellness program in the immediate aftermath of Parkland. “It deepens and enhances and in some ways makes easier the healing process.”

“It meant so much to us, to come together as a community,” said Mitch Dworet, whose 17-year-old son Nick was killed in the shooting. “The love, support and kindness — it’s beautiful.”

Scott Amos, who was a freshman at Stoneman Douglas during the shooting, has come to the event every year. He said it seemed much bigger this year, with many new faces. And he’s never seen the Irish dancers and ponies before.

“They’re definitely a nice set of gestures,” he said of the wellness stations. But the community is why he comes: “I’m really just here for the people.”

Five years later, Amos said, he’s still “chipping away at PTSD.” It always flares up in the weeks ahead of Valentine’s Day. On the anniversary itself, he mostly tries to keep himself distracted.

“I don’t know that the day gets easier,” he said.

And as it does get easier, at least for some, there’s a sorrow that comes with that, too.

“It’s a bittersweet feeling,” said Arianna Basted, a former Stoneman Douglas student who attended the event with Iza, and also graduated in 2020. “People are healing, forgetting. But people who went there don’t forget. They feel left behind.”

Reece Sharek was 5 years old, hiding in a bathroom at Heron Heights Elementary School five years ago today. Tuesday was the first commemoration at Pine Trails Park his mother, Sarah Sharek, brought him to. Victim Peter Wang was a neighbor of theirs, Sharek said.

The children affected by the shooting “changed that day,” she said.

“They lost their innocence. So since then, it’s just something that we mark as a family because even though we weren’t there we, didn’t have kids there — it impacted us. It impacted him,” she said.

Having raised money to be awarded to three senior ROTC students at Stoneman Douglas after the shooting in honor of Wang, Sharek has taught her son to “take our pain and turn it into something positive.”

Tuesday also marked the first commemoration since the conclusion of the Parkland trial, where the gunman was sentenced to life in prison.

For Iza, the trial brought up a lot of memories: “It was like we went back.”

But she isn’t sure what it accomplished.

“He went to jail; now what?” she said. “They haven’t done anything with the guns.”

Broward Commissioner Michael Udine and Congressmen Maxwell Frost and Jared Moskowitz stopped on Tuesday to make remarks at news conferences at the school and neighboring Pine Trails Park.

“This community is still not healed, and it is a scab that constantly gets picked off every time there is another mass shooting in another community,” Moskowitz said. His comments come on the heels of an attack Monday night, when a gunman opened fire at Michigan State University, killing three students and wounding five.

“My heart bleeds for them — I know what those [Michigan State] families are going to go through,” said Max Schachter, whose 14-year-old son Alex died at Stoneman Douglas. “It is just horrible.” Schachter attended the Eagles’ Haven ceremony.

President Joe Biden issued a video statement Tuesday mourning Parkland, saying that “to some of you, it seemed like yesterday,” and saluting the victims’ families and the survivors.

“What I admire most about you is how you found purpose through your pain. The world has already seen how strong you are, how resilient you are and how giving you are,” Biden said.

He then called for a ban on military-style semi-automatic rifles like the AR-15 the Parkland shooter used.

“We must say enough is enough,” Biden said.

The elected officials visiting Stoneman Douglas stopped to answer questions about the legislative proposals. Moskowitz, who was a state representative at the time of the massacre, is among those who’ve opposed Florida’s move toward allowing people to carry concealed weapons without having to get a permit. Supporters of the bill have said it protects people’s right to protect themselves.

But Moskowitz said Florida allowing permitless carry is “obviously a step backward. It’s a solution in search of a problem that does not exist.”

Shortly after 6 p.m. at the park, religious leaders of different faiths led prayers. One pastor read out all of the victims’ names, their family members sitting in rows in front of the stage as their loved ones names were spoken: Alyssa Alhadeff. Scott Beigel. Martin Duque Anguiano. Nicholas Dworet. Aaron Feis. Jaime Guttenberg. Chris Hixon. Luke Hoyer. Cara Loughran. Gina Montalto. Joaquin Oliver. Alaina Petty. Meadow Pollack. Helena Ramsay. Alex Schachter. Carmen Schentrup. Peter Wang.

Each of the 17 were shown in a tribute video, photos of them doing what they loved — dancing, running or playing soccer. Photos of them with their family and friends who have grown older while they are frozen in time. And photos of the acts of service people have dedicated time to in their honor.

The vigil ended with a pastor instructing the crowd to break glow sticks that were handed out. Like the community’s ability to do good in honor of the lives lost, the lights couldn’t shine without being broken, the pastor said.

Eric and Margaret Lipetz, 86 and 83, stopped to visit the memorial garden. Eric, a Belgian Holocaust survivor, said a brief prayer before taking a seat next to his wife. He had lectured at the school previously, including a week before the shooting, he said. Their youngest grandchild will start school at Stoneman Douglas next year.

“When we came here, I thought that was the end of this kind of stuff. These mass killings, these genocides, the stupidity of wars and all. But it starts all over again,” Eric said.

“My generation is getting too old to continue,” he said. “But you’ve got to pick up the flame. You’ve gotta do something to stop all this stupidity.”

This report was supplemented by information from the Associated Press.

Deputies found the men about three miles out from the Hillsboro Inlet, the Sheriff’s Office said Monday, bringing attention to the rescue that took place about 10 a.m. Jan. 7, a Saturday.

The boaters managed to call 911 after they noticed their ship, a 2002 Rampage vessel, taking on water. Two sheriff’s deputies were dispatched to the coordinates attached to the call notes.

They spotted smoke from a handheld flare and found three of the men huddled in an orange life raft, while two more clung to the outside.

By the time they arrived, the ship had completely submerged. Footage of the rescue shows the men, once taken back to shore, thanking the deputies.

The U.S. Coast Guard also deployed a boat and helicopter, but the Sheriff’s Office arrived earlier, according to Chief Stephen Lehmann, a Coast Guard spokesperson. The sailors declined medical attention once they were back on solid ground.

A commercial salvage company was dispatched to retrieve the vessel. BSO does not currently know why the ship sank.

The names of the boaters weren’t released.