The following article appeared in the Venice Gondolier on June 29, 2025:
When former Venice Police Chief Charlie Thorpe made Sgt. Sean Hammett the community outreach manager in 2022, Hammett recalls, he told the former school resource officer to “just go out and be you.”
He became “a social worker with a gun and a badge,” he said.
He met with homeless outreach teams in Sarasota County to see how they were doing things, he said, and they all told him the key to the program’s success is having a case manager.
The department got one in 2023, when, thanks to grants from United Way of South Sarasota County, Gulf Coast Community Foundation and Suncoast Partnership to End Homeless, Kasey Ledford, a former addictions counselor, was hired, though she split her time between VPD and Suncoast Partnership.
But the City Council agreed last year to fund the position, so she and Hammett have been the full-time Community Outreach Team since October, working with people who are homeless and doing follow-up on people recently involuntarily hospitalized for mental health or substance abuse problems, as well as handling what they call their “miscellaneous” cases, such as elderly people who need help.
Those cases mostly involve helping family members connect with assistance, Ledford said.
“It looks different for every family,” she said. “We don’t want anyone to feel alone.”
The other outreach teams in the county deal with homeless people only.
People who can use their help may not be as visible in Venice as in other places, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t any.
“Anywhere you find woods, there’s probably going to be a homeless camp,” Hammett said.
They have a map of 50 sites in the city formerly and currently used as camps.
The numbers Hammett and Ledford shared at a community meeting at City Hall on Friday tell the story better.
In 2024, they had 458 calls about and contacts with unhoused individuals within the city limits.
Of them, 133 were calls related to mental health and 95 were related to substance abuse.
They were able to help nine people find sustainable housing.
They do it all without a budget, though VPD Chief Andy Leisenring said he’s going to propose the City Council allot some funding to the team.
And they’re hoping August brings news of the award of a three-year grant from Florida Blue that would fund two “navigator” — case manager — positions through Centerstone Behavioral Hospital and Addiction Center. The new hires would be Centerstone employees but would be full time at the VPD and would focus on helping elderly people, Hammett said.
They get by on donations, which have enabled them to pay for bus passes, short motel stays and food and hygiene products, they said.
They even helped a 21-year-old man with getting his GED.
He came to Venice from Naples, Hammett said, and they got him a bed at the Salvation Army shelter in Sarasota, where VPD has access to four beds under a pilot program funded by Gulf Coast Community Foundation.
“There are no resources down south,” he said.
He decided to join the Navy, but his Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery score was a little low, and he was advised to get his GED. He’s working on that, has a job and is living in Nokomis, Hammett said.
They have another person who’s been living in the shelter for two weeks who hasn’t been able to find a job but is doing day labor, working toward getting a place to live.
Unfortunately, the funding for the pilot program runs out in about a month, Hammett said. It covers the $41-per-day cost of the bed, which includes food, laundry and case management.
Ledford said that just this week they had been able to help a young mother with a 2-year-old connect with a shelter in Georgia.
She’s a victim of human trafficking and had been in an abusive relationship before coming to Florida, Ledford said.
She lost a house she’d been living in for two years but was able to stay in a motel for three weeks thanks to a donor, leaving for the shelter with her child Tuesday.
“In my opinion, that’s the best thing I’ve done in this job,” she said. “She’s going to be taken care of until she’s on her feet.”
Council Member Ron Smith, at whose suggestion the program was put on, said it’s only the first of two he’s planning. Another meeting will be held later in the year among the agencies and groups who work with homeless people, to get them better acquainted with each other and to identify gaps in services.
The VPD will be expanding its efforts, Leisenring said.
“We’re just getting started,” he said.
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