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Tampa police serve search warrant on Homeless Helping Homeless headquarters

 
Tampa police raided Homeless Helping Homeless to look for tax records, including those of two other businesses at the address.
Tampa police raided Homeless Helping Homeless to look for tax records, including those of two other businesses at the address.
Published Sept. 3, 2015

TAMPA — Police raided a homeless shelter Wednesday in an investigation into a charity official's auto title business.

Officers combed through the headquarters of Homeless Helping Homeless Inc., which offers rooms and resources to people in need. Investigators showed up with a search warrant around 10 a.m., according to charity president Adolphus Parker. They removed materials as they searched the charity's home at 106 E Floribraska Ave.

According to a search warrant, investigators were looking for tax and financial records and other documentation detailing the operations of Homeless Helping Homeless and two other businesses that operate at the charity's address: Cheap Towing and Vehicle Title Retrieval.

The warrant says there is evidence to suggest that Parker violated Florida laws governing towing and storing vehicles, schemed to defraud and failed to return a leased vehicle — all felonies.

The raid comes several weeks after Parker settled part of a federal lawsuit against the city of Tampa. Parker's complaint alleged that the city's "restrictive" laws on panhandling and donation solicitation were unconstitutional.

The lawsuit, filed in May, targeted two city ordinances.

One, passed in 2011, outlawed begging on city streets Monday through Saturday but allows newspaper vendors to work the curb seven days a week.

The second, passed in 2013, banned panhandling in downtown and Ybor City, as well as near banks, ATMs, sidewalk cafes and bus or trolley stops. City officials said this was to prevent situations in which people feel vulnerable or unable to walk away when someone asks for money.

The charity's lawsuit says the two laws restrict speech based on its content, cover an unreasonably broad area, make exceptions for some kinds of speech but not others and means the charity's volunteers have to stand mutely with a sign while other conversations go on around them.

In response to Parker's suit, the Tampa City Council repealed the 2011 ordinance in July. But it also has signaled that it intends to defend the 2013 law.

Homeless Helping Homeless, which Parker started in 2009, has 89 beds at six different locations and provides free meals to about 3,000 people per month. As a result of the laws, it estimated it lost more than $20,000 in charitable donations.

Parker said Wednesday he believed the city was bitter about his charity's lawsuit against it. He also questioned the timing of the raid because it closely followed the May lawsuit.

Tampa police saw things from a different perspective.

"We can't just go get a search warrant," said Tampa police spokeswoman Andrea Davis. "To say there's some conspiracy theory is really out there because we have to have probable cause to go in there with a search warrant."

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Parker said the businesses' computers were among the items collected by police during the raid. He insisted that the police would uncover no evidence of wrongdoing. But he also complained that the raid forced Homeless Helping Homeless to close its doors.

"The phones are still ringing, and we're just telling people we're temporarily shutting down," Parker said. "As far as what (the police) are trying to link, there's nothing to link."

Police even took his cellphone.

"I got no numbers I can call," Parker said. "As of right now, we don't have a clue."

Times senior researcher John Martin and staff writer Richard Danielson contributed to this report. Contact Michael Majchrowicz at (813) 226-3374 or mmajchrowicz@tampabay.com. Follow @mjmajchrowicz.