For most of the past 20 years, Sheila Dixon has lived on the streets of Coconut Grove, unhoused, unafraid and unconcerned about what anyone else \u2014 including her family \u2014 thinks about her unconventional lifestyle.<\/p>\n
Lately, the 66-year-old mother of five lies down at night on a Grand Avenue sidewalk with her head so close to the street that she can feel the breeze from passing cars.<\/p>\n
Asked if she thinks about the danger of sleeping outside, inches from a major thoroughfare, Dixon says, \u201cI am not frightened because I stay in prayer. It is better to be out front. The police come through there.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Sheila Dixon receives a hug last April from Shaunterria Chambers, an information and referral aide with the City of Miami Department of Human Services, at a bus stop a few yards from the stretch of Grand Avenue sidewalk Dixon calls home.<\/p>\n
(Patrick Farrell for the Spotlight)<\/p>\n
By almost any definition, Dixon is homeless. She is also one of the best-known characters in the predominantly Black West Grove, a neighborhood where she grew up, a community where eccentricities are tolerated. And she does not feel homeless, say those who have known her for years. She is home.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe is comfortable being on the street,\u201d says Nicola Archer, a math coach and pastor\u2019s wife who has befriended Dixon. \u201cShe says, \u2018I choose to be here.\u2019 But with everything happening in the Grove, I do fear that it\u2019ll happen, that she\u2019ll be picked up.\u201d<\/p>\n
What\u2019s happening in the West Grove, of course, is change, and Sheila Dixon, with a couple of blankets, a small suitcase and some cans of food, is sitting right in the middle of an urban makeover driven by development aimed at a far wealthier demographic.<\/p>\n
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D\u2019Cota Dixon \u2014 one of five children of West Grove resident Sheila Dixon \u2014 accepts the Jason Witten Collegiate Man of the Year Award in 2018, honoring the University of Wisconsin defensive back for his leadership, courage and character on and off the football field. Dixon later spent part of two seasons with the NFL\u2019s Tampa Bay Buccaneers before embarking on a career as a Christian evangelist.<\/p>\n
(Courtesy of the Jason Witten SCORE Foundation)<\/p>\n
Ratcheting up the threat to Dixon and others living outdoors is a city ordinance approved last month that aligns Miami\u2019s enforcement procedures with a state law that took effect last year. The ordinance eliminates the previous requirement that police first issue a written warning before making an arrest. Instead, officers may give a verbal warning and allow what the ordinance describes, without defining, as a \u201creasonable amount of time\u201d for a person to remove an encampment.<\/p>\n
If a person refuses an available shelter bed or other government assistance that would result in immediate housing, and remains after the warning, police may arrest the person. The ordinance prohibits an arrest if no shelter bed or immediate housing option is available.<\/p>\n
The ordinance passed by a 3-2 vote, with District 2 Commissioner Damian Pardo and District 5 Commissioner Christine King voting no. \u201cFor me, there is this slippery slope that I\u2019m not comfortable with,\u201d Pardo said. \u201cIn my case, I\u2019m going to be on the no side.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Early on a recent Saturday afternoon, just days before a new law targeting Miami\u2019s homeless population was set to take effect, Sheila Dixon\u2019s belongings sat neatly stacked along the north side of Grand Avenue in the West Grove.<\/p>\n
(Don Finefrock for the Spotlight)<\/p>\n
Mayor Eileen Higgins, who could have vetoed the ordinance, signed it into law July 24, one day after the commission approved it.<\/p>\n
Pardo declined an invitation from the Spotlight to speak further on the measure.<\/p>\n
To Dixon, Miami Ordinance 14488, \u201cEncampments on Public Property Prohibited,\u201d is of no concern. Nor has she shown much interest over the years in accepting offers of help that come her way.<\/p>\n
She has been visited often by the \u201cgreen shirts,\u201d the street teams who work for the city\u2019s Department of Human Services in partnership with the Homeless Trust. She has been offered housing, including an apartment in the Grove, but has refused to take it.<\/p>\n
Nor does she take anything from the Coconut Grove Crisis Food Pantry, said outreach coordinator Deb Dolson.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe is stubborn,\u201d says her sister, Lillian Ambrister, a North Miami-Dade resident who, unlike some of her West Grove relatives, spells the family name with two Rs instead of three. \u201cThe Grove is still her home. I ask, \u2018What made you think it\u2019s OK to sleep on the sidewalk?\u2019 It\u2019s not a drug issue with her; it\u2019s mental. She doesn\u2019t have to be out there. But she\u2019s OK with it.\u201d<\/p>\n
As a youngster, Dixon was known as a talented dancer and gymnast, according to her sister. As a young mother, she went to work for the post office, and obtained a real estate license. She never worked in real estate, Ambrister said, but renewed her license year after year.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe is very smart,\u201d says Ambrister. \u201cShe went to night classes at Gables High, just to be there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dixon lived in a house on William Avenue with her mother and her children. The death of her mother in 2001 triggered a downward spiral, her sister said. She eventually lost custody of her sons, who went into foster care and then to live with their father and his girlfriend in New Smyrna Beach.<\/p>\n