A place for progressives: People's Advocacy Center in Tallahassee is made for citizen-lobbyists

James Call | Tallahassee Democrat

Karen Woodall ended a 30-year search by taking the long way home one day.

Three years ago, Woodall — a longtime lobbyist for progressive causes — parked at a Tallahassee vacuum cleaner repair shop. When she went to leave, instead of heading south towards the Capitol in a beeline to her home, she was forced to exit onto Georgia Street and west into the Frenchtown neighborhood.

A block later at the intersection with Martin Luther King Boulevard was a "huge sign," as she described it, offering for sale a 12,000-square-foot, two-story red brick building.

Woodall pulled into the parking lot, called the number listed, got the building’s owner on the phone and arranged to get a look inside.

"I thought, 'oh my God, this is perfect. It is exactly what we are looking for,' " said Woodall, about the building that now is called the Florida People’s Advocacy Center.

It's a place that out-of-town activists can use as a home-away-from-home and office to organize their lobbying of state government. There are 33 dorm-style rooms and a common space outfitted much like a family room with sofas, chairs, board games in a book case and a television.

Granted, it's not a colonnaded association palace or gleaming office tower occupied by platoons of well-heeled lobbyists and influence peddlers that dot the downtown and midtown Tallahassee landscape.

But for these progressive warriors on a shoestring, it's home away from home.

Humble beginnings

Armed with Florida State University degrees in government and social work, Woodall since the mid-1970s has been a Tallahassee-based advocate for farmworkers, immigrants, blacks, Hispanics, gays, children, the unemployed and just about anyone who lives on the margins of society.

Her penchant for long flowing peasant skirts makes her the most visible of a small group that’s established an outpost for Florida’s disenfranchised. They represent those lacking the resources to travel to a distant state capital and participate in the debate when lawmakers set policy and pass laws.

But it became clear to the activists that many of the people for whom they advocate knew little about the legislative process and about how proposals become law.

“Our people didn’t understand how things really work,” said the Florida Latina Advocacy Network's Charo Valero.

Valero believes that first-person accounts from people who would be affected by policy decisions are the most powerful. But a lack of knowledge about the process leads to frustration and that becomes inaction, she explained.

“We were asking people to take action and they didn’t even know who their representative was or that they had a senator,” Valero said. “Understanding Tallahassee is understanding the process. Demystifying Tallahassee is a big part of making it more accessible.”

Valero lives in Miami and spends a couple of months a year at the Capitol. She explains that Advocacy Center affiliates were mired in single issue politics but now have a place where they can get together and explain the “mysteries” of the Legislature.

That includes how to engage lawmakers about health care, immigration and criminal justice reform, to name a few.

"Historically, we have not communicated with each other,” Valero said. “Our people understand the roots of all our issues has the same face of opposition.”

A plan to influence

Woodall recently gave a visitor a tour of the building, explaining how the group resurrected a former drug rehabilitation center into a base for Florida social justice advocates.

The center is organized under the Florida Center for Fiscal and Economic Policy. Several organizations, including the AFL-CIO, the Southern Poverty Law Center, the Florida Immigrant Coalition, the Farmworkers Association of Florida, and Equality Florida, have signed on as members.

Those organizations’ dues, along with a handful of offices rented to like-minded groups and periodic fundraisers, provide the money to make payments toward the $1 million mortgage on the building.

Many of the volunteer lobbyists who come to Tallahassee are hourly employees who hit the highway after a day of work. They make the 300 to 500 mile trip to Tallahassee from major population centers and arrive in the middle of the night to find that Woodall has indeed left a light on for them.

They'll grab a couple hours of sleep, take a shower and prepare for a day at the Capitol.

The center charges some guests $30 a night for a bed and access to a kitchen, laundry facilities and conference rooms.

“It’s about having a constant presence,” Woodall said. “They don’t have to drive all night to do a press conference, hold a rally, speak at a meeting and then get back in the car and leave.

“They can have a meal here. Coordinate and strategize with others. Folks can have their focus and still stand with and support others."

Woodall mentioned she thinks there were “more brown and black people in that building (state Capitol) last session” than any previous session “because of this place.”

More than 1,500 people stayed at the center during the 2019 session and the committee weeks leading up to it.

“It’s not just farmworkers’ day or children’s week or immigrants’ rights moment; it’s about having a constant presence, not the same people but different people, working together and coming back (to the Capitol) every day,” Woodall said.

Woodall shows off the laundry facilities like a proud new homeowner. She points out volunteers’ hand-painted posters on the walls like a beaming parent. The idea that the center serves as an incubator of community activists animates much of what she does.

“We’ve established an institutional presence in the Capitol a mile from where legislators work, where people can stay and work and train and educate folks about the importance of being involved in the legislative process,” Woodall said.

The activist

On a cold, grey, wet December morning, Angelisa Austin emerges from the center. She's on her way to see her state senator, Keith Perry, a Republican from Gainesville. It’s the last week of committee meetings before the 2020 session starts Jan. 14.

Austin, a software designer in Gainesville, has taken time off in the past year to work on HIV issues in Tallahassee for Equality Florida and a statewide HIV coalition.

“Because it is personal. It is personal for me. I have seen people die,” said Austin, who lives with HIV.

A year ago, when she first heard about the center and decided to start talking to lawmakers, she was afraid to approach Perry or her state representative, Democrat Clovis Watson, without first declaring she was HIV positive.

“I thought, 'I’m going to the state Capitol. I’m going to sit in their office and they are going to lock me up,' " she said with a smile. With her fear now conquered, Austin will be back for another year to advocate for HIV patients in 2020.

Standing in the parking lot that once sported a huge sign that stopped Karen Woodall dead in her tracks, Austin retrieves some documents from her car for the meeting with Perry. When asked about her night at the center, she glances back at the red brick building.

“It reminds me of a bed and breakfast, and it does cut costs,” Austin said. “Hotels here in Tallahassee are so expensive,” she added, climbing into her Chevrolet Cruze before heading to the Capitol.

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Writer James Call can be contacted at jcall@tallahassee.com. Follow him on Twitter @CallTallahassee