DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – Officials announced on Wednesday that they plan on opening a temporary shelter with 100 beds for the homeless who have gathered outside the Volusia County Administration Building in Daytona Beach.
The homeless situation has been a problem News 6 has continued to tell you about for weeks.
It started as just a few homeless outside the Beach Street building, but the number has continued to grow.
"There are two ways you can handle this: short term and long term," said Chief Mike Chitwood. "Short term is what we can do now."
The situation got to the point where some county employees have refused to come to work.
However, officials can't move the more than 100 or so folks from the county building because it would be a violation of their rights because there isn't a shelter in place for them to go.
Chitwood hopes the temporary facility, which is still in the works, could change all of that.
"The objective is to solve this problem," said Chitwood. "We think that if we can come up with 100 beds we can resolve the situation."
The fix is a longtime coming for some people who work and frequent the building.
An incident between a homeless person and a county employee brought the possibility of Volusia closing the center altogether.
Instead, officials kept it open, and increased security, which resulted in four arrests outside the building Tuesday night.
Even though there appears to be a temporary fix to the problem, homeless advocate Mike Pastore says he still plans on protesting the Rolex 24 race this weekend with the goal of bringing awareness to the lack of homeless shelters in the city.
Chitwood says that's not a problem.
"This is America," said Chitwood. "People protest every year outside of that race. That's what America's all about."
It's unclear when officials plan on opening the temporary shelter.