ORLANDO, FlA. – If you live, work or visit Orlando’s Parramore neighborhood, you will likely see multiple tents with homeless people lining the streets.
In spring of 2023, the City of Orlando awarded the Christian Service Center a $617,000 federal grant to move people move out of those tents and into more permanent housing. The goal was to lift 20 families out of homelessness in one year.
“We’re only halfway through the grant and we’ve already housed 40 families,” said Eric Gray, the executive director of the Christian Service Center. “We’ve doubled beyond the goal, which is exciting. It’s 91 people and 38 of those are children who are no longer homeless that were sleeping on the streets in Paramore.”
Gray says their list of success stories is growing. Parents and young children, some escaping domestic violence or trying to save money for a deposit, have moved off the streets and into hotels or apartments. Those clients are also given job training and other services, but, he says, the costs are also adding up and the available housing is running out.
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“For every one success we probably have 25 failures. It has everything to do with affordable housing,” Gray said. “So when a community has a low inventory of affordable housing over a long period of time, you’re going to see a rise in homelessness.”
A recent Zillow report shows the Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford area tops the list when it comes to people spending 50% of their income on housing. Housing is considered affordable when it’s only a third of your gross income.
A National Low Income Housing Coalition report shows there are 65,480 extremely low-income households in the region with 9,620 affordable rentals.
“The solution is all about housing,” Gray said. “The long-term solution is that every municipal government in Central Florida, and there are 27 of them, have to have a plan at that city level, and they have to be attacking it in the same way you would law enforcement, fire rescue or emergency management.”
“We’re leading the way, I would say, throughout the southeast region when it comes to building multi-family affordable housing with a supportive housing component, which is for those that are experiencing homelessness,” said Orlando City Commissioner Regina Hill.
Hill says more resources are on the way and they’ve already built thousands of new affordable housing units including in the Mercy Drive area and Parramore Oaks. She is hopeful with new initiatives like the recent $617,000 grant and another $58 million from the American Rescue Plan, tents on the streets of Parramore will eventually be a thing of the past. Hill says some of the $58 million will be used to provide additional services and will transform several city-owned vacant lots in Parramore into new affordable housing.
“Well, I’m hoping it’s going to get better,”Hill said. “We’re going to put a lot of money into helping those that are experiencing homelessness, those that are experiencing mental health issues, but shelter and affordable housing is the key.”
“It is not the responsibility of the churches to fix homelessness. It’s not the responsibility of the nonprofit community. It’s not the responsibility of any one organization or person,” Gray said. “But at some level, it has to be treated as an emergency management issue at the same level we would treat a hurricane.”
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