ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. – Eric Gray with the Christian Service Center said they’re starting to see more people in need of housing.
“The median rent and housing cost is continuing to rise at an unprecedented pace,” said Gray, the center’s executive director. “When you have that happen, and you have a very low inventory of affordable apartments for families of lower income, it creates a stew of ugly.”
Gray says that the “ugly” has gotten worse every year since the pandemic-era protections that blocked most evictions expired about five years ago.
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“We went in Orange County from about 9,000 in evictions annually to about 16,000,” he said. “It kept happening the same way at the same rate next year, and then the next year, and then again the next year.”
Now, the Christian Service Center is working to use a new $875,000 federal HUD grant to house at least 850 people this year.
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“So far since January, we’re at 387,” said Gray. “We are tracking, so we can more than meet our goal.”
The Rapid Unsheltered Survivor Housing (RUSH) grant is typically a one-time deal. But Gray said this is their third time receiving the funding.
“We built a lot of credibility because everything is paid on time,” he explained. “The paperwork is easy. The case managers are easy to work with. Just like anything in life, when you do it over and over and over again, you get better at it.”
That experience has helped them reduce costs significantly — from $1,340 per person when they first started, down to about $578 last year.
Gray says the RUSH money can go toward the first month’s rent and a security deposit — or even tickets to reunite people with family members across the U.S.
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