Movie highlights Orlando homeless reality.
“The Florida Project” has stunned movie audiences nationwide by showing an unexpected dark side of America’s favorite family tourist destination. But unlike the unemployed mother portrayed in the film, thousands of residents in pay-by-the-week motels are full-time employees in Central Florida’s hospitality industry.
If you take a drive in Kissimmee down U.S. Highway 192 early in the morning or after work, you will see who comes and goes from the strip’s motels. Housekeepers, ride operators and cooks, all in their crisp uniforms, leave their makeshift homes and head off to make magic for millions of tourists. Homeless, full-time workers are the reality of our tourism economy.
The reasons are clear: The U.S. Census Bureau reported that Orlando has the third-lowest median income — $52,385 — of the country’s 25 biggest metropolitan areas; outranking only Miami and Tampa. At the same time, the Orlando Sentinel reported, rents shot up more than 15 percent in the past year. When you combine low wages with high rents, the result is inevitable: the working poor. At $10 per hour, thousands of workers are constantly on the brink of homelessness.
Imagine forcing a smile to welcome a family on vacation when you have just put your own children on a school bus in front of a motel. Think of making a luxurious bed in a beautiful hotel room when you know your day will end in a dingy room like we saw in “The Florida Project.” These are the daily scenarios of the working poor of the hospitality industry.
“The Florida Project” poignantly portrays the grim conditions for homeless families living in Kissimmee’s motels, but it focuses on the bad choices of one person. Only one of the film’s adult characters is a gainfully employed hospitality worker. Waiting tables at a local diner, she shows the true face of Central Florida’s working poor.
In Orlando, we must confront a systemic problem caused by low wages, not a problem of individual poor decisions. Only by significantly raising pay in the hospitality industry can we improve the quality of life for Central Florida families.