Osceola County considers ‘crisis center’ to aid thousands
KISSIMMEE — Before noon each weekday, as many as 100 homeless people line up at the Osceola Christian Ministry Center for what could be their only meal that day.
The center also offers showers, clean clothes and other services. But county commissioner Peggy Choudhry says not enough is being done to help those living on the streets in Osceola County.
She’s calling for the county commission to appropriate up to $1 million for a trial “crisis center” for the homeless. The Rock Church in Kissimmee has offered its own property for the project.
“It would be a place where you or I can go anytime in a time of hardship,” said Choudhry, who said the idea came from a trip to a similar center in Bergen County, N.J.
She said the center would put government and nonprofit resources under one roof. She’s not envisioning this as an overnight homeless shelter — the county doesn’t have such a facility.
But in a community with thou-
“What they’re trying to do here with the one-stop center, they should’ve done 20 years ago.” Troi Sealy, an Osceola Christian Ministry Center volunteer
sands of families living in budget motel rooms, some say any money that would be spent on a one-stop crisis center should be directed instead to Osceola’s most pressing need — more affordable housing.
“My concern is [that] having a crisis center doesn’t move people into housing, which is our top priority,” said Shelley Lauten, CEO of the Central Florida Commission on Homelessness, which covers Orange, Seminole and Osceola counties and includes Choudhry as a board member. “It just puts people back on the street again and continues the cycle of homelessness.”
According to a January 2017 count of Osceola County’s homeless population, there were 239 people with physical or mental disabilities who had been living on the streets, in the woods or in temporary shelters for at least a year.
By contrast, though, there were more than 3,500 homeless children in Osceola County public schools, many of them living with their parents in rent-by-the-week motels.
And advocates say that number has likely increased with the arrival of thousands of Puerto Ricans displaced by Hurricane Maria and people from Venezuela fleeing that country’s humanitarian crisis.
“The majority of [homeless] people I meet have an income, but they can’t afford the rents or save up enough for the deposits,” said Mary Downey, executive director of the nonprofit Community Hope Center in Osceola. “What we have here is an affordable housing crisis. And that’s what I think needs to be addressed first.”
Still, Troi Sealy, who volunteers as a cook at the Osceola Christian Ministry Center, wonders why more isn’t being done to help to meet the needs of those he serves every day.
At the ministry, he helps cook and serve hot lunches to dozens of the chronically homeless and understands their situations because he used to sleep on the sidewalk outside of the ministry.
“What they’re trying to do here with the one-stop center, they should’ve done 20 years ago,” Sealy said. “There are a lot of needs that aren’t met.”
During a March county commission meeting, Miriam Martes, a pastor at The Rock Church, offered its 20-acre facility on U.S. Highway 192 near Old Town — which already has a 5,000-seat auditorium and a 5,000-square-foot kitchen, to house the proposed center for free.
It would continue to hold its regular services and programs as well.
At the church, as many as 10 homeless people show up each day seeking help — many arriving after 5 p.m. when other nonprofits are closed for the day.
“We’re already a beacon for the homeless,” Martes said. “On this 192 corridor, if you don’t have a car, you’re only going to go as far as your legs will take you. We’re a central location where people know to come.”
But such an endeavor won’t be a solution for everyone.
Downey said her agency’s outreach workers have gone into camps and along the 192 corridor to make sure all those who are homeless are signed up on the region’s “coordinated entry” system for housing.
That system, put into place within the past two years, ranks unsheltered homeless people for housing programs according to how long they’ve been on the streets and whether they’re likely to die without shelter.
Whenever there’s an opening, the person at the top gets housing.
“Right now, today, we have close to 100 people who are being case-managed on the street [throughout Orange, Osceola and Seminole] because we can’t find them housing,” Lauten said. “So while the commissioner [Choudhry] has her heart in the right place, wanting to help people, I think we need to look at the services that are already being provided and find out what the gaps are before investing $1 million in a crisis center.”
But Choudhry said the benefit of pushing forward on such an idea could make a difference in the county that was the subject of the award-winning film “The Florida Project,” which told the story of children living in poverty in a motel on U.S. 192.
While there was no discussion by commissioners at the meeting earlier this month, she hopes the idea could come to a vote in May or June.
She’s optimistic it will be approved once opponents understand she’s not asking for an overnight shelter.
“This one center could truly meet a lot of gaps that we don’t have,” Choudhry said. “Not one nonprofit can do everything, but together we can meet the needs of most people.”