Leaders seek center to aid homeless
Officials: Orlando needs a full-time drop-in site
A few months ago, downtown Orlando building manager Ray Jordan witnessed a man who appeared to be homeless get off a city bus, drop his pants and defecate in public. It was the middle of the day.
“I called the cops … but by the time they got there he had already gotten on another bus,” he said. “I have homeless people on a daily basis urinating in front of my door entrances. It’s a problem.”
While downtown development has boomed, so, too, have complaints about homeless people — prompting some leaders to renew calls for a full-time drop-in center that would offer bathrooms, showers, laundry facilities and access to case managers.
“We want to explore the idea,” said Shelley Lauten, CEO of the Central Florida Commission on Homelessness. “In any community that we’ve studied, a drop-in center for people as they’re waiting for housing becomes critically important. It’s a way to get them connected to services, to provide them a place to go during the day, to give them a place to take a
shower.”
The timing of the discussion is especially urgent, Lauten said, given that the only current option — the Compassion Corner Ministry, run by First Presbyterian Church of Orlando — will need to move soon, and it hasn’t yet found another new home.
Mondays through Thursdays, Compassion Corner offers coffee, Bible study, counseling, social-service referrals and a place to get out of harsh weather. But its offices, at 425 N. Magnolia Ave., are on property rented from the Lutheran church Trinity Downtown, which is about to launch a major renovation of its 5-acre campus.
“Our original goal was to start to vacate that [Compassion Corner] building Aug. 1, but we told them we would give them absolutely as much time as we can,” said Trinity’s senior pastor, Doug Kallesen. “The master plan calls for us to use all of our available space and buildings. We’re reshuffling a lot of our team.”
Compassion Corner gets about 1,700 visits a year, including a group of 65 to 75 people who come each day it’s open — 8:30-11 a.m. and 1-3 p.m.
“It’s the one place downtown where homeless people are welcome to spend time inside during the day without getting told to move along,” said ministry director Spencer Pfleiderer. “We need to make sure it has a future.”
The ministry costs over $175,000 a year to run, paid for almost exclusively by First Presbyterian. It gives out roughly $20,000 a year in bus passes so clients can make it to health-care appointments and job interviews. It also provides hygiene supplies and socks.
“Socks are actually our No. 1 most immediate need,” said Pfleiderer, who also wants to establish a center that offers more. “That’s because they can’t wash their socks, and then their feet get infected. If Compassion Corner was everything that it could be, you could answer the question of ‘How do I wash my clothes? How do I get a shower and wash the lice out of my hair?’ ”
The idea of a one-stop center has been floated before — most recently in 2011, and dating back at least a couple of decades. But there has never been the simultaneous money, space and political will to make it happen.
Downtown Orlando already has a handful of nonprofit organizations that offer regular meals and occasional laundry services. And in April, the city signed a $99,800 one-year contract with the Coalition for the Homeless, located in neighboring Parramore, to provide showers and laundry for a few hours each day, Monday through Friday.
In the first three months, 404 people used the service — 300 men, 96 women, eight children — already exceeding projections for the entire year. Like Compassion Corner, though, the facility isn’t available every day. And in 95-degree heat or thunderstorms, it can be a long walk to reach.
Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer calls it an interim solution and said a more robust and lasting option will require a partnership with Orange County, the faith community and social-service agencies.
All major cities have such places, said Neil Donovan, the former president of the National Coalition for the Homeless, who now runs his own consulting group.
“They go by different names — day centers, dropin center, one-stop centers — and they offer anything from health care to food to job training,” he said. “A lot of times a community will get together all the shelter providers and say: ‘What would you think about joining forces to do this?’ ”
Though the city has made considerable progress in permanent housing for the homeless — especially veterans and those with mental and physical disabilities — a drop-in center can offer a place for them to socialize and for those who aren’t housed to develop connections that could get them off the street.
“One of the things you can do with a drop-in center is to offer skill-building and mentoring,” said Donald Whitehead, a board member of the National Coalition for the Homeless who spent the past several years working in Orlando. “Food is plentiful enough in the downtown area, but you need a place to address fundamental life needs, such as bathrooms. The worse you get with your appearance, the harder it is to get a business to let you use the restroom. No one wants to talk about defecating and urinating, but it is a human function that everybody has to do.”
There is no formal timetable for the drop-in center proposal, Lauten noted, but with the pending relocation of Compassion Corner, she’s concerned. Finding a location won’t be easy, she said.
“Compassion Corner was a wonderful first step — and we certainly don’t want to go backward and have nothing,” she said. “So we need an alternative. And we need a public-private partnership. If anybody knows of space available, please let us know.”