Federal funding delay an issue

Kissimmee may have to try again next year to finish affordable housing project

A federal funding delay is imperiling the completion of a new homeless shelter and affordable-housing units in Osceola County, Kissimmee officials say.

Kissimmee’s prized Haven on Vine project needs the federal money to finish remodeling the Super 8 motel on West Vine Street into 40 emergency housing units and 80 affordable-housing apartments.

On Tuesday Kissimmee officials — worried they have little hope of receiving promised funds in 2024 — voted to seek over $1 million in federal Community Project Funding for fiscal year 2025 to fund Haven on Vine. The city hopes to work with U.S. Rep. Darren Soto, D-Kissimmee, on the effort.

This year’s funding for Haven on Vine is stuck in Congress until at least March, awaiting a congressional vote to pass the budget.

City manager Mike Steigerwald said the current situation is disappointing because “we applied for and got through all the committees and got it in the budget for $1.8 million.”

But Steigerwald said that if Congress doesn’t strike a deal soon, there is a chance the funding for the Haven on Vine project will not happen this year. For that reason, he advocated seeking funding for next year, even though that would delay significantly the opening of the project.

“It’s such a critical project for our homeless and housing-challenged citizens of Osceola County and Kissimmee,” Steigerwald said.

Osceola County estimates the number of homeless has risen over 60% to about 350 over the last five years. Currently Osceola County has just two homeless shelters, and both serve women and children only.

Haven on Vine would be the first shelter to serve men.

“I think that we need not to start something and not finish it,” Commissioner Angela Eady said. “We’ve already made the purchase of the Haven on Vine, so we need to make that a priority to continue to follow through on that.”

The Haven on Vine project is only in its first phase, but it’s difficult to move ahead without knowing when more funds will be available, Deputy city manager Desiree Matthews said.

“We’re still having to be on a holding pattern for phase one because if we don’t get the funding for the phase two there are some critical support systems that have to be done now,” Matthews said. “For example fire suppression systems, those types of things we would have been able to use the other federal dollars for we would have to use our state monies and our budget to then do it.”

Kissimmee is also seeking federal money to develop its airport, design road improvements and increase the number of events in downtown.

But commissioners decided Haven on Vine is their highest priority among that group.