Central Florida leaders are on the hunt for more shelter beds for people who sleep on sidewalks, under highway overpasses and in the woods. But with less than three weeks until a new state homelessness law goes into effect, they’re not making progress nearly as quickly as that law suggests they should.
The Orlando Sentinel surveyed numerous local governments across the region over the past week, asking how they plan to comply with the state’s mandate to adopt and enforce camping bans in public spaces by Oct. 1. Local leaders have acknowledged that means the region will need many more shelter beds. But few of the city and county officials who responded to the Sentinel’s inquiry as yet have concrete plans to build them.
Siting shelters remains difficult, with a planned open-access shelter running into a buzzsaw of opposition last week in Orlando, which already is home to most of the region’s facilities and services for the homeless. And that creates a conundrum because without beds to offer, local governments will come under pressure to arrest those sleeping outside. For now, officials responding to the Sentinel survey expressed little inclination to make such arrests.