ORLANDO, Fla. — Orlando city leaders took a step forward in an effort to get more homeless people off the streets. City and community leaders say there’s been a noticeable surge in the homeless living in tents on streets, especially in the Parramore community.

What You Need To Know

  • The Orlando City Council approved giving $616,900 of Emergency Solutions Grant funding to Christian Service Center

  • Christian Service Center will use the money for a Rapid Rehousing Program, which will aim to put at least 20 – 30 people into hotels and off the streets 

  • The ESG funding from the U.S. Housing and Urban Development is part of federal funding from President Biden’s major disaster declaration following Hurricane Ian last fall, part of which was to help the homeless affected by the storm and its aftermath

Christian Service Center helps the homeless with food, clothes and a laundry service.

It also helps place the homeless into housing. They say the new funding will help them help more people get into stable housing, and they’ll prioritize helping people who are living on tents on city sidewalks. 

Center administrators say more than six-hundred thousand dollars from the city through a federal emergency-use grant program will help them get more people off the streets.  

And they say they’ll start with people like Santiago – who are living in tents on the sidewalk.

“We will be able to put them in a hotel, and then move them into an apartment and make sure they are sustainable and take care of themselves,” said Danny Arroyo, Christian Service Center’s Director of Operations.

After seven years homeless, Vanessa Santiago is still searching for a stable home.

Lately, she can’t even find a stable sidewalk to sleep on.  And if homelessness isn’t enough, Santiago is still recovering from an attack in 2020 when she says she was hit by a car and shot at.  She prays every day for a permanent, stable home.

“It would mean a lot to me because I wouldn’t have to be struggling with sleeping on the ground, sleeping in situations and being taken advantage of,” said Santiago.

During the day, Santiago and her husband go to the Christian Service Center to get food, clothes and to shower and do laundry. She says the center is also helping her through a process of finding a home.  For Santiago, these days there’s a greater sense of urgency to find a home. She is about ten weeks pregnant.

“I thank God every day for my life, for a new beginning, and now I have a new life to bring into the world,” said Santiago.

Santiago looks forward to the day, hopefully soon, when she can have a stable home.

“It will be awesome because, honestly, we won’t have to be struggling anymore,” said Santiago.  

The Christian Service Center hopes to use the money from the city to get 20 to 30 people into at least temporary housing in the next year. During a discussion before passing the measure, Orlando city leaders acknowledged a lot more will need to be done to take care of the growing homeless problem in the city.