ORLANDO, Fla. — The City of Orlando has OK'd cutting a $6 million check to the Christian Service Center, an organization that is estimated to have helped roughly 1,400 adults and children evade homelessness this year, either by getting them off the street or helping them avoid eviction.

What You Need To Know

  • The Christian Service Center is an area organization providing resources to those who do not have a home

  • The organization estimates that helping each individual costs about $650 per person

  • With the money, the center hopes to add indoor showers, renovate outdoor seating, create a mental health clinic, and provide secured storage for important documents and belongings

  • RELATED: Volunteer at Orlando's Christian Service Center helps families in need

Executive Director Eric Gray says the center plans to tackle both big and small projects. One, for example, would be updating the Wi-Fi so residents are better able to connect to housing resources or jobs online.

Another major project is the center’s bathrooms, which it plans to gut and replace with brand new handicapped-accessible showers. Currently, the center primarily relies on trailers outside.

Still, for every family helped, there’s another knocking on the center's doors.

“The goal here isn’t just to make people clean and look nicer. The goal is to get them housed, hired, and healthy,” Gray said.

Inside the Christian Service Center is a wall of hundreds of brightly colored keys, neatly hung in rows, each marking a person who isn’t forced to call Orlando’s pavement home.

Above them is a scoreboard of sorts, showing the center’s yearly goal next to the number of people they’ve actually helped. The Christian Service Center, according to these numbers, has helped nearly three-times more people than its initial yearly goal. But Gray says behind each win on the board is another loss.

“Probably for every one success on here, there’s probably nine that we weren’t able to assist this year,” he said.

Significant hurdles face both the Christian Service Center and the people who they serve. Gray blames the lack of funding, and also the lack of affordable housing prospects for residents.

One of those hoping to find a Section 8 apartment is Jacob Martin, a lifelong Orlando resident who has been living without a home since July, and comes to the center for meals. 

He says his mother recently passed, and besides dealing with the grief, she was always a help to him as he tried to navigate paperwork.

“I just try and do the best I can and hold on because I know something’s gonna come sooner or later,” Martin said.

The Christian Service Center also hopes to place a brand new mental health clinic inside an existing building, and offer secured storage for items that might otherwise be at risk of being stolen on the street.

Gray says their next step is to hire an architect and contractor for their projects. They hope to break ground on the first by the summer.