The ongoing rise of homelessness in Central Florida has driven some local governments and organizations to amp up their response.
In Orange County, the Mental Health and Homelessness Division has teamed up with the Service & Love Together nonprofit, better known as SALT, granting the organization $1 million dollars to help expand services.
The funds come from American Rescue Plan Spending federal dollars, also known as ARPA funds, which were granted to local governments for economic recovery post-COVID and must be obligated by the end 2024 and expended by 2026.
Since its launch 13 years ago, SALT has served people experiencing homelessness in the downtown Orlando area through comprehensive, mobile drop-in centers that provide essentials, such as showers in clean, private bathrooms, access to laundry machines, and mail services, as well as wraparound services, such as mental health, employment, and housing resources. The organization does not provide shelter.
Over the past two months, county leaders approved $1 million dollars to expand SALT’s work across other areas of Orange County and Central Florida. The idea is to provide important services and relief to aid survival during homelessness, while more long-term solutions get worked out.
Currently, many of the county’s homeless services are only found in West Orange County and Downtown Orlando. The funding will provide some access to these services beyond that area.
SALT Executive Director Eric Camarillo said he’s grateful for their new partnership with the county’s division, which will support SALT’s expansion into East Orange County and other underserved areas of the region, including the possibility of going as far as Lake County.
He said his youth-led organization is getting support because it’s uniquely apt to keep up with the current need.
“We're mobile, we're customizable, and we're scalable. I think people fund us to operate because they don't have to worry about, you know, finding a building. I mean, to find a building and to purchase it and to build showers and laundry in it and get it all set — that costs money, and that takes time, but we can literally mobilize in just a few months and have a comprehensive drop-in center anywhere,” he said.
Camarillo said this is important because of public pushback against plans for homeless shelters. He said many people don’t want permanent shelter locations in their neighborhoods.
“Having a mobile option is actually more attractive to a city or a county to experiment with because if it doesn't work, you know, we could move or we could scale down. And then there's the other side of it, which is huge, unsheltered homelessness is increasing like crazy, and we need to be addressing those needs, and we’re the quickest to mobilize,” Camarillo said.
The county’s September grant money helped fund a mobile drop-in center expansion outside of Orlando, and SALT has been successfully running a nearly-completed comprehensive facility in Bithlo.
Those services are needed in East Orlando, and while it’s a mammoth undertaking, Camarillo said he is committed to making it happen. He said expanding services is a must and that all homeless services should be thinking about how to innovate and grow to keep up with the need.
“It's exciting that we're able to get to other places where there's a huge need for our services. At the same time, it's a little scary. I mean, potentially, in the first half of next year, we’ll be in seven locations, five days a week. That's more than doubling our current operation,” he said. “But it's a calculated risk, and we're taking it because that's what the people deserve — the people that are out there dying on the street. There's an urgency, and we need to step up.”
The expansions are expected to be up and completed by June of 2025.
Lillian Hernández Caraballo is a Report for America corps member.
