Local Shelter CEO Warns Amendment 3 Could Threaten Homeless Services Funding

I am a fiscal conservative, and I’d love to reduce my monthly housing bill by lowering property taxes. After all, I work for a nonprofit, and my family counts every penny so I can serve our community and help others.
That’s been my life’s work. For many years, I was a Presbyterian minister, but I found my current calling as CEO of Rescue Outreach Mission, Seminole County’s only homeless shelter serving nearly anyone who wants to return to a permanent home.
In a perfect world, the generosity of others would be enough to support our mission. While government has a role in helping those experiencing homelessness, I wish our churches, businesses, and individual donors could provide nearly everything we need.
But the private dollars available simply aren’t enough to meet the needs at this time. That’s why I worry about what Amendment 3 could mean for the people who depend on us.
Over the years, local governments have understood what happens in a community when programs addressing homelessness aren’t funded. Images from communities across the country that don’t prioritize homelessness initiatives are vivid.
In Seminole County, commissioners budgeted $250,000 this year to support shelter nights at Rescue Outreach Mission. Spread across the county’s approximately 109,000 homesteaded properties, that contribution amounts to less than $2.25 per home per year.
That funding provides one night at our shelter for about 17 people each and every night of the year.
If we lose that support, we will do everything we can to keep people from sleeping in their cars, in tents, or on sidewalks. But we will have to change how we operate, and those changes will affect far more than those 17 people.
Rescue Outreach Mission currently operates 24 hours a day, serving around 115 guests every night. Without that funding, our worst-case scenario is closing very early in the morning and reopening in the evening, forcing those guests to find somewhere else to spend the day. Plus, we also would have to look at how we provide meals, as we currently offer three meals a day, every day.
When we close the doors in the morning, where should a senior with health problems spend the day? Where can they rest when walking becomes painful, or find shelter when an afternoon thunderstorm rolls through?
How will parents work and save for a new home if they have to carry all their children’s belongings, which aren’t allowed at school?
We also have many single men and women who were living on a financial cliff and one medical bill or car repair pushed them over the edge. They come to us to climb back out of their financial hole.
Where will they get computer access to apply for work? How successful will the job interview go after spending the day in the Florida heat?

Source: Read the original report