As Florida advances camping ban, Orlando’s homeless ask, ‘Where are we supposed to go?’

Star Davis discusses her experience being homeless at the Christian Service Center in downtown Orlando, Florida, on Feb. 28, 2024.

ORLANDO, Fla. — As Florida officials move to ban people from sleeping on public property, Peter Roberts wonders where he’ll be forced to go.

Now he spends daytime hours at the Christian Service Center in Orlando, where he gets meals, toiletries and other services.

But at night when it closes, Roberts, who has been homeless for nearly two years, said sleeping on the sidewalk is his only option in a community lacking sufficient affordable housing and where limited shelter beds are almost always full. His disability check isn’t enough to cover rent for a place of his own, he said.

“It seems like we’re being punished now,” he said when told of the impending ban. “I’ve got to lay down somewhere – I’ve got to sleep.”

Florida Republicans have prioritized legislation this year forcing cities and counties to ban public sleeping, which also authorizes residents, business owners and the state attorney general to bring civil action against governments that turn a blind eye.

Bills laying out the plans have soared through committees in the House and Senate, and Republicans passed the legislation through the House on Friday. The Senate is scheduled to take the issue up this week, putting it on the fast track to Gov. Ron DeSantis’ desk by the time the session is expected to close March 8. DeSantis has endorsed the plans.

The proposals allow counties to create permanent encampments, where all of an area’s unsheltered population would be directed. The legislation requires such encampments to have 24-hour security, clean restrooms, water, behavioral health services and case managers.

What it doesn’t say is what happens if a county decides it cannot afford such an encampment – advocates suspect most, if not all counties will decide they can’t – or if a person refuses to go.

“Our bill doesn’t prescribe criminal penalties. We leave it to the local jurisdictions to make a determination on what is the best way to address the problem,” said Rep. Sam Garrison, a Republican, this week. “They can go wherever they want. They just cannot stay on public property overnight, or public right of way or public buildings.”

Garrison has maintained the plan is compassionate and shows Florida leaders care about the unsheltered by bringing them better access to services.

But it will leave Florida’s growing homeless population few options and is likely to force law enforcement to arrest people who sleep outside, said Eric Gray, who runs the Christian Service Center.

“Effectively what they’re doing is making it illegal to be homeless in the state of Florida,” said Gray, CEO of the center, which provides services to hundreds of homeless people in Orlando daily. “If you can’t find shelter … and you don’t have a car to live in, and there’s no family willing to take you in, then the only option is for you to sleep outside.”

Unsheltered homelessness has increased about 75% in the Orlando area since 2019, as rents have surged by roughly $500 per month in that same period. Florida saw about a 17% increase in the last year, with 15,706 people counted living unsheltered.

Gray suspects the legislative push will likely have two effects over time: Law enforcement will be forced to arrest people sleeping on the streets to comply with camping bans, and local governments will have to confront providing additional options.

“I think every county in the state is going to be having a serious conversation over the next year about having to build a shelter,” he said.

Star Davis, a retired bus driver, has slept in her car around Orlando since arriving here two months ago from Louisiana. She doesn’t make enough on a fixed income to afford a place of her own. So she picks up day-labor jobs in the area as she hopes to pay off her car and one day have a better place to live.

To her, the bans sound like a step in the right direction.

“They need to get a little stricter on them,” she said of people who sleep in public places. “They’re too comfortable.”

But life on the streets has been hard for Robin Carter. She said she recently came to Orlando from Marion County and has been a crime victim since her arrival.

She’s found a sliver of private property where she and others have been allowed to sleep in Parramore. But she said a ban on public sleeping will put her and others in more dire circumstances.

“When they do that, where are we supposed to go?” she asked. “Where are we supposed to sleep?”

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