Children, older adults make up more than 40 percent of Central Florida’s homeless population

New data pulled from a recent count of homeless people throughout the Central Florida region shows that more than 40 percent of those found living without stable housing are children under 18 and older adults, 55 and up.

According to the Homeless Services Network, a local nonprofit that facilitated the annual count, volunteers found 2,781 people this past January in Orange, Osceola and Seminole counties living in shelters, transitional housing, in their cars or on the streets — just a slight increase from the year prior.

“We are grateful that this is the smallest percent increase in several years,” said Martha Are, CEO of the Homeless Services Network, in a statement. Still, at a press conference Friday, she admitted that she doesn’t believe the count captures the full scope of homelessness in the region, in part due to fear stoked by a new state law that prohibits sleeping overnight on public property.

“We know that some people just didn’t want to be surveyed this year,” said Are.

Their annual count — part of a nationwide point-in-time count facilitated over the course of just a single day — doesn’t include people who refuse to acknowledge whether they are homeless, nor people who refuse to answer questions.

“People are intentionally hiding in more obscure places, deeper in the woods, other places that are just harder to find,” she said.

Within the first month that the new state law took effect this past January, two dozen unhoused people in Orlando alone were arrested and booked by Orlando Police Department officers into the local jail. Most were found sleeping under the I-4 overpass, the streets of downtown Orlando, or in Parramore just to the west. Five of those arrested in January were older than 60.

“Unfortunately, 24 percent of the people identified in this year’s point-in-time count are 55 and older,” said Are. “Heartbreakingly, more than half are sleeping outside at a time in their lives when they’re more likely to have serious health problems — including chronic heart disease, diabetes and respiratory conditions — made worse by their lack of housing.”

Rent hikes seen in Central Florida and elsewhere in recent years have exceeded many older adults’ retirement and Social Security income — even when that’s reliably coming in — according to Are. “It is not an exaggeration to say that homelessness is literally killing some of our seniors.”

Eviction filings in Orange County more than doubled from 2021 to 2022, according to the University of Florida’s Shimberg Center for Housing Studies. Nearly 30 percent of renters in Orange County have reported spending 40 percent or more of their monthly income on housing costs alone.

Orange County leaders sought to cap rent hikes during their peak in 2022, as a temporary stopgap, placing a measure on the ballot for locals to weigh in on. Voters in the county approved of the idea, but a lawsuit by real estate and landlord groups held up the rent stabilization measure in court. A state law approved in 2023, banning rent control statewide, stopped it from ever going into effect.

Christine Cleveland, a senior administrator for Orange County Public Schools, said the face of homelessness in Orange County, driven in part by an unaffordable housing market and affordable housing shortage, has changed.

It’s not always the “stereotypical image of a panhandler” on the street, she said. “It’s the mother with a bachelor’s degree, a full-time salaried manager who, after the loss of her husband and skyrocketing rental costs, is now living in a cramped hotel room with her children,” said Cleveland.

“It’s also the brother and sister abandoned by their parents, with the 18-year-old sister working tirelessly to keep some type of roof over their heads, even if inadequate, sacrificing her own future to provide for her siblings.”

As of April 2, the Orange County school district had more than 8,000 students identified as homeless — the highest number of any district in the state, according to preliminary data.

Nearly 600 were living without any form of shelter — living in a car or on the streets — while the rest reported being doubled up with other families, temporarily living with a friend or family member, or living in a hotel. Housing advocates say there’s a shortage of roughly 1,000 shelter beds in the region, and efforts to establish a new shelter have been stalled by resident pushback.

“A normal child gets picked up by their parents,” said Cleveland. “They go home, they get to do their homework, they have a snack, they get to watch a little TV, relax. These students don’t have that.”

With limited federal funding they receive, and through the generosity of private donors, district staff do what they can to coordinate resources and assistance for students in unstable housing situations, she said.

Orange County Public Schools offers free lunch and transportation for students, while private donations allow them to provide additional items, such as gift cards, clothing, or the ability to attend events like a school music or sports competition. “If we fail to support them, the consequences of that will impact us all,” she said.

“If we fail to support them, the consequences of that will impact us all”

Research has found that unstable housing can negatively affect school attendance and truancy. Overcrowded living situations can make it difficult for kids to learn and do their homework.

But the latest data on homelessness in Central Florida didn’t reveal only bad news. According to Are, with the Homeless Services Network, homelessness among young adults (specifically, 18 to 24) dropped 29 percent this year.

She attributes this, at least in part, to her nonprofit’s “Brighter Days” initiative launched last year, funded through $8.4 million in grant money from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and another $1 million allocated by the Florida Legislature. The initiative, in collaboration with other community partners, has helped provide rent subsidies, open up employment and educational opportunities, and fund caseworker positions.

It’s also helped fund projects like youth drop-in centers, where homeless youth and young adults can access computers, phone chargers, laundry machines, in addition to counseling, food, and access to a shower. One of these drop-in centers, operated by the Christian-based nonprofit SALT Outreach, opens in one of Orlando’s most impoverished neighborhoods next week.

“In the past, we saw the Veterans Administration really invest funding into our ability to work with veterans and put them into housing,” said Are. “Now we have this youth funding that’s letting us target youth, and so what we see from this is, when we have these housing-focused resources, we see a difference.”

For about a decade now, both the city of Orlando and Orange County have committed themselves to a housing-first approach to addressing homelessness — acknowledging that a person first needs a stable place to live and their basic needs met, before they can successfully focus on things like getting a job, or getting sober if they struggle with addiction.

That approach, supported by President Donald Trump during his first term in office, has in recent years come under fire by conservative think tanks that view it as ineffective.

According to Vox, Trump has since changed his tune on the approach, nominating Scott Turner, a former Texas lawmaker who voted against initiatives to aid poor tenants, as HUD Secretary. Turner has since outlined “massive funding cuts” to the agency, according to CBS News, with the Trump administration instead leaning into forced mental health and substance use treatment for the homeless as a primary intervention, rather than housing support.

“Thanks to President Trump’s leadership, we are no longer in a business-as-usual posture and the DOGE [Department of Government Efficiency] task force will play a critical role in helping to identify and eliminate waste, fraud and abuse and ultimately better serve the American people,” Turner said in a recent statement.

Brian Postlewait, chief operating officer of the Homeless Services Network of Central Florida, told Orlando Weekly that while their grant reimbursements from the federal government were initially frozen — as part of a national federal grant freeze ordered by the Trump administration in February, later blocked in the courts — they’ve since received reimbursements for their awarded grants, including for their Brighter Days initiative serving youth.

However, Are admitted, “There’s still a lot of unknowns.”

“At this point in time, you know, no spigot has been turned off,” she confirmed. “We’re still waiting to see what happens over the next several months.”

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This article appears in Apr 2-8, 2025.