Last year, as part of an ongoing effort to address the city’s unaffordable housing problem, Orlando City Council gifted a local charity that openly opposes abortion access with more than $200,000 in federal grant money to renovate single-family homes into affordable housing units for low-income people.
Catholic Charities of Central Florida, a not-for-profit affiliated with the national Catholic Charities organization, is a ministry of the Diocese of Orlando, a church that contributed $50,000 to a multimillion-dollar campaign that was launched to oppose Florida’s abortion rights initiative on the 2024 ballot. The ballot measure, Amendment 4, sought to restore the right to abortion up to viability and enshrine the right to abortion in the state Constitution, but narrowly failed to get the support it needed to pass.
Catholic Charities, which has its own real estate management company — Resurrection Property Management — doesn’t hide that it was involved in the multimillion-dollar counter campaign against the measure, which they described as “dangerous” and “deceptive” on a webpage that is still publicly visible online.
“An extremely grave amendment has been placed on the November 2024 ballot that seeks to erase pro-life protections by inserting language into the Florida Constitution prohibiting regulation of abortion,” the webpage reads. “The Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops is working hard to oppose this dangerous and deceptive amendment and urges all Floridians to vote ‘no’ on Amendment 4.” The webpage also falsely claims the measure would legalize “late-term abortions” and “eliminate laws requiring parental consent and safety protocols for women.”
Despite the misinformation campaign, buoyed by DeSantis and his allies, 57 percent of Florida voters — more than 6 million statewide — voted in favor of Amendment 4, which would have overridden the state’s current six-week abortion ban if approved. But, because constitutional amendments need at least 60 percent support in order to pass, abortion opponents like Catholic Charities were given the opportunity to celebrate its defeat.
“We are profoundly relieved at the defeat of Florida’s pro-abortion Amendment 4,” the Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops wrote in a post-election statement shared by Catholic Charities of Central Florida on its Facebook page. “This is a positive outcome for Florida and all efforts to promote the flourishing of our state.”
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Catholic Charities, which operates anti-abortion pregnancy centers in other parts of the state, was one of several local organizations the city chose to receive community development block grant funds last year, which come from a federal program run by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
The funds earmarked for Catholic Charities were intended to go toward five single-family home renovation and rehabilitation projects in Orlando that the charity proposed for housing low-income individuals. The projects were supposed to be completed by Sept. 30, 2024, according to a summary of the city’s grant spending plan, but the charity asked for an extension this month due to delays.
“The project was scheduled to be completed by September 30, 2024, but there were delays related to federal requirements, labor shortages, and supply chain issues,” a consent agenda item for Orlando City Council’s Dec. 9, 2024, meeting reads. “Catholic Charities of Central Florida has requested additional time to complete the project.”
In recognition of those challenges, city staff recommended City Council approve the request for an extension through Sept. 30, 2025. It was approved, along with more than 70 other items on the consent agenda, without comment or controversy Monday.
“Everybody who was here for the consent agenda, you just got what you wanted, and you are free to go,” Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer joked to the audience after the council’s unanimous vote of approval.
Catholic Charities, on its website, boasts its commitment to “[providing] housing for individuals who might otherwise be unable to afford it — including the elderly” through its very own Resurrection Property Management.
They’ve already received grant funds from the city multiple times before — a city governed by Dyer, a Democrat who quietly gifted campaign cash to an anti-abortion Orange County Commission candidate this fall through his own PAC, and a majority-Democrat City Commission (though city commissioner positions are officially nonpartisan).
So this isn’t a novel attempt by Catholic Charities to play landlord. According to the group’s website, they currently manage Monsignor Bishop Manor, a 144-unit affordable apartment community in Pine Hills, and St. Joseph Garden Courts, a 79-unit community located in East Orlando, near Waterford Town Center. The city has, in the past, loaned Catholic Charities additional funds to rehab other properties, after reporting similar delays.
City documents show that in 2021, for instance, the city approved an extra $30,000 for the rehabilitation and management of a home in Azalea Park, on top of the $85,095 the city had already agreed to give Catholic Charities for the rehab project in 2020, after the charity reported “unexpected” delays.
That project was paid for with federal grant funds from the Neighborhood Stabilization program, a HUD initiative established “for the purpose of providing emergency assistance to stabilize communities with high rates of abandoned and foreclosed homes,” according to a HUD webpage.
With the approval of City Council, the charity has also received state funds under the State Housing Initiatives Partnership program, for a rehabilitation project at 5192 Andrea Blvd. — one of five sites the not-for-profit again sought federal funds for this past year.
Under their older agreement — also extended by the charity’s request — the charity is obligated to rent the three-bed property to a “Very Low Income” person earning less than 50 percent of the area median income. It’s unclear whether the state money they received for home renovations for the property before wasn’t enough, or if they’re just asking for federal taxpayer funds to renovate it again. The reason for the latest funding request, presumably to follow up on their last one, isn’t clearly stated.
The city does not receive any of the rent paid by the home’s occupants, but the city has been working with various developers (i.e., providing financial incentives, such as funding or tax breaks) to create more housing that’s affordable for those who are low-income, cost-burdened and at risk of homelessness.
Altogether, the city of Orlando has leveraged tens of millions of dollars in state and federal funds to address the region’s growing issue of homelessness in recent years — and no, not all of it has gone to religious nonprofits that use public funds to play landlord or throw money at efforts to undermine access to abortion care.
Also on Monday, for instance, Orlando City Council approved a $125,400 agreement with the nonprofit Health Care for the Homeless to fund two “navigators” to join the city’s downtown homeless street outreach team. That team, working as part of the city’s “services-first response” to homelessness, offers referrals for basic services and transportation assistance to people living on the streets or otherwise without shelter.
The Health Care Center for the Homeless, a federally qualified health center, is led by CEO and sitting Orlando city commissioner Bakari Burns, who abstains from votes on agreements that could pose a conflict of interest.
The nonprofit, which paid Burns a base salary of $210,404 as of 2022, provides services such as medical and dental care for homeless, uninsured and underinsured individuals. The organization also operates a small, 10-bed residential care facility, which the nonprofit rents from the city for $1 per year. Since their lease expired last month, a new five-year lease agreement for the facility — primarily housing homeless people with tuberculosis — was up for renewal and approved Monday.
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This article appears in Dec 4-10, 2024.
