Just steps away from I-4, an unsheltered man sleeps in his wheelchair Credit: Photo by J.A. Dunbar

Kathy Wilkins, a 55-year-old woman with no income, savings, or home to speak of, was sleeping on a piece of cardboard under the I-4 overpass in downtown Orlando last month when she was approached by an Orlando police officer, around 8:22 p.m.

Wilkins, who is identified in jail records as homeless, “stated she was aware of the resources and wanted to sleep under the overpass,” arresting officer Angelo Brisinte wrote in a Jan. 15 arrest affidavit for Wilkins.

“Resources” for people like Wilkins without a place to sleep at night in Orlando are limited. The so-called City Beautiful hasn’t seen the construction of a new shelter for homeless people in at least a decade, according to leaders of local homeless service agencies, and it’s sorely needed.

There’s been a notable rise in recent years of the number of people in the region who lack shelter, a trend driven in part by stark rent and housing cost hikes beginning in 2021. A historic effort the following year to temporarily curb rent rises in Orange County was ultimately shot down in the courts, despite its popularity among locals who were concerned about seeing longtime neighbors pushed out. The state has since barred cities and counties, including Orange, from trying to control rent prices again.

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Brisinte, the Orlando police officer, noted in Wilkins’ arrest papers last month that “probable cause existed” to arrest the woman for violating a city ordinance that bars people from sleeping on public property, including roadways.

The local law was first enacted in the 1980s, but has received more attention in the last year due to the passage of a similar statewide law (HB 1365) in 2024 that allows local residents, business owners, and the state Attorney General to sue cities and counties that fail to enforce camping bans.

The law, criticized for targeting people with nowhere else to go, was drafted in collaboration with the conservative Cicero Institute. Based in Texas, the Cicero Institute is a Texas-based think tank founded in 2016 by Joe Lonsdale — a tech billionaire who has donated to campaign funds for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Florida’s Republican Party. The group has also peddled similar policies targeting homeless encampments in other states.

Wilkins didn’t have any previous arrests on her record. According to an affidavit she submitted to the Orange County Clerk of Courts, she doesn’t have any source of income, no savings, and does not receive forms of government assistance such as food stamps.

Court records show she has entered a plea of “not guilty” for her charge of violating the city’s public camping ban — a misdemeanor charge punishable by a fine of up to $500 and up to 60 days in jail.

According to jail data compiled by the New York University Public Safety Lab, reviewed by Orlando Weekly, she’s one of nearly two dozen people who have been arrested and booked into Orange County Jail on the same charge since Jan. 1, when the new statewide camping ban fully took effect.

That’s not even counting people who have been arrested by OPD for sitting, lying on, or otherwise blocking traffic on city sidewalks — a crime that, as of last January, now falls within the definition of disorderly conduct, a misdemeanor.

Dianna Milton, a 75-year-old woman who pleaded guilty to violating the city’s public camping ban, was also sleeping on cardboard when Orlando police found her on Jan. 20 at the intersection of North Garland Avenue and West Amelia Avenue, according to an arrest affidavit.

According to the arresting officer — once again, Officer Brisinte — Milton was told that if she didn’t vacate the area and go to the Salvation Army for shelter, she would be arrested.

She didn’t leave, records show. Eight minutes later, the elderly woman was detained and booked into the county’s booking and release center on two charges: one, for violating the city’s public camping ban, and another for refusing to give Brisinte her name — an action that qualifies as “resisting arrest,” a misdemeanor.

“I attempted several other ways to ID her with no success,” Brisinte wrote in Milton’s arrest affidavit. “Her personal property was soiled.”

‘They’re afraid’

While Orlando Weekly has in recent months observed dozens of people sleeping under the overpass in downtown Orlando at night, a reporter noticed one night this past January that the same areas were notably empty. In the weeks that followed, the emptiness persisted.

Where did they go, we wondered? Did a new shelter magically open up when we weren’t looking?

We decided to look into it.

It’s clear, from court records, that at least one answer is the local jail or booking center. In an arrest affidavit for 78-year-old Robert Nelson, a homeless man, dated Jan. 8, Orlando police officer Michael Monfredo noted that officers “gave verbal warnings to all citizens underneath the interstate 4 bridge at Amelia St, and Livingston St to not camp at these locations or they would be subject to arrest.”

It was cold that night — cold enough that the county had issued a cold weather advisory, and collaborated with local nonprofits to open up warming shelters.

One of those nonprofits, the Coalition for the Homeless, had opened up a shelter and “could not deny entry,” according to Monfredo. He shared this information with Nelson, whom he found sleeping under the overpass at North Garland and Livingston Street in downtown Orlando shortly after 8 p.m.

Two hours later, the man was still there, apparently asleep — in violation of the city’s anti-camping ban.

Monfredo placed the elderly man in handcuffs.

“We have sympathy for our local jurisdictions that find themselves caught in the middle, but arresting people for merely trying to survive without shelter will never be the right approach to addressing homelessness,” Martha Are, CEO of the Homeless Services Network of Central Florida, which operates several social service and housing programs, told Orlando Weekly in a statement.

“Arresting people for merely trying to survive without shelter will never be the right approach to addressing homelessness”

“We know of at least one case where, after months of waiting, a disabled man working with one of our partner agencies lost his chance to be housed because he was arrested the night before a unit for him became available,” she added.

Are said, since the new state law took effect, some people without shelter are moving out of the downtown Orlando area to more remote areas of Central Florida. “[B]ut we also know that many simply move from one location to another nearby, until they get moved along yet again.”

Many people, she heard, are “afraid of being arrested” and are “trying to find places to hide.”

Hiding, of course, makes it harder for organizations like hers — which receives city, county, and federal government funding for their programs — to find and assist them.

“This, too, will make it harder for them to seek and receive help, and more dangerous for them when hurricanes or other weather emergencies arise.”

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A chronic problem that just got worse

Homelessness, and the sheer scope of it in Orlando, is nothing new.

In 2011, nearly 7,000 people in Orange, Osceola and Seminole counties either lacked shelter completely or were staying in a shelter or temporary housing arrangement, Orlando Weekly reported at the time.

More than 700 people found sleeping out in the cold that January reportedly suffered from “severe mental illness,” 521 had a chronic drug addiction, and 205 had HIV/AIDS. Five-hundred were veterans and 91 were victims of domestic violence.

The city of Orlando got heat that year for arresting local activists Food Not Bombs simply for giving out food to homeless people congregating downtown, where the bulk of resources for people without shelter are located. Longtime (and still current) mayor Buddy Dyer later dropped charges against the activists, likely realizing the optics — broadcast by national media who’d picked up the story — were not great.

The city of Orlando, however, adopted a “housing-first” policy in 2015 — which city officials today still describe as a successful, evidence-based approach — and launched other initiatives to expand affordable housing and homeless service options.

Homeless counts in the few years after began to ebb, before creeping back up in 2017. Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit, along with subsequent unemployment and an insatiably greedy rental market.

A one-day count of the local homeless population in January 2024 found that roughly 750 people in Orange County lacked shelter — up from 331 in 2023 — and an additional 1,254 people who were living in an emergency shelter or transitional housing.

According to Orange County staff, the region is short hundreds of shelter beds for people without a place to go at night, as it is — and an effort to build a new shelter in the SoDo neighborhood has faced pushback from residents.

“While I do understand the pressing need to address homelessness, I believe the current plan, as it stands, poses a significant risk to the safety and security of the community, and to property values,” Kyle Steele, an opponent of the proposed shelter, told the Orlando Sentinel.

The new Florida law banning public camping statewide has upped the ante for city and county governments to patrol, surveil, and get homeless people out of sight — even when there’s nowhere for them to go.

“The shelters are full,” Are told Orlando Weekly in September. “There’s no place for people to go, and therefore they’re out there, unsheltered. They’re out on the streets, and that dynamic is going to continue unless we add some shelter bed capacity.”

Granted, even when a shelter is an option, not everyone is willing or able to go. “There are many reasons people may not want to go to a shelter,” Are, with the Homeless Services Network, told Orlando Weekly.

Some homeless shelters don’t have available beds. Or they have strict rules or eligibility requirements that can block or otherwise deter access — for instance, a no-pets policy, or gender-specific shelter programs that don’t allow for families to stay together. “A shelter may have a bed for a single man, for instance, but not for a couple or a couple with children, and there are very few opportunities for a man with children,” Are explained.

Some also require sobriety for entry — an ask that isn’t easy, or always even necessarily safe, for people with a severe or chronic addiction. Withdrawal from some drugs, including alcohol, can cause severe symptoms, such as life-threatening seizures, without medical support.

Pets, too, can be a lifeline for someone who has nothing else, offering for some “their sole source of love, companionship and, just as importantly, security,” said Are.

Freddy Clayton, CEO of the Orlando Union Rescue Mission — one of the only nonprofits in the area that offers shelter space — told Orlando Weekly over email that they have capacity at their men-only shelter for just 48 overnight guests, in addition to 92 people who live at the Mission full-time.

The no-cost emergency shelter doesn’t require sobriety for entry — “If we did, we would have few guests,” Clayton admitted — but it does prohibit violent or aggressive behavior and weapons, and doesn’t allow pets.

It’s a faith-based shelter program, reliant on private donations. According to Clayton, the ministry offers food, showers, a place to sleep, and a “short chapel service” after dinner. Men typically begin lining up outside of their shelter around 1 p.m. each day, he said, and at 2:30 p.m., they open their gate.

“We fill all beds nearly every afternoon by 3:30,” he said.

Central Florida has a network of nonprofits, including HSN and the Mission, that offer emergency shelter, temporary housing, and permanent supportive housing programs.

But shelter capacity is, of course, just a piece of the puzzle. For people who are unemployed, elderly, or have other complex medical or mental health needs, other social services are necessary to prevent them from returning to the streets, the woods, or wherever they can rest without risking a face-off with OPD.

Under OPD’s policies and procedures, officers are directed to take a “services-first” approach to interactions with people experiencing homelessness — basically, ensuring that the person or family is aware of available resources in the city.

“Members may offer to consensually transport the individual to the shelter,” the OPD policy reads, while noting that in some cases, factors such as (ironically) a criminal record may exclude a person from eligibility for a shelter bed.

In early 2024, the department also launched a new initiative, dubbed the Homeless Intervention Unit. The unit is comprised of a team of specialized and trained police officers to respond to calls for service about or from unsheltered people, according to the city.

Officers, in encounters with people experiencing homelessness, are also required under OPD policy to turn on body-worn cameras documenting their interactions.

Orlando Weekly requested and was denied access to body-cam footage for Wilkins’ arrest — on account of her case still remaining “open” — and we are awaiting body-cam footage for a separate arrest in a closed case.

“The City of Orlando and the Orlando Police Department remain committed to investing in and partnering with our local homeless providers who offer housing, resources, and innovative opportunities to prevent and reduce homelessness in our community,” a spokesperson for OPD told Orlando Weekly in a statement.

“All of our officers work with community partners to connect unsheltered residents to homeless services and resources while complying with the law.”

According to records obtained by the Collaborative for Homelessness Action, Research, and Transformation (CHART), an inter-institutional effort overseen by University of Central Florida professor Dr. Andrew Sullivan, OPD has arrested homeless people for camping on public property more than 200 times since August 2019.

Not just Orlando

It’s not just Orlando police who are complying with the state’s directive to all but criminalize homelessness — since the law itself doesn’t provide criminal penalties for lacking a place to sleep at night.

Orlando already had a ban on public camping ahead of the law. But other municipalities that didn’t — including Broward County, Seminole County, Osceola County, Winter Park, Ocoee and Orange County — have since felt pressure to enact their own, if only to remain in compliance with state law and avoid the risk of costly litigation for failing to do so.

“We want to make it clear the intent of this ordinance is not to criminalize homelessness, but to be in compliance with the new law,” stressed Lisa Klier-Graham, manager of Orange County’s Mental Health and Homelessness division, during a discussion of the issue last month.

Even so, Christian Service Center CEO Eric Gray — whose nonprofit offers day services to unsheltered people from their facility in Parramore — called on county leaders to reject the adoption of a local ban.

“Invite the legal challenge,” he dared the County Commission. “I know it sounds crazy, but we are the last bastion of progressive thought. Between us and Alachua County, we’re it here in Orange County. Somebody needs to challenge this, and I feel like this group of people has the guts to do it.”

They weren’t — with the exception of commissioners Kelly Semrad and Maribel Gomez Cordero, who voted against the local camping ban. Commissioner Nicole Wilson, additionally, was absent for the vote. Gray himself has filed papers to run for a County Commission seat in 2026.

The legal risks of noncompliance with state law have been a driving factor causing anxiety among local elected leaders. Under HB 1365, any person who plans to sue a local government for noncompliance with the camping ban must first issue a written notice or complaint, notifying the local government of their accusation and threat to take legal action. After that, the city or county has up to five days to “cure” their alleged violation.

Ashley Papagni, public information manager for the city of Orlando, told Orlando Weekly that, as of Tuesday, the city had received two complaints accusing the city of failing to enforce its camping ban.

Both, she said, have been “resolved.”

According to NPR, more than 100 places across the country — including in Democrat-controlled states — have adopted bans on sleeping on public property, even when a person has nowhere else to go.

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This article appears in Feb 12-18, 2025.

General news reporter for Orlando Weekly, with a focus on state and local government and workers' rights. You can find her bylines in Creative Loafing Tampa Bay, In These Times, and Facing South.