Orlando set to approve $3 million deal to shelter homeless people in retrofitted buses

After it was reported that Orlando police had arrested roughly two dozen people in January for having nowhere else but public property to sleep at night, the Orlando Sentinel broke the news that a new solution to get people off the streets was on its way: buses.

On Monday, the Christian Service Center, a social service nonprofit in Orlando that offers daytime services for homeless people, is set to ink a $3 million agreement with the city for the project, which is based off of a mobile emergency shelter concept called the “Dignity Bus Model.” The concept, developed by the Vero Beach-based nonprofit the Source, involves the retrofitting of buses to include sleeping pods, storage compartments, restrooms, pet compartments and “comprehensive surveillance.”

The Orlando City Commission is scheduled to approve the funding agreement on Monday during their regularly scheduled council meeting. The goal of the project is to offer a safe, legal place for people to sleep “with the goal of moving them expeditiously to permanent housing,” according to the city’s funding agreement.

The Christian Service Center requested the city reimburse them $350,000 for two former Greyhound buses that can fit a minimum of 39 sleeping pods. Once retrofitted to include beds, the buses will be parked at the Christian Service Center, next to the Inter & Co soccer stadium in Parramore, at night.

Operational costs for the project, including sleeping accommodations and case management services, are estimated at about $1 million each year, totaling $3,092,446 over three years, according to the funding agreement. Not all of the money will be paid upfront.

The project, over three years’ time, will receive capital funding available through the city’s Accelerate Orlando fund, a $58 million pot of federal American Rescue Plan Act money the city earmarked in 2022 specifically for projects to address the city’s affordable housing crisis.

Average rents in Orlando are up more than 30 percent since 2019, when the average one-bedroom apartment cost just about $1,000 per month. Today, rents are slightly lower than they were a year ago, on average. But for many in the region who didn’t see their wages or Social Security income rise as housing costs did, paying the bills has become an increasingly difficult task.

A point-in-time count conducted last year found a 105 percent rise in the number of people in the tri-county region over the year prior who lacked shelter. Altogether, volunteers counted 2,776 people who lacked stable housing. According to Martha Are, CEO of the Homeless Services Network of Central Florida — a nonprofit that conducted the count — there’s been a considerable rise specifically in older and elderly people who have been forced out of their homes.

While most of the children identified had some form of shelter, if not a stable home, 50 percent of adults over the age of 64 who were homeless lacked any form of shelter at all.

“For many people who live on Social Security or pensions, the cost of housing, food and medical care is simply outpacing their modest cost-of-living increases,” Are said in a statement. “Every month, our network sees about 1,000 individuals and families who are homeless for the first time.”

Orlando has consistently been flagged as one of the most “cost-burdened” metros in the United States. Roughly 60 percent of residents spent more than 30 percent of their income on housing costs as of last year.

Eric Gray, CEO of the Christian Service Center and candidate for the Orange County board of commissioners, described the mobile emergency shelter project to the Orlando Sentinel as “brilliant in its simplicity.”

It’s part of what the city has dubbed its “407 Connect Project,” a partnership between the downtown Orlando Community Redevelopment Agency and Christian Service Center, designed to “minimize the impacts of the Homeless persons on the Area, by providing a place off the streets for homeless persons within the Area to be at night as well as during the day,” according to city documents.

A new state law (HB 1365), approved by the Florida legislature and Gov. DeSantis last year, prohibits sleeping overnight on public property. It also allows individuals to sue any city or county that fails to enforce the law’s statewide camping ban.

This has increased the pressure on local governments, like the city, to find alternatives for people with nowhere else to go. Homeless service advocates like Are have repeatedly emphasized that the current shelter capacity in Orange County (largely concentrated near downtown) is full, or otherwise insufficient to meet the needs of people who don’t meet shelter eligibility requirements.

Orlando city leaders killed plans for a new shelter in the SoDo neighborhood earlier this month.

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This article appears in Mar 19-25, 2025.