Homeless center plans draw east Orange opposition

OrlandoSentinel.com

Some say they don’t want a drop-in center near their neighborhoods

Víctor Manuel Ramos

Sentinel Staff Writer

Plans for a homeless center in east Orange County are upsetting some residents who don’t want it in their back yards.

As the county searches for a commercial building to house the center, some people in the largely Hispanic neighborhoods east of Semoran Boulevard are having meetings and lobbying against it.

“We are not against the homeless, because they need help, but they should be helped without hurting other residents,” said Elías “Rico” Piccard, who heads the advocacy group United Front 436. “Many of them are alcoholics, drug addicts — and we just don’t want to attract them to our community.”

Proponents say those complaints are rooted in a misunderstanding of what they are trying to accomplish.

The county is working with a coalition of churches and volunteers, known as Converge, to establish a drop-in center where many of the estimated 500 homeless people in east Orange could go during the day for a warm meal, a shower and a change of clothes.

Advocates say they hope the center will also become a place for others to get counseling as they struggle with poverty.

“We don’t want it to be strictly a homeless drop-in center,” said the Rev. Jeff Linman, pastor of Spirit of Joy Lutheran Church. “We want it to be seen as a housing assistance center, because the reality is that the overgrown lots of foreclosed homes in our neighborhoods are a clear sign that more than just chronically homeless people need help.”

The county has about $800,000 in federal funds to buy a building along commercial routes. Although it has not settled on a location, it’s looking near bus routes along Econlockatchee Trail, Rouse Road, Dean Road, Alafaya Trail and East Colonial Drive, mostly in County Commission districts 3 and 4, said Donna Wyche, manager of the county’s Mental Health and Homeless Issues Division.

Commissioner Mildred Fernández, a center proponent who represents District 3, said that many homeless people “are sleeping in the back yards of houses and behind local restaurants or in the woods” and that the community would not be better off ignoring the problem.

The issue has been the talk of Spanish-language radio, where callers have railed about already having a methadone clinic for recovering addicts, a treatment center for at-risk youth and a halfway house for former convicts near their east Orange neighborhoods.

William Diaz, a business owner and host of the morning radio show Cara a Cara on WONQ-AM (1030), said he agrees with listeners who don’t want another eyesore. The area is the county’s stepchild, Diaz said, “because anything that nobody wants ends up here.”

Víctor Manuel Ramos can be reached at vramos@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-6186.

Drop-in center will offer 1-stop services for the homeless

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Orange County joins with Converge coalition to unite homeless services under one roof

Víctor Manuel Ramos

Sentinel Staff Writer

8:08 PM EDT, August 3, 2009

Dean Stadtlander had the first spot Monday among the couple dozen homeless people who stood outside the Woodbury Presbyterian Church in Waterford Lakes for their twice-a-week food ration.

He got a loaf of challah bread, some pastries, bottled water and canned cranberry sauce, which he hates but eats anyway. The 51-year-old Army veteran, who said he ended up homeless when construction work ran out, seeks out free meals from churches and volunteers. He panhandles near the Alafaya shopping area and sleeps under a tarp in the woods.

“It’s a hard life, but it’s what I have left,” Stadtlander said.

Stadtlander is one of an estimated 500 homeless people in east Orange County who sleep in woods or behind shopping centers because there is no shelter there. The county is partnering with Converge, an eastside coalition of churches and volunteers, to bring under one roof the hodgepodge of homeless services that serve people like him.