An increasing number of people in Florida are experiencing homelessness. The surge comes as state lawmakers are considering legislation that some advocates see as punitive: a law that would make it illegal to sleep on public property.
Florida’s Council on Homelessness reported approximately 31,000 individuals experiencing “literal homelessness” in 2023. That means they didn’t have a fixed, regular or adequate place to stay, including people living in shelters.
That’s a 9% increase from 2019.
Anne Ray is the Florida Housing Data Clearinghouse manager at the University of Florida’s Shimberg Center for Housing Studies. She says as housing gets more expensive, the levels of homelessness will continue to increase.
“The way we tackle our homelessness problem is to tackle our affordable housing problem.”
She says while the problem is big, Florida has the largest state housing trust fund in the country, enabling us to develop new housing, both homeownership opportunities and affordable rental housing, with a good portion being devoted to family housing.
However, with two bills working to ban counties and municipalities from allowing camping and sleeping on public grounds, lawmakers aren’t outlining funding to provide proper shelter to those in need of it.
On this episode of Florida Matters, we hear about a specific group of people who experience homelessness: youth under 18 who are separated from their families because of abuse or neglect, but who aren’t part of the foster care system. They’re considered unaccompanied and they are extremely vulnerable to problems like untreated mental health disorders, drug use, and sexual exploitation.
The study found that between 2021 and 2022, about 6,300 unaccompanied young people experienced homelessness.
Vicki Sokolik is working to decrease the number of unhoused, unaccompanied youth. She founded Starting Right, Now, an organization providing support, permanent housing and access to healthcare to unaccompanied youth experiencing homelessness.
“It’s not a shelter. We are more than a bed,” she explained. “We are a holistic program that offers everything from education support to mentoring to life skills training to planning for your future.”
She says Starting Right, Now is completely holistic so they can make sure they are looking at the student as a whole individual because no two students need the same services.
Sokolik also wrote a book on the issue of youth homelessness and her journey to founding Starting Right, Now. It’s called, "If You See Them – Young, Unhoused, and Alone in America."
Jamal is a graduate of Sokolik’s program who went from sleeping outside his home some nights and getting no support from his mother, to being a freshman in college with goals of joining the military and becoming a screenwriter. We used his first name to conceal the identity of his family.
“The turning point came when all my friends, they would tell me, ‘Jamal, this isn’t right,’” he said, speaking about why he went to Starting Right, Now. He continued saying his friends would tell him, “You have a bright future. But you need to take action like right now.”
He wasn’t scared about joining the program. Instead, he was looking forward at his future. He felt this was his chance to change his life. And he did.
Jamal says unhoused, unaccompanied students often hide it really well from others, like school officials.
“You go to school and you’re a regular kid and you come back but people don’t know that you don’t have a place to stay or that you’re going from house to house, couch to couch.”
His advice to adults: Don’t prejudge and ask questions.
“If the community could just come together to help these kids, you would see a lot less homelessness in youth.”
Listen to this week’s episode of Florida Matters to hear the whole conversation with Vicki Sokolik and Jamal, available on podcast platforms.
