Deep in the forest behind a convenience store in eastern Orange County, Stacy, a former restaurant manager, has a roof over her head.
It’s made of corrugated metal, sitting propped on some panels and served as a drug den for its prior residents. She and her two dogs, Tank and Suge Daddy, are protected by a fence with a locked gate.
On a recent morning, she was repairing the motor on her generator, telling outreach workers she wanted to cook a Thanksgiving turkey and sides for her neighbors in the woods on her fire pit.
She said she’s the “Mama Bear” of the various encampments on the property, where she helps people get tents and other things they need. It’s a snapshot of life in the woods in east Orange, where one homeless service provider estimates nearly 1,000 people live among the trees.
“I don’t have a job, so I can’t pay bills,” said Stacy, who had a heart procedure and fell into homelessness. However, she said she’d prefer more stable housing and wants to attend trade school – either for welding or to work on small engines.
While she didn’t immediately accept assistance from outreach workers who visited her camp, accompanied by Orlando Sentinel journalists, she was happy to hear they’d later return with a turkey and all the fixings.
The encampment was well-known to workers at United Global Outreach in Bithlo, which sends teams of workers into the woods of east Orange daily. They visit a slate of similar encampments, tucked away behind mobile home parks, in woods just off State Road 50 and pretty much anywhere that’s secluded, said Tim McKinney, the CEO of the nonprofit.
“They’re becoming harder and harder to find,” McKinney said as he drove down the state highway. “People live behind here, back there … anywhere there’s a wooded area.”
Homelessness has surged in recent years in Central Florida, with the number of people found on a single night in January sleeping on places like sidewalks, the woods, in cars or under highway bridges up 156% since 2022.
This year’s tally found 746 people unsheltered in Orange County. McKinney, though, contends hundreds more go uncounted in the vast woods in rural Bithlo, one of Orange County’s poorest areas.
Most of those they encounter struggle with addiction or with mental health issues. Stacy said she’s not a user, but was interested in meeting with a psychiatrist at the nonprofit’s so-called Transformation Village headquarters.
Tim McKinney, Lauren Tucker and Keri Lopez from United Global Outreach meet with Stacey at the front gate of a homeless encampment in a wooded area in Bithlo on Monday, November 24, 2025. (Rich Pope/Orlando Sentinel)
The outreach teams deliver boxes of Kloxxado nasal spray to each encampment for emergency treatment of opioid overdoses. The spray, twice as strong as the similar drug Narcan, is needed to combat stronger, more lethal doses of fentanyl that afflict the unsheltered.
So far this year, they’ve successfully convinced about 90 people to leave the woods for treatment, McKinney said.
Such programs are rare in Central Florida, but are likely to become more common across the country as they’ve become a particular focus of the Trump administration. Earlier this month, the White House released information on a $3.9 billion pool of funding for local and state governments and service providers to bid on.
Normally, most of the money would go toward housing-focused programs. But the administration intends to favor programs that prioritize street outreach and drug treatment instead of long-term housing, an approach that could upend how the U.S. combats homelessness.
Richie Amabile from United Global Outreach heads into a homeless encampment in a wooded area in Bithlo on Monday, November 24, 2025, to meet with homeless individuals who live there and try to bring them to the mental health treatment programs offered by the organization. (Rich Pope/Orlando Sentinel)
Richie Amabile from United Global Outreach heads into a wooded area in Bithlo on Monday, November 24, 2025, to meet with homeless individuals at an encampment and check in on them. (Rich Pope/Orlando Sentinel)
Richie Amabile and Tara Turner from United Global Outreach meet with Gary, a homeless individual who lives in an encampment in a wooded area in Bithlo, on Monday, November 24, 2025. Amabile and Turner are part of a team of peer-support outreach members who go into the woods to check on and try to bring homeless individuals to the mental health treatment programs offered by the organization. (Rich Pope/Orlando Sentinel)
A homeless individual sleeps in a tent in a wooded encampment in Bithlo that members of United Global Outreach visited on Monday, November 24, 2025. (Rich Pope/Orlando Sentinel)
Keri Lopez and Lauren Tucker from United Global Outreach head into a wooded area in Bithlo on Monday, November 24, 2025, to meet with homeless individuals at an encampment and try to bring them to the mental health treatment programs offered by the organization. (Rich Pope/Orlando Sentinel)
Lauren Tucker speaks with Stacey, a homeless individual who lives in an encampment in a wooded area in Bithlo, on Monday, November 24, 2025. Tucker is part of a team of peer-support outreach members who go into the woods to check on and try to bring homeless individuals to the mental health treatment programs offered by the organization. (Rich Pope/Orlando Sentinel)
A sign is posted at a homeless encampment in a wooded area in Bithlo on Monday, November 24, 2025. (Rich Pope/Orlando Sentinel)
Stacey, at the front gate of a homeless encampment in a wooded area in Bithlo, speaks with Tim McKinney, Lauren Tucker and Keri Lopez from United Global Outreach on Monday, November 24, 2025. (Rich Pope/Orlando Sentinel)
Lauren Tucker speaks with Stacey, a homeless individual who lives in an encampment in a wooded area in Bithlo, on Monday, November 24, 2025. Tucker is part of a team of peer-support outreach members who go into the woods to check on and try to bring homeless individuals to the mental health treatment programs offered by the organization. (Rich Pope/Orlando Sentinel)
Tim McKinney from United Global Outreach heads into a wooded area in Bithlo on Monday, November 24, 2025, to meet with homeless individuals at an encampment and try to bring them to the mental health treatment programs offered by the organization. (Rich Pope/Orlando Sentinel)
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Richie Amabile from United Global Outreach heads into a homeless encampment in a wooded area in Bithlo on Monday, November 24, 2025, to meet with homeless individuals who live there and try to bring them to the mental health treatment programs offered by the organization. (Rich Pope/Orlando Sentinel)
Martha Are, the CEO of the Homeless Services Network of Central Florida, said while her agency doesn’t fund McKinney’s program, it’s been a success in Bithlo.
“The project has shown success to get people into treatment, and from there into other housing options, including sober housing options,” she said. “This is an example of the breadth of services that are needed in our community.”
McKinney said the goal is to get people living in the woods insurance through the marketplace, which will cover high-quality inpatient treatment programs. Since such policies usually have a co-pay, and somebody living in the woods suffering from addiction is unlikely to be able to afford such a plan, a foundation covers the cost.
Richie Amabile and Tara Turner from United Global Outreach meet with Gary, a homeless individual who lives in an encampment in a wooded area in Bithlo, on Monday, November 24, 2025. Amabile and Turner are part of a team of peer-support outreach members who go into the woods to check on and try to bring homeless individuals to the mental health treatment programs offered by the organization. (Rich Pope/Orlando Sentinel)
The treatment programs – with amenities like a chef, swimming pools and horseback riding – make the experience a positive one, and more likely to be successful, he said. From there, a person can transition to other programs, and potentially into a sober-living house to provide them stability.
The programs are funded through several ways. A team of three outreach workers are funded by Orange County through funds disbursed from settlements with opioid pillmakers and pharmacies that sold them. The county expects to receive $53 million through 2040.
McKinney said he wants to expand the pilot program’s reach, with more outreach staff in Orange as well as venturing into similar nearby communities in southeast Seminole and in Brevard. He expects to have nine workers to focus on east Orange through various internship programs soon.
Are says much of the blame for the rise in homelessness is on a tough housing market, where rental units at prices low-income people can afford are few and far between. A household making the $13 minimum wage would have to work 102 hours a week to afford a one-bed room unit in the Orlando area, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition.
A makeshift memorial for homeless individuals who have died in the woods sits outside a homeless encampment in a wooded area in Bithlo on Monday, November 24, 2025. (Rich Pope/Orlando Sentinel)
McKinney doesn’t discount that, but says the scourge of fentanyl and other drugs creates such a strong dependency on people addicted to them that they won’t accept housing — or be able to maintain it — if they’re unable to achieve a high.
“You’ve got to use fentanyl every day or you feel like you’re dying,” he said.
Richie Amabile sees the impact daily – and knows what it feels like. He spent about two years homeless after falling into drug abuse, spending about one year living in his car and another on the streets of downtown Orlando.
Now detoxed and no longer addicted, he’s an outreach worker for United Global Outreach and tries to offer hope to people he suspects feel hopeless. At his lowest, he said he’d accepted he’d live the rest of his life that way on the streets. Now he’s seen the other side, with a job and a chance to give back.
“We are here to enforce the opposite – that they matter and they’re valued,” he said.
Tara Turner and Richie Amabile look for homeless individuals in an encampment in a wooded area in Bithlo on Monday, November 24, 2025. Amabile and Turner are part of a team of peer support outreach members who go into the woods to check on and try to bring homeless individuals to the mental health treatment programs offered by the organization. (Rich Pope/Orlando Sentinel)
With a smile, he and his teammate Tara Turner march into encampments, calling out into the woods, “Good morning! Share the love!” Amabile said a man recently told him his birthday was upcoming, so Amabile returned to the encampment with a birthday cake and a card with some money in it.
Stacy said she’s avoided falling into fentanyl addiction and urges others in the woods to get off of the drug. Despite her efforts, a testament to its destructive power is located close by.
Outside of her gated homestead, near a hollowed-out red car, is a cross with the names of eight people who have died, mostly from overdoses.
“I have more names to add,” she said.