![\"Crossing](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/tos-l-union-park-encamp0219.jpg\")
Crossing Guards wait for pedestrians cross the street at Dean Road and Flowers Avenue during dismissal at Union Park Elementary School, on Thursday, April 23, 2026. (Ricardo Ramirez Buxeda\/ Orlando Sentinel)<\/p>\nIn an east Orange County neighborhood, officials grappling with complaints about a large population of homeless people \u2013 including some camped out near an elementary school \u2013 are hoping a new proposed shelter will help, even as it could invite its own controversy.<\/p>\n
But in the meantime, a Republican lawmaker is threatening to withhold state money from the area\u2019s lone homeless services center unless it relocates.<\/p>\n
The sharp debate in Union Park is only the latest in a series of thorny confrontations about how best to manage homelessness in the Central Florida region, where housing costs are high, shelter space is scarce, and residents are concerned about people living in public spaces.<\/p>\n
The encampment near the Union Park Elementary School near Colonial Drive and Dean Road had drawn the ire of students\u2019 parents and the school\u2019s principal in particular.<\/p>\n
Crossing Guards wait for pedestrians cross the street at Dean Road and Flowers Avenue during dismissal at Union Park Elementary School, on Thursday, April 23, 2026. (Ricardo Ramirez Buxeda\/ Orlando Sentinel)<\/p>\n
Angie Gallo, an Orange County School Board member who is running for chair this August, said she visited the school recently and spoke with principal Donald Westley Vega, who said he\u2019d asked the people living in the encampment to move several times because they were too close to the school during dismissal.<\/p>\n
The encampment was recently cleared by the county, said Zeynep Portway, the executive director of the Samaritan Resource Center, who added the removal will likely will just lead to another elsewhere.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe see it over and over,\u201d she said. \u201cWithout a real pathway to stable housing, people just move and go to another empty lot they can find until they are asked to move again.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rep. Susan Plasencia, R-Orlando, who represents the area in Tallahassee, blasted the homeless situation in a letter last month, calling it \u201cby far the single biggest source of constituent concerns in this area.\u201d<\/p>\n
She blamed not only the county for the problem, but also the resource center, a drop-in location providing a host of services for the homeless from meals to showers, laundry and case management.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe county is responsible for the concentration of addicts and mentally ill individuals in the area,\u201d she wrote in the letter dated March 28. \u201cThe mentally ill and drug addicted individuals congregate and sleep in tents within the area in order to benefit from the services of the Samaritan Center.\u201d<\/p>\n
But county officials and service providers contend it\u2019s the intersection of worsening economic conditions and a severe shortage of affordable housing that\u2019s led to the rise in homelessness. The average rent for a 1-bedroom apartment in the Orlando area is $1,409, according to Rent.com. While that\u2019s down considerably from last year it\u2019s still far more expensive than many can afford.<\/p>\n
![\"Samaritan](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/tos-l-samaritan-resource-center0071.jpeg\")
Samaritan Resource Center at East Colonial Drive in Orlando, on Thursday, April 23, 2026. (Ricardo Ramirez Buxeda\/ Orlando Sentinel)<\/p>\n
Orlando is tied with Las Vegas for the most severe shortage of apartments available at rents accessible to extremely low-income people, the group most likely to fall into homelessness, according to the Gap Report by the National Low Income Housing Coalition.<\/p>\n
In Plasencia\u2019s letter, she called for the Samaritan Resource Center to be moved elsewhere and said she once offered a state appropriation to assist. But Plasencia claimed Portway, the executive director, told her she\u2019s not interested.<\/p>\n
The center\u2019s current location sits in an area along a bus line, where people can easily come for help and near where they\u2019ve gathered for years.<\/p>\n
Plasencia said she\u2019ll block the center from receiving state funds unless it involves moving the site. She didn\u2019t return a phone call seeking further comment.<\/p>\n
Portway said her outreach teams frequently visit encampments when the county forwards complaints to offer services. The center is currently seeking state money to help pay for a program to hire homeless clients to minimum wage jobs cleaning the community, hoping to give people a boost toward better-paying employment down the line.<\/p>\n
But without available shelter beds \u2013 which are clustered 10 miles west of the neighborhood in Parramore and are full most nights \u2013 the effort usually results in scattering people elsewhere, or into more encampments.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re going to be here whether we\u2019re here or not; they\u2019re going to be here because we don\u2019t have enough affordable housing,\u201d she said. \u201cWe keep telling people, \u2018You have to move, you have to move,\u2019 but the question always is, where are they supposed to go?\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/tos-l-union-park-encamp2590.jpg\")
A panhandler at the intersection of East Colonial Drive and Dean Road near Union Park Elementary School, on Thursday, April 23, 2026. (Ricardo Ramirez Buxeda\/ Orlando Sentinel)<\/p>\n
School Board member Gallo said that Union Park Middle School, which sits across the street from Union Park Elementary and is set to close after this school year, could be used for homeless shelters in the future, but nothing was concrete as of Friday. Orange County Public Schools isn\u2019t \u201cin the homeless business,\u201d she said, but could seek outside organizations to operate shelter spaces in the future.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need more shelters. We need more services. We need more funding for mental health. We need more funding for substance abuse and addiction\u2026 all the things that the legislature has the authority to implement,\u201d Gallo said.<\/p>\n
On Monday, county officials are set to unveil conceptual drawings of the planned 150-bed Goldenrod Village nearby, which they hope could help alleviate the problem. It\u2019s a shelter concept meant to take people from the streets on a path to sustained housing.<\/p>\n
Commissioner Mayra Uribe, who is running for mayor, said she\u2019s been working on finding the ideal location for such a project for more than three years. She believes she\u2019s found it on Goldenrod Road near Colonial Drive, about three miles west of the Samaritan Resource Center.<\/p>\n
Uribe said she envisions people staying for roughly 90 days with access to job training, counseling, skill development and housing. It\u2019s designed for adults only, and just individuals.<\/p>\n
People will be screened before being allowed into the facility, which she said will be new construction, with security, landscaping and fencing.<\/p>\n
County officials say it will be designed sort of like a college campus, with classroom space, dorms and other necessities. The idea could be replicated in other districts if it\u2019s successful, though it will likely take between three and four years to be up and running.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe good news is there\u2019s public transit there and there\u2019s not immediately adjacent to residential homes,\u201d Uribe said.<\/p>\n
Shelter proposals are rare in Central Florida \u2013 a region with a shortage of roughly 1,000 beds to accommodate people who sleep outside. They also don\u2019t tend to be popular with neighbors.<\/p>\n
Recent efforts by the City of Orlando to site a location in west Orlando and at the former work-release center south of downtown were defeated by fierce neighborhood opposition.<\/p>\n
The county is hosting a community meeting on Monday at 6 p.m. to discuss the Goldenrod Village idea with neighbors at the Goldenrod Community Center.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m hoping they\u2019ll come out and learn about it,\u201d she said. \u201cWe\u2019ve got to start doing something about it. It\u2019s not going away.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In an east Orange County neighborhood, officials grappling with complaints about a large population of homeless people \u2013…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":247255,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[28,114,266,115,1335,139,141,140,109],"class_list":{"0":"post-247254","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-orlando","8":"tag-florida","9":"tag-latest-headlines","10":"tag-local-news","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-orange-county","13":"tag-orlando","14":"tag-orlando-headlines","15":"tag-orlando-news","16":"tag-social"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247254","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=247254"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247254\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/247255"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=247254"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=247254"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=247254"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}