ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. \u2013 Orange County leaders are advancing a proposal to build a homeless shelter in the Goldenrod area, a project supporters call a step toward long-term housing solutions, but one that\u2019s drawing pushback from some neighbors.<\/p>\n
The plan, discussed Monday, would create the Goldenrod Village Homeless Shelter, with about 150 beds. County leaders say the goal is to build a \u201cpathway to permanent housing\u201d by pairing shelter space with services that help people stabilize and eventually move into housing.<\/p>\n
During the meeting, officials cited the scope of homelessness in the county.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are 1,972 individuals experiencing homelessness in our county. That represents about 1.3 individuals for every 1,000 residents,\u201d one speaker said.<\/p>\n
The project\u2019s estimated cost is about $26 million. If approved, county leaders say it could be up and running by 2030.<\/p>\n
Some residents who live nearby say they\u2019re uneasy about the proposal. Zaykeese Pant, who lives in the area, said the neighborhood has a mix of older residents and families with children.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been here since 2014\u2026 it\u2019s a lot of elderly people here, a lot of kids, so I\u2019m kinda fishy about those people being here in this community,\u201d Pant said.<\/p>\n
Some supporters present Monday for the plan-presentation told News 6 homelessness can affect people from all walks of life, sometimes quickly.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt can happen to anyone\u2014just one health crisis\u2026 can put you out of a home or on the street,\u201d one meeting attendee said.<\/p>\n
A panel member also shared an example of how support services can prevent someone from losing housing: a mother of three who works for Amazon and uses her personal car for deliveries. When the car needed repairs, the cost threatened her ability to pay rent.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was about $2,000 to fix. Without housing connectors, she would have likely had to pay for that car incident, but then not been able to pay rent,\u201d the panelist said.<\/p>\n
The panelist said the woman was able to stay current on rent and has not needed those resources again for four months.<\/p>\n
Still, concerns remain among some nearby business owners. Tommy Upton, a barber in the area, said he believes a shelter would change the community.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey call it homeless shelter\u2014who wants to bring their kids to a homeless shelter? We\u2019re gonna be really affected by it,\u201d Upton said.<\/p>\n
The proposal is expected to be presented to the Orange County Board of County Commissioners, where commissioners will consider the next steps for the project.<\/p>\n
Breaking News Alerts<\/p>\n
Get breaking news alerts delivered to your inbox.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 by WKMG ClickOrlando – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. \u2013 Orange County leaders are advancing a proposal to build a homeless shelter in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":267535,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[54548,115043,23464,101414,1335,115044,139,141,140,7928,504,25186],"class_list":["post-267534","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-concerns","tag-goldenrod-village","tag-homeless","tag-homeless-shelter","tag-orange-county","tag-orange-county-commissioners","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-proposal","tag-safety","tag-unhoused"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267534","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=267534"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267534\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/267535"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=267534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=267534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=267534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}