\n\t\t\t\t\t\tAfter 45 years in west Orange County serving families, the homeless, and children, the Christian Service Center for the Homeless in Ocoee is closing July 31. However, assistance including the food pantry, computer lab, and SNAP food-stamps services will be closing sooner, on June 30. Leaders said the decision was incredibly difficult, but no matter how hard they tried, they were not able to secure the resources to operate the Ocoee campus long-term.For decades, volunteers at the Christian Service Center for the Homeless, located at 300 W. Franklin Street in Ocoee, served up hot meals to struggling residents, the homeless, and children.Jane Gonzales has been coming to the west campus since it opened.”They do food stamps here. They do everything here. And I can walk here, it’s only a block from the house. She’s right around the corner,” she said. “I just have to get food other ways.\u201dJeri Comeau said it’s been her help for years.”For it to be closing down, it’s just sad,” she said. “At least 15 years or more, really. (…) I have no clue what to do. A lot of people are going to be lost without it.”Volunteers are plentiful. Westgate Resorts brought about a dozen on Thursday.Jill Bosley is vice president of Westgate Foundation and Community Affairs.”Westgate cares. We want to make sure that our community, where team members live and work, (is) taken care of,” she said.It’s the resources that are needed for a growing community in need.”It costs money to feed 200 people lunch every day,\u201d said Eric Gray, executive director of the Christian Service Center. “What’s really occurred is as we’ve grown as an organization and expenses have gone up, we don’t have the support that we need to continue operating in that community.”But he said they are open to coming back to west Orange County.”What we voted to do is list the property and if somebody out there wants to purchase the property and have us operate it some other way, we would be open to that, but it still doesn’t change we’re that we still are under about a $400,000-a-year deficit in that community,” he said.Services will continue at the downtown Orlando location.”It’s quite far, too far. They won’t be able to do that,\u201d Ocoee resident Bill Vitayi said.Gray added, “The time for churches and charities managing homelessness is long past. It’s now a city-county problem.”Gray will be at the Christian Service Center in Ocoee at 1 p.m. Friday to answer questions about what’s happening at the west campus location.\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\tOCOEE, Fla. \u2014 \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
After 45 years in west Orange County serving families, the homeless, and children, the Christian Service Center for the Homeless in Ocoee is closing July 31.<\/p>\n
However, assistance including the food pantry, computer lab, and SNAP food-stamps services will be closing sooner, on June 30.<\/p>\n
Leaders said the decision was incredibly difficult, but no matter how hard they tried, they were not able to secure the resources to operate the Ocoee campus long-term.<\/p>\n
For decades, volunteers at the Christian Service Center for the Homeless, located at 300 W. Franklin Street in Ocoee, served up hot meals to struggling residents, the homeless, and children.<\/p>\n
Jane Gonzales has been coming to the west campus since it opened.<\/p>\n
“They do food stamps here. They do everything here. And I can walk here, it’s only a block from the house. She’s right around the corner,” she said. “I just have to get food other ways.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jeri Comeau said it’s been her help for years.<\/p>\n
“For it to be closing down, it’s just sad,” she said. “At least 15 years or more, really. (…) I have no clue what to do. A lot of people are going to be lost without it.”<\/p>\n
Volunteers are plentiful. Westgate Resorts brought about a dozen on Thursday.<\/p>\n
Jill Bosley is vice president of Westgate Foundation and Community Affairs.<\/p>\n
“Westgate cares. We want to make sure that our community, where team members live and work, (is) taken care of,” she said.<\/p>\n
It’s the resources that are needed for a growing community in need.<\/p>\n
“It costs money to feed 200 people lunch every day,\u201d said Eric Gray, executive director of the Christian Service Center. “What’s really occurred is as we’ve grown as an organization and expenses have gone up, we don’t have the support that we need to continue operating in that community.”<\/p>\n
But he said they are open to coming back to west Orange County.<\/p>\n
“What we voted to do is list the property and if somebody out there wants to purchase the property and have us operate it some other way, we would be open to that, but it still doesn’t change we’re that we still are under about a $400,000-a-year deficit in that community,” he said.<\/p>\n
Services will continue at the downtown Orlando location.<\/p>\n
“It’s quite far, too far. They won’t be able to do that,\u201d Ocoee resident Bill Vitayi said.<\/p>\n
Gray added, “The time for churches and charities managing homelessness is long past. It’s now a city-county problem.”<\/p>\n
Gray will be at the Christian Service Center in Ocoee at 1 p.m. Friday to answer questions about what’s happening at the west campus location.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After 45 years in west Orange County serving families, the homeless, and children, the Christian Service Center for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":312617,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[139,141,140],"class_list":["post-312616","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312616","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=312616"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312616\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/312617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=312616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=312616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=312616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}