The Jacksonville City Council has approved $6 million in CARES Act funding to support people experiencing homelessness.
The money will primarily go towards hotel rooms and rental assistance in an expansion of the “Pathway to Home” program the city launched to combat homelessness earlier this year.
According to documents posted with the ordinance on the City of Jacksonville’s website, most of the funds will go to the social services agency Changing Homelessness to oversee the programming.
Of the $6 million, $150,000 is budgeted for COVID testing and vaccinations for the homeless. Another $150,000 is for shelter equipment to encourage people to come off the streets and into homeless shelters.
The bulk of the money, more than $5 million, is slated to go towards temporary hotels and permanent housing for 250 people.
The funding will cover “the cost of the hotel room, additional cleaning, and on site case management,” according to a document provided by Changing Homelessness.
Jacksonville’s homeless population has been in the spotlight recently, as a tent city on a prominent LaVilla city block ballooned despite a campaign by the city to offer hotel rooms and housing services.
The tent city was shut down earlier this month due to health and safety concerns.
Data about how the pandemic may have affected the number of people who are homeless or unstably housed. But according to the latest numbers, homelessness decreased by 32% in North Florida between 2009 and 2019, but the number of unsheltered homeless - that is, people living on the street - increased, according to federal data reported by Changing Homelessness.
In 2019, there were about 1,500 people experiencing homelessness in Northeast Florida. Just over 500 of those were unsheltered.
Contact Sydney Boles at sboles@wjct.org, or on Twitter at @sydneyboles.
