The city of Kissimmee wants to — and has funding to — develop help for the homeless.
And it wants to do it on its own terms.
Rather than select one of three groups who have made proposals to operate an emergency shelter or bridge housing, City Commissioners chose to be the owner-operators of a facility to be built.
Over the last few months, proposals came in from the Church and Community Assistance program and Ability Housing, who each asked for $9.6 million coming from federal funds like CARES Act, to help communities get past the COVID-19 pandemic. The Salvation Army, which has a service center a few blocks northeast of downtown Kissimmee, requested $12 million. But a city committee that reviewed the proposals noted problems with each of their fundamentals.
Rather than accept a flawed proposal, the City Commission at its last meeting chose not to accept any of the three and instead develop and construct a city-owned facility — without discussing a timeline.
The vote was far from unanimous, with a 3-2 vote. Commissioners Felix Ortiz and Carlos Alvarez III voted against it. They wanted to move forward with the Salvation Army plan, to which they made and seconded a motion, followed by heated discussion between them and Mayor Olga Gonzalez — who was a leader for Church and Community Assistance before getting elected in 2020. The argument only subsided when City Attorney Olga Sanchez de Fuentes reminded them they had to vote on the motion. It was denied by the same 3-2 vote as the one for the city to delay action and develop the facility itself.
“We told people we would take action,” Ortiz said. “We’ve been at this for a year, and we’re still here talking about it. As a Commission we should do the right thing. Doing nothing is a mistake.”
Alvarez said the vote for the Salvation Army was a move to take action for families in need.
“We’ve got to move forward, people need services today,” he said. “The Salvation Army has 150 years of experience at this.”
Fisher said the action taken puts the city in the best position to tackle this issue.
Owning the asset is a positive for the city in the long term,” he said.
Neither the city of Kissimmee, or Osceola County proper for that matter, currently have any transitional housing or official homeless shelters.
