Homeless services advocacy group trying to find a campus

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Homeless services advocacy group trying to find a campus

Around Osceola

Wednesday, 18 May 2011 00:00

By Brian McBride
Associate Editor
A local homeless advocacy group is currently trying to find a home to establish services that would help the local transient community.
The recently formed Osceola Homeless Roundtable, made up of mostly religious churches and organizations, is currently seeking donations and fundraising help that would enable it to purchase a location.
“We have big plans,” said Jan Demond, director of Kissimmee’s Life in the Sun Ministries, a member of the group. “Our long-term goal is to get some property and have residential and educational facilities.”
Sites are currently being researched within Osceola County for establishing a complex of buildings dedicated to housing, training and the feeding of homeless people. Some of the possible services that could be offered include general education classes, computer classes, onsite medical assistance and day care facilities.
Moreover, the group wants to set up services on campus where transients can apply for birth certificates, driver licenses, identification cards and food stamps.
“We want to be an example for other counties on what to do with the poor,” Demond said.
The ideal facility would be an empty hotel for sale along U.S. Highway 192, group officials said, so clients may move freely about for medical, job, personal training and/or personal appointments.
But it needs the help from law firms, and marketing officials to help secure the state grants needed. It also needs volunteers to help with filling out the necessary paperwork and setting up fundraising activities, Demond said.
There about 2,000 homeless people living in hotels along U.S. Highway 192, said Steven Proctor, pastor at 1st Vagabond Church of God, another member of the roundtable.
“There has to be an answer and we must address the human conditions they have to live in,” he said.
The roundtable meets monthly. To volunteer or to donate to the roundtable, call Demond at 407-033-0300 or Proctor at 407-342-4172.