By Joseph Wiedeman, Interning Correspondent for The Apopka Voice
In Summary:
At a town hall at The Well Activity Center, Nesta proposed an organization-led resource center that could bring local services together. Providers described the assistance they already offer and identified transportation as a barrier for people seeking help. Several participants supported greater coordination while cautioning that an earlier effort did not produce the promised results.
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People who feed, provide services, and help others find a path out of homelessness came to The Well Activity Center at The Patmos Church with a question: If the city brings its work under one roof, will it follow through? Apopka Mayor Nick Nesta invited them and the community together to help shape a resource center. Their answers mixed hope for what it could become with memories of plans that never took hold.
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The town hall, held last Thursday, focused almost entirely on using public input to assess what resources different organizations were already providing to people in need. Nesta wanted to better understand how each organization’s “resource pie” could contribute to an eventual resource center run by a third-party umbrella organization.
“We want the experts in the field to run this, a one-stop shop for all these issues,” Nesta said in his opening remarks. “The goal is not to arrest away homelessness or make this Nick Nesta’s anything; you guys are the experts in this, and I want you to run it.”
Some of those experts welcomed the conversation. Others had heard a similar proposal before and wanted to know what would make this effort different.
Dr. Phyllis Olmstead from Hope of Apopka.
The gathering brought out several prominent organizations that do work for those in need, including Hope of Apopka, a grassroots connection of nonprofits, churches and volunteers. Dr. Phyllis Olmstead, representing the group, said it had sent a list of services to both the Nesta administration and the Police Department.
“I expressed in my survey and some communication since then that the previous mayor (already) tried this,” Olmstead said in a call following the meeting. “And it failed, a complete catastrophe that lost hundreds of thousands of dollars.”
Olmstead pointed to a meeting in July 2023, when 26 different organizations came together to brainstorm potential solutions. She said money earmarked for a possible resource facility was instead used to help balance the city budget.
Scott Billue of Matthew's Hope.
“Many years ago several local organizations, including myself and Kelly, wanted to get together and have a forum and First Baptist Church decided they would be the foundation of it,” Olmstead elaborated. “Well, the 501(c)3 got messed up and lost, not renewed. The mayor was on their board and the whole thing became ugly.”
Kelly Eichner, who started Hope of Apopka out of her one-bedroom apartment, is wary of what a resource center might promise before it is ready to deliver.
“You can’t promise somebody and do absolutely nothing,” Eichner said. “I work a full-time job, sometimes two, but I make sure they get fed. Please don’t promise them the world and then not do anything for them.”
Apopka resident Sylvester Hall with Apopka Mayor Nick Nesta in the background.
Matthew’s Hope founder Scott Billue spoke about the services his organization could provide and the difficulty of helping people move out of poverty.
“We’re really learning how to do more with less,” Billue said. “The city has talked about this before; they haven’t tried it before. The previous administration talked about it for years before I called out the Mayor.”
Billue added that Matthew’s Hope emphasizes rehabilitation and tries to dispel common stigmas about people experiencing homelessness.
Virginia Street of Compassion in Apopka.
“If we were having these conversations 5 years ago, we probably wouldn't be having them now,” Billue continued. “We need to be working on not further enabling these people and looking at how we can effectively create change.”
Others saw an opportunity in the fact that the city had gathered service providers in one room. Virginia Street, representing Compassion in Apopka, spoke alongside a man who shared his experience of poverty.
“This is the first time we had a town hall concerning this; I see hope with this administration,” Street said. “It’s time for us to unify this city, I really believe this is a time to move forward with no more time for talkin, time to get walkin.”
Pastor David Schorejs of First Baptist Church of Apopka.
SALT Outreach offered a measure of the local need it sees. Eric Camarillo said 283 unique individuals had relied on its services this year. The organization is in its second year of outdoor operations in Apopka and has served about four times as many people as last year, he said.
“Some of them may have come to us once, some may have come to us ten or twenty times,” Camarillo said in a call. “There’s a good number of people experiencing homelessness in Apopka; they have always lived in Apopka, and Apopka’s home for them. They don’t want to explore or see something else.”
Camarillo further explained that one of the biggest barriers people experiencing homelessness face in getting help is transportation, which is why SALT has focused on bringing services to them in Apopka.
“The design in Apopka is a fully outside model, where everything we do is basically done in an empty field,” Camarillo explained. “Whatever Mayor Nesta decides, with our model we can customize it in a way to increase the capacity of the facility.”
Pastor David Schorejs of First Baptist Church of Apopka closed out the public comment by saying his church would be willing to help with the city’s future efforts.
“If anybody thinks a one-stop-shop will alleviate homelessness in the community, it's not realistic,” Schorejs said of the proposed approach. “Don’t make promises you’re not gonna keep; our problem with the Next Step Foundation was we just couldn’t ever get the city to take the step to be fully involved.”
A questionnaire distributed to the audience asked organizations what services they offer and whether they believe a one-stop-shop is the right approach.
“I don’t want to add any more politics,” Nesta said in closing. “I want to work behind the scenes and get you as far as you're willing to go.”
Key Points:
- Nesta said he wants service providers to lead a proposed resource center.
- Local organizations described their existing programs and how they might work together.
- SALT Outreach reported serving 283 unique individuals through its Apopka operation this year.
- Providers identified transportation and sustained city involvement as challenges.
- Several speakers urged the city to make realistic commitments and follow through.
PHOTOS BY ISABEL LECOMPTE (@ISASBEL.LECOMPTE), INTERNING PHOTOGRAPHER FOR THE APOPKA VOICE.
