It is a common sight across South Florida: Homeless people roam the streets and major intersections, trying to survive each day off donations from people passing by. Some carry signs to bring others to donate money or food. Most sleep in public areas – benches, bus stops or highway underpasses. Some, however, live in hotels or vehicles, but do not have a house of their own. However, organizations such as Camillus House have assisted countless homeless individuals and given them shelter and assistance.
Yuly Rivera, who is currently living in Verde Gardens, a supportive housing area for formerly homeless families operated by Camillus House, shared her story of struggle and success as someone who was formerly unhoused.
In an interview at her home in Homestead, she shared that she had lost her house in 2014, after divorcing her ex-husband, who was abusive and threatened her and her children. Following her divorce, as well as struggles with drug usage from a young age, she worked as an Uber driver and as a cosmetologist to support herself and her family.
“So I sold everything from the house I used to live in,” Rivera said. “And the moment I sold everything, I went to a hotel.”
While raising her four children and living paycheck to paycheck by paying for stays at different hotels in 2016, she was informed about Camillus House as a place for shelter, with Yuly sharing the impact of her experience of homelessness on her mental health, saying that she weighed 80 pounds due to stress.
“It was like my mental health, everything, was going down,” said Rivera. “I was so skinny that everyone in the shelter said I was sick.”
Soon after, her ex-husband passed away at the age of 34 from a drug overdose.
Yuly shared that while taking care of her children, she wanted to have a permanent place to stay and help her family. After three years of spending time in an apartment at Camillus House, she was given the opportunity to move into a a temporary house in Homestead with her and her four children.
Large non-profit organizations such as Camillus House and the Miami-Dade County Homeless Trust have continued assisting the homeless population by bringing them to shelters and granting them temporary and permanent housing. This effort has recently paid off, with the Miami-Dade Homeless Trust sharing its most recent Homelessness Census numbers, which are currently at 858 unsheltered individuals in Miami-Dade County.
According to the Trust, which released its results last February, the total number of individuals who are both in homeless shelters and currently unsheltered is 3,728, and 77 percent of the homeless population is sheltered.
However, controversial government legislation passed by the Florida Senate and Governor Ron DeSantis last year has been an issue for homeless individuals across Florida. House Bill 1365, approved in March 2024, bans counties from allowing homeless encampments in public spaces and prohibits sleeping on public property such as parks, sidewalks, or other outdoor areas.
Despite the criticism that the legislation has received, Ron Book, the chairman of the Miami-Dade County Homeless Trust and a lobbyist in Tallahassee, said that he hopes that the organization will continue to help homeless individuals and that the numbers will continue to decrease through the Trust’s outreach.
Book said that his organization will continue to work aggressively to help get people off of the streets, and to implement new shelter beds and give new housing opportunities to homeless individuals.
He also stated that organizations such as Camillus House and the Homeless Trust have tried to adapt to the new law passed by DeSantis and the Florida Senate by increasing their resources and trying to get unhoused people off the streets.
“I think as long as we continue to find the resources to stand up navigation centers and additional shelter beds, we will continue to see a further decline in unhoused and unsheltered homelessness in our community.”
Finally, he said that as chairman, he hopes that the Homeless Trust will continue its mission and assist as many people as possible, and that eventually, homelessness will end.
“We will see an end to homelessness in the next two to three years,” said Book. “Our community is a caring, loving community that works to help better opportunities for mankind.”
With homeless outreach being a major factor in reducing the number of homeless people in Florida, specific programs by homeless prevention organizations have been put in place to help assist homeless people in their daily lives.
Katherine Martinez, the senior vice president of Programs at Camillus House and a board member of the Miami Dade County Homeless Trust, said that the organization seeks to offer help whenever possible. This would be done through various methods, such as street outreach teams that would provide permanent housing or temporary shelter by assisting unhoused people with drug addictions or mental health conditions.
“The purpose of those teams are to build rapport, to eventually get someone to trust them enough to decide whether or not they want to be medicated on the street and eventually be offered placement into either a shelter or permanent supportive housing,”
One such program that Camillus House operates is the Lazarus Project, which sends outreach teams to the streets of Miami to assist unhoused individuals and give long-term assistance through building trust with repeated meetings and outreach, such as sharing medication or food. Martinez shared that this program has been successful overall.
“That long-term engagement, that building, that trust has allowed us to move folks from the streets into housing,” she said. “And we’ve been very successful at it.”
She shared her thoughts on the reduced homeless census numbers and HB 1365, saying that she was uncertain of the future statistics regarding the homeless census due to the increased cost of living in Miami, as well as other factors such as low disability payments for the elderly.
“As far as the numbers continuing to come down, that remains to be seen, only because rents continue to go up,” she said. “Our elderly are still only receiving nine hundred and something dollars a month for disability, and they can’t keep up with the increasing rent.”
Finally, Martinez stated that the organization has moved away from emergency shelter and towards permanent housing and mental health treatment, to end the cycle of homelessness and deal with the root of the problem.
Rivera, however, hopes to move on from her current position at a permanent house in Homestead and buy a home in Cape Coral. She seeks to give other women the same opportunity that she had, and believes that if she could improve her life over time, others could too.
“Now I’m working, helping other women to make a better life,” she said. “Because if I did this, everyone can do this.”
