Annual homeless count: How dire is it in SWFL with rents that keep skyrocketing?
Indira Ramkissoon was living the American Dream when she moved to Naples 21 years ago from New York.
She had a good job at Publix and bought a house with her partner in Golden Gate Estates. Her life crashed 18 months ago.
Congestive heart failure and diabetes forced the 54-year-old off her feet and into early retirement. Her partner also has major health issues.
The house went into foreclosure when they got about $4,000 behind on mortgage payments after Ramkissoon ran through retirement money saved from working at Publix.
One rental situation after another went south, most recently an efficiency in Golden Gate they were forced out of when they learned the electricity was faulty and never permitted.
Today Ramkissoon lives in her car and is waiting to learn if she qualifies for disability income from Social Security. She’s on the supplemental nutrition assistance program, formerly food stamps, to help along with support from Catholic Charities.
More: Collier sees big jump in homelessness due to Hurricane Ian and rising rents
Her plight is all too common in Collier County where housing costs are exorbitant and many working people and senior citizens don’t have stable rental options.
Landlords are selling properties because of the high prices they can get or jacking up rents well above what’s affordable. The average one-bedroom apartment last August in Naples was $2,748, according to Zumper, which puts out national rental reports.
“Everything is hard when you don’t have a base,” Ramkissoon said. “Because of our health, we have not been able to bounce back. We are looking to move out of state.”
More: Affordable housing crisis not easing in Southwest Florida, wages not keeping up
On Friday Ramkissoon was at the annual “point in time” survey in East Naples where the Hunger & Homeless Coalition of Collier County interview homeless individuals to get a sense of the numbers and how it has changed from the year before.
The Lee County Homeless Coalition was also doing its count and holding its 24th annual homeless service day and veterans’ stand down event Saturday at City of Palms Park in Fort Myers.
The counts are just a snapshot of what’s going on and the final numbers are probably 30% of the true number, said Michael Overway, executive director of both the Collier and Lee coalitions.
Homelessness among seniors has been ticking up year after year in Southwest Florida, and there are more single parents with kids living in cars, Overway said.
Lee County’s rental costs may be slightly lower at a median of $2,421 in Fort Myers last fall but Hurricane Ian on Sept. 28, 2022 displaced thousands of renters and the comeback is slow.
Florida has the third highest number of homeless individuals in the U.S. at roughly 27,500, according to the Florida Coalition to End Homelessness.
What happens at the homeless count events?
Volunteers for the coalitions go out to shelters, food banks, soup kitchens and the woods to reach out to the homeless to learn what caused their lives to turn upside down.
At the count in Immokalee on Thursday and on Friday behind Gulf Gate Plaza off U.S. 41 E. and Bayshore Drive, social service agencies set up booths to help connect the homeless to services.
More: Warrior Homes of Collier County hosts open house for new apartments in Naples
They could get hygiene kits, clothes, shoes, and other supplies, even haircuts. Similar help was on hand at the event at City of Palms on Saturday.
James Weinman, 66, collected new gear for living in the woods, which are his home since losing his job at the Seminole Casino in Immokalee when the COVID-19 pandemic hit.
He has a pension from when worked in New York but prefers the woods in East Naples around the Lely Resort area. On Tuesdays, he goes to Catholic Charities for some supplies.
He prefers to camp by himself but will help some others who are homeless.
“I show others the ropes,” he said, adding that its kind of a generational thing to do.
“It’s not too bad (being homeless),” he said. “I’m not complaining. I know where to hang out and where not to hang out.”
Dale Mullin, founder of Warrior Homes of Collier which serves homeless veterans, said Friday there is no easing of the housing crisis.
“Definitely the numbers are going up,” he said. “It is the seniors in particular.”
Warrior Homes has four properties with capacity to house 33 homeless veterans and the last apartments are about to get occupied at Delta House, a 10-unit apartment home that opened last fall.
The Collier County Housing Authority has been able to secure housing vouchers from Lee County to use locally while the authority works on getting vouchers for Collier, he said.
What were the numbers last year?
In Lee, the 2023 count tallied 862 homeless individuals, a 40% increase from the year before.
The results in Lee found 234 homeless seniors, 86 veterans, and 118 children.
Hurricane Ian on Sept. 28, 2022 displaced thousands who had been living on the edge before the hurricane and its brutal storm surge, in some areas of Lee up to 15 feet.
Last year’s count in Collier found 703 homeless people, which was a 52% increase from the year before of 462.
Of the total last year, 195 were seniors and 51 were veterans. That’s jump in both groups from the year earlier of 44 homeless seniors and 22 veterans in 2022.
Roughly 270 were in emergency shelters while 192 were in transitional housing and 241 were on the streets.
Overway, executive director of both coalitions, said the count in Immokalee on Thursday was eye opening with few of the chronically homeless coming for supplies.
“There were a lot of new faces,” he said, which means they are more newly homeless people. “The chronically homeless last year made up 7% of (the count).”
One of his case workers said the number of single parents living in their cars with kids is now around 160.
The expectation is the figures for the counts will show increases among both seniors and single parents when the tabulations are done, which is usually around April.
This article originally appeared on Naples Daily News: Volunteers search woods, shelters and day labor sites to tally homeless
