As Covenant House puts youth shelter on the market, advocates fear ‘tragic’ loss of beds
The nonprofit Covenant House, which closed Orange County’s only homeless shelter for youths last month, put the shuttered sanctuary up for sale this month, giving advocates a new worry.
“We can’t afford to lose shelter beds of any kind, not for adults, not youths, not temporarily and especially not forever,” said Donna Wyche of Orange County’s Division of Mental Health and Homelessness.
She said the Covenant House’s youth shelter was a critical part of the region’s safety net, offering a welcoming place for young people to get back on their feet while allowing them to stay in school.
Wyche and others who look out for the increasing number of people living in cars, tents and under bridges in Central Florida fear the property on East Colonial near an intersection with State Road 436 will be snapped up by an investor and converted to a higher value, commercial use.
She said county leaders and advocates for the homeless have been discussing options to buy Covenant House and re-open the shelter.
The 3.8-acre site, which hosts a 12,500-square-foot “specialty” building, is listed at $1.9 million.
The property has an assessed value of about $3.5 million, including an assessed land value of $2.2 million, according to the Orange County Property Appraiser’s site. The listing on loopnet.com identifies the zoning as C1, which is a commercial designation that would allow a car wash, car sales and outdoor storage.
A Home Depot and PetSmart are located across East Colonial, which is a divided highway.
Covenant House Orlando, a shelter for for homeless youths, to close in July
“We have been working — and are still working —to try to preserve that facility for use as a shelter, which is desperately needed,” said Martha Are, CEO of the Homeless Services Network of Central Florida.
She said losing a property zoned for a shelter “would be tragic” and a challenge to replace.
Covenant House Florida, based in Fort Lauderdale, launched its Orlando operation in 1996 but bought the east Orange site in 1999 for $950,000, Orange County Property Appraiser records show.
In May, a Covenant House official cited “budgetary challenges” for closing the emergency “Safe Haven” shelter in a required notice of staff layoffs to the state Department of Economic Opportunity.
Renee Trincanello, CEO of Covenant House Florida, did not respond to an email or a phone message from a reporter, but she told Orlando Sentinel columnist Scott Maxwell that her organization still hopes to sell the shelter property to someone who would continue operating it in the same spirit.
She said her board listed the property to be fiscally responsible and evaluate possibilities.
“I’m really hopeful that there will be an opportunity for us to sell to them,” she said.
Realtor Bobby Bridges declined to say whether the property has generated interest.
He referred questions to Trincanello.
Martha Are is ‘the spine’ at Homeless Services Network
Are said homelessness remains a challenge throughout Central Florida.
“Because of the steep increase in housing costs over the past two years, we’ve seen a significant rise in the number of people winding up homeless and, without shelter space and very limited affordable units, many of them are winding up on the street,” she said. “We re-house people as quickly as we can with finite resources, but the gap has been growing.”
