As homelessness spikes, Tampa Bay campsites become temporary refuge

RUSKIN — Some days, Angela Wieczorek and Jacob Stell felt like they were on vacation. Then the rain would beat down, flooding the couple’s industrial blue tent.

They’d come to the Ruskin campsite after money for hotels dried up.

For half a year now, the couple has packed up their lives every two weeks, shuffling from campsite to campsite after losing their home.

“As soon as you start getting settled, it’s time to go again,” said Stell, 30, outside their lot at E.G. Simmons Park.

As costs rise in Tampa Bay, more residents are navigating homelessness. Some end up camping in county parks, sleeping next to luxury RVs while struggling to make car payments or save up for their next move.

Camping offers people who lack housing an appealing — and affordable — alternative to sleeping in motels or cars. For $24 a night, a person sleeping in a tent can stay at one of Hillsborough County’s five campgrounds for up to two weeks. Then, they must pack up and find another place to stay.

“Everything is going up,” said Betty Ramer, a 51-year-old who lost her house earlier this year. “This is cheaper than almost anything.”

Seniors and people with young kids, like Stell and Wieczorek, are particularly vulnerable to homelessness.

The number of older adults who lack stable housing has jumped nearly 40% since 2018, according to a Tampa Hillsborough Homeless Initiative survey released earlier this year. Family homelessness is also on the rise, the survey found, climbing 20% in the last two years.

On a given day at Lithia Springs Conservation Park in November, roughly half of the park’s campsites would be filled with people who said they were experiencing homelessness.

Each said they moved from park to park biweekly, a game of musical chairs that had grown increasingly competitive with peak camping season underway.

“I missed my visit with my kids two weeks ago because it took us all day trying to find somewhere,” said Wieczorek, 32, ahead of a meeting about an emergency housing program. “I was leaving Lithia, and Medard was full. Hillsborough was full. Alafia was full. This was the only place there was, and they only had a couple of spots.”

“I don’t think it’s fair that the RVs get to stay for a month and we don’t,” added Stell. “They don’t realize we’re just going to another park.”

Hillsborough, Pinellas and Pasco counties said they do not track how many people use their campsites as temporary housing.

Ramer’s family was told by their landlord they had to move out of their Seffner house in February, after living there for almost a decade. The building had failed inspections, she said, and the owner wouldn’t pay for repairs.

The family fought the eviction in court — but they lost their case, Ramer said, and the lawsuit marked them like a stain.

Landlords of other Section 8 housing didn’t want to rent to them, if they had room at all. Eventually, Ramer lost her housing voucher.

Costs had begun to mount, even before sheriff’s deputies arrived to kick them out. The family’s water was shut off after they fell behind on payments. Three days before they were evicted in August, Ramer lost her job at a local Chinese restaurant, she said. The manager told her she reeked.

They bought a car with the money they’d saved for a security deposit and came to the parks.

“I’m behind on payments already,” said Ramer, who now drives for Uber Eats, at Lithia Springs Park. “I’m putting most of the money I make in Uber back in the tank.”

Many people staying in Hillsborough County parks spoke about the precarity that had haunted their lives in the area.

All it took was one slip.

For Laurie King, 57, and her 71-year-old husband, it was the May accident that totaled their car and sole source of shelter over the last few months.

They stayed with friends until August, when they, too, lost their apartment.

“We’ve been all over — a Walmart parking lot in Lakeland, the high school in Auburndale,” said King, 57, who had most recently come from Medard Park.

In mid-November, the small replacement car they’d bought was repossessed. They rented a U-Haul to carry their possessions into Lithia Springs Park.

They weren’t sure what they’d do when they had to pack up again.

The Tampa Bay Times has a team of reporters focusing on rising costs in our region. If you have an idea, question or story to tell, please email us at costofliving@tampabay.com.

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