“Homelessness can be ended, but only when we design services and supports to meet the needs of vulnerable people and meet those individuals where they are,” wrote Jon Decarmine in his executive summary.
“With the opening of a new low-barrier emergency shelter, the City of Pensacola has an unprecedented opportunity to shift the community’s response away from managing homelessness and toward ending it.”
Decarmine is the executive director of the Grace Marketplace in Gainesville, Fla. He spoke at CivicCon and was hired by Mayor D.C. Reeves to produce a service plan for implementing a low-barrier emergency shelter in our area.
According to his report, the proposed shelter should be designed specifically to address the needs of the 500+ unsheltered homeless individuals identified in Escambia and Santa Rosa counties during the 2024 point-in-time survey (Opening Doors Northwest Florida,2024).
“This population is more visible, more vulnerable, and less able to access services than any other population,” Decarmine said. “Failure to address the needs of long-term unsheltered homeless populations creates ongoing problems for service providers and newly homeless individuals.”
He recommends the shelter should initially accommodate between 60 and 100 individuals. The total annual operating costs for the shelter range from $2.19 million (60 beds) to $3.47 million (100 beds), with the expectation that the operator of the shelter will raise about 20% of the total operating costs through private fundraising and in-kind donations.