The Jacksonville Day Resource Center at City Rescue Mission along State Street is on schedule to open in July, according to Terrance Ashanta-Barker, director of the City's Neighborhoods Department.
Barker made the comments after a discussion on Downtown homeless issues that featured advocates from the City and local social service providers, hosted by Downtown Vision Inc. The meeting served as an update on programs already in place and the progress of the City's proposed center.
Ashanta-Barker said the center will allow service providers to better serve the homeless population.
"To house the most vulnerable, you have to know them well enough to know what it takes to get them off the street," he said.
Dawn Gilman, Emergency Services and Homeless Coalition of Jacksonville CEO, said the last time a census of homeless people in the Downtown area was conducted, about 400 people were counted as living unsheltered.
That number has not significantly changed, she said Friday.
Gilman said since the census was conducted between 4-6 a.m., three consecutive days, the people who were counted qualified as what the federal government defines as "chronically homeless."
She said despite the availability of shelters at four locations in or near Downtown, people who live on the street do not take advantage of the shelters mainly for two reasons: they can't tolerate the shelter environment or there is no room in the shelters.
"Downtown shelters remain at 90 percent or more capacity and transitional housing is at 93 percent or more of capacity. We have a lot of people who are homeless and we have a lot of housing inventory, but it's full," Gilman said.
Sulzbacher Center CEO Cindy Funkhouser said the demographics of the homeless population have changed because of a slow economy.
"The fastest-growing segment is families with children. Of the 340 men, women and children at Sulzbacher, 200 are women and children. It's a complete change," she said.
Funkhouser said the center has 120 families on the waiting list for shelter and at least 65 single people are turned away each day.
"To say the need is crushing would be an understatement," she said.
Twenty-five percent of homeless people in North Florida are veterans of military service. A program launched in November 2011 specifically to serve that group has met its initial goal.
Shannon Nazworth, executive director of Ability Housing of Northeast Florida, said the "100 Homes" program has placed 107 people, mostly veterans, in permanent supportive housing. The local effort is part of a national campaign to provide stable housing and case management for 100,000 formerly homeless people.
Gilman said on the national level, the goal is to have no homeless veterans and no chronically homeless people by December 2015. On the local level, that would mean finding permanent housing for 49 more people each month until the deadline.
"It's going to be difficult to find that capacity in the existing system. We can't do it now, but it can be reached," she said.
Gilman said a day center has been on the coalition's 10-year plan "for more than 15 years" and it will be a first step toward solving the issue for many people because it allows advocates to establish regular contact with clients.
In addition to providing lunch Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, the center will be a place where homeless people can shower and wash clothes.
"We want to make the day center a place homeless people will come to so we can find them again. This is a pilot program. We assume we know what people will come for – let's make sure," she said.
Tillis DeVaughn, the City's lead project manager, said opening the day center could reduce the homeless population in Hemming Plaza, which has become an issue for many Downtown business owners, residents and visitors.
"We will engage people at Hemming Plaza and encourage them to use the day center. It's working in the direction of change," he said.
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