ORLANDO, Fla. — Less people will be sleeping on Orlando streets thanks to the city’s new bus shelter program.
The two buses were unveiled Wednesday, kicking off the program called 407 Connect. It’s a joint initiative with the Christian Service Center using “Dignity Buses” to temporarily house people experiencing homelessness.
“Every single person in Orlando deserves a safe place to sleep and a chance to rebuild their lives,” said Christian Service Center’s executive director, Eric Gray.
Each bus has 21 beds, restrooms, air conditioning and storage. They can sleep 42 people in total.
“When we go through intake and assessment and somebody’s placed on the bus, they have a space on that bus until we get them housed. Whether that’s three days, three weeks, three years, they’re on the bus until we get them successfully housed,” said Gray.
With that in mind, the city hopes to help more than 400 people find permanent housing in the next three years.
“We’ve rescued over a thousand adults and children just this year and we’re on track to do more than 1,500, and this bus will continue to add to those numbers one at a time every single day,” said Gray.
407 Connect will cost about $1 million per year to operate. That’s about $33 per bed per night. Funding that comes from the Community Redevelopment Agency. With the keys officially in hand the real work begins.
“Everyone’s a priority. There’s nobody who’s not a priority,” said Gray.
Aside from housing people, leaders say they’ll take the bus to surrounding cities to show them how it works in hopes of more jumping board with to develop “Dignity Buses” to get even more people off the streets.
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