News

Downtown Jacksonville temporary homeless shelter closes Wednesday

Jacksonville, FL. — The temporary Bridge homeless shelter the City of Jacksonville opened in early March is now set to close Wednesday.

The shelter was opened after the city cleared the Jefferson Street ‘tent city’ and fenced it up. It had space for up to 150 cots with bathrooms and showers housed in a portable trailer outside.

In a statement, a representative said, “many [people] have already been placed in more permanent housing and dozens of others are working with case workers.”

Exact numbers were not yet available at the time this story was published.

City Rescue Mission is operating the shelter. In early March, the organization told Action News Jax’s Robert Grant it had up to 40 beds for women, 20 for men, and 4 for families available. A representative has not yet updated that number.

Some community activists are concerned about what will happen after the facility closes.

“The people will be dispersed back into the community,” Brennan Reed said. “We all thought we were working toward a positive step toward advancement on this; and we were taking one step forward and two steps back the whole time.”

He said several organizations are now working together to open another similar shelter to replace the Bridge shelter.

He said it’s unclear exactly how many people are at the temporary shelter and many activists have been kept in the dark over plans on what’s being done next to curb the problem.

“We’re not giving up on them no matter what happens.”