Jacksonville council introduces $1 million for homeless trust fund

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Jacksonville City Council introduced a new bill Tuesday that would put $1 million into a homeless trust fund. Up to 15% of the money would be used for one-time payments of $1,500 for families at immediate risk of becoming or who recently became homeless.

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“People that are showing up at an agency saying if something doesn’t happen today, my family is going to be homeless. It may be rent,” explained Council President Ron Salem.

According to the Duval County Clerk of Courts, since January 2022 there have been more than 25,500 eviction cases filed in Duval. A closer look month-by-month showed 2023 cases outpaced 2022 every month until numbers dipped slightly lower in June. In February for example, cases more than doubled from 756 last year to 1,518 this year.

“We are in a crisis in Jacksonville. We have got to build extremely low-income, multifamily rental units as quickly as possible,” Cindy Funkhouser, the CEO of Sulzbacher Center, said.

She said that there was a total of about 3,400 homeless people in Jacksonville as of December last year. Now there’s 4,300 which is a more than 25% increase in less than a year.

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“That number tells me that our problem is getting worse. A 25% increase in that amount of time is frightening,” Funkhouser said.

However, Changing Homelessness said the problem is multi-faceted. The bill being introduced through the city council on Tuesday will only solve part of the problem. Dawn Gilman, the CEO, said it could take up to $6 million to solve chronic homelessness for 200 people in places like downtown.

“Imagine driving downtown and there are no tents and no people sleeping on the sidewalks and it is a place that looks like the healthy, wonderful place to live that we know it is,” she said.

Salem said he plans to set up a special committee on homelessness for the council to discuss the next steps.

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