MIAMI – Camillus House served the homeless Thanksgiving Day meals as it has for over six decades.
Eddie Gloria is the chief executive officer of the organization. Amid rising costs for services, he set the first increase for services in about 12 years. Miami-Dade County Homeless Trust declined to pay it.
“We’re still doing shelter, we are still doing treatment. It’s not at the levels it was before,” Gloria said. “We are just making adjustments necessary to make Camillus House sustainable.”
The negotiations were just as a new state law took effect essentially banning sleeping on the streets under threat of arrest.
Miami Beach took a homeless tax question off its November ballot prompting a clash with the County over funding contributions. The city relocated dozens of former Camillus House residents to hostel in South Beach.
“The timing looked horrible. It certainly wasn’t intentional, but it looked bad. I talked about it. We stopped sending people to that site because of the optics of it,” Miami Mayor Francis Suarez said.
There is no shortage of good-willed people working against homelessness. The question remains, who and how to pay for those rising costs?
“More than anything else it’s a search for reasonableness,” Gloria said.
Suarez agreed.
“We have to come together,” Suarez said. “We have to work together. We’re on the same team and we have the same mission.”