ORLANDO, Fla. – The proposal to open a large homeless shelter in Orlando’s SoDo district continues to engender intense criticism.
That criticism was on display Monday night, as a few dozen residents got together for an informal meeting to discuss their concerns with both the plan and the process in which it’s been proposed.
“There’s zero transparency,” said Octavian Cantilli, who lives in the area and started a website objecting to the shelter’s opening.
Cantilli and his neighbors have argued that shelter could lead to harmful downstream effects in their community. For example, they said, people who do not comply with the shelter’s rules could end up lingering on the sidewalks and streets of their neighborhood.
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They also claimed the city of Orlando has shared little to no information about plans for the shelter in the months since the city and Orange County entered into an agreement that established the plan.
Back in November 2024, the county agreed to lease vacant space in the Work Release Center on West Kaley Street to the city for $1 per year for seven years.
The interlocal agreement states that this was for the “specific purpose of providing a low barrier homeless shelter contingent upon the Orlando City Council notifying the county of its final decision to open a homeless shelter at the site after the city conducts appropriate community engagement and reaches community consensus.”
Much of Monday night’s meeting focused on residents’ complaints that the community engagement has been lacking. They questioned whether that means the agreement has already been violated.
“There are a lot of questions that haven’t been answered,” said Mayra Uribe, an Orange County commissioner who represents District 3, which includes the SoDo district.
Uribe attended the meeting to listen to her constituents’ concerns and advise them to keep pressing elected officials of both the city and county.
“I think everybody in here is sympathetic [to the homeless population],” Uribe said. “But they’re frustrated because they don’t know what’s coming to their own neighborhood.”
News 6 reached out to the city of Orlando and received this response late Monday night:
“The City of Orlando is still evaluating the site on Kaley Street to determine if it is feasible to make necessary upgrades and renovations to ensure the facility can serve as a shelter. If the assessment confirms that the facility is viable, we will begin a series of public outreach opportunities to begin the conversation of what locating a shelter in this location will mean and how we can work with residents and businesses in the area to provide this much needed service for our community’s unhoused individuals.”
For many in the room Monday, this week’s meeting served as just a prelude to their meeting in exactly one week, when they’re expecting a city commissioner to attend.
