NOTE: This story was originally published on the Oviedo Community News website
Jan. 29 was a pivotal day in Rodney’s life.
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He was at the corner of State Road 434 and U.S. Highway 17-92 in Longwood, just outside the border of Winter Springs, when workers doing an annual count of the nation’s homeless population interviewed him. He told volunteers he had been homeless since 2019 and that his issues started after getting hit as a pedestrian by a vehicle.
Rodney was one of the 436 people in Seminole County who were counted as homeless on the night of Jan. 27, according to figures released Friday. What’s more, he got on a waiting list for permanent supportive housing.
[RELATED: Stories about homelessness in Central Florida]
But after getting counted, Rodney said police approached him for panhandling and arrested him because he’d been trespassed from the intersection three times before. Ultimately, Rodney was charged with trespassing and possession of drug paraphernalia for having a pipe that tested positive for marijuana, according to police.
“So right then and there you can see what’s really happening to people that are temporarily displaced,” Rodney said. “You got people that want to house you, and people that really want to house you,” a reference to jail.
“Both sides won that day,” Rodney added.
Oviedo Community News is not fully identifying the individuals arrested or trespassed in this story because the arrests alone would not have been covered before the law banning sleeping and camping on public property went into full effect. The Longwood Police Department said that the intersection where Rodney allegedly panhandled is dangerous for pedestrians and people panhandling.
That tension between law enforcement and people experiencing homelessness is on the rise in Florida after a law went into full effect in January, banning camping on public property or streets. And advocates who work with the homeless population said it’s impacting the homeless count.
Every year, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development conducts the Point-in-Time Count: a nationwide survey, conducted locally over three days, to count the number of people who were experiencing homelessness on a single night. The count is an important tool, not just to see how the region’s population is changing, but it’s also used to help leverage federal and state funding.
The annual count of people experiencing homelessness in Seminole County increased slightly in 2025, according to figures released Friday by the Homeless Services Network of Central Florida.
The total number of people experiencing homelessness in Seminole County went from 420 to 436, a 3.8% increase. But that figure includes people sleeping in emergency shelters and transitional housing.
But the number of unsheltered homeless – what people think of as street homeless – actually dropped slightly, from 163 people in 2024 to 156 people in 2025.
Martha Are, CEO of the Homeless Services Network of Central Florida, said the count always misses people. But she said HB 1365 is driving the homeless population deeper into the woods and making them less likely to volunteer to be counted.
“We know part of the reason we’re having challenges finding people was because of the implementation of the state bill, the anti-camping, anti-sleeping bill, which has led to people intentionally trying to find places to be that can’t be found,” Are said. “The camping ban has heightened that significantly.”
Looking back, Seminole County has seen a 159% increase in the total homeless population from the low in 2023 to 2025. Back in 2023, just 43 people were counted as unsheltered in Seminole County, versus 156 this year
Rodney said things have felt different since HB 1365, the ban on public camping, went into full effect.
“It shouldn’t be, like, OK, everywhere you go, you’re going to jail,” Rodney said. “You’re punishing me for nothing.”
[STORY CONTINUES BELOW]
‘It’s like a ghost town’
It’s a cold Tuesday in January – 52 degrees and raining.
Denise Edwards, outreach specialist with Aspire Health Partners, is surveying parts of Oviedo and Winter Springs ahead of the Point-in-Time Count next week.
She’s looking for camps of people experiencing homelessness. She and her team drive a plain white van, heading down State Road 434 from the western border of Winter Springs.
On that morning, Edwards stopped at 7-Eleven and Wawa gas stations, checked out a few wooded areas around the Oviedo mall. She stopped at The Church @ 434 in Winter Springs and dropped off business cards because the property has a large wooded area behind it.
Near the church, the van pulls off of State Road 434, near the intersection of State Road 419. She spotted what looked like a path that was trampled into the woods from the road.
Edwards crunches through the overgrowth, wearing grey sweats and a ballcap. But it’s a bust – no one is living in the woods here.
“You’d be able to see trash, when you’re in here, blue tarps, even structures, because a lot of time they build wood structures for themselves,” Edwards said. “I don’t think this is an active camp.”
Homeless Services Network doesn’t allow reporter ridalongs during the Point-in-Time Count because they don’t want to dissuade people from being counted. But, interviewed in between stops during the actual count, Edwards had a similar experience in Seminole County as she did the week prior.
“We just haven’t been able to find as many people as we thought,” Edwards said. “That’s surprising. It’s like a ghost town. We were lucky to find that last camp along 17-92. I did see a potential spot in Winter Springs close to the Publix, but it looked like it might have been cleaned out.”
Police: ‘We’re not playing with this’
A little more than a month later, the camp that Edwards said she was lucky to find no longer exists because Seminole County police departments are beginning to crack down on homeless encampments.
On March 1, deputies with the sheriff’s office visited a homeless camp on Raven Park property, at U.S. Highway 17-92 and Raven Avenue in the Longwood area. It’s just north of The Sharing Center, a nonprofit that provides services to people experiencing homelessness.
Ten people received trespass warnings, which meant they could be arrested if they were found on the public property again. That was on Saturday. On Monday, two days later, officers came back and found a man named Daniel still living in a tent.
In police body camera footage obtained by Oviedo Community News, the deputy walks through the encampment, looking in tents and under tarps. Overflowing trash cans, discarded tents and camping chairs litter the woods.
Trash and debris can be seen in the homeless encampment in Seminole County. – Screenshot via Seminole County Sheriff’s Department body camera footage.
Daniel told deputies he was just going to start moving.
“My apologies, I mean no disrespect, I mean no disrespect,” Daniel said to the deputy. “I just don’t want to get arrested, that’s all.”
“You were given multiple days, my man,” the deputy replies. “We’re not playing with this [expletive] no more, dude. You didn’t even move anything. It would have been one thing if you had moved some stuff, but you clearly moved nothing. So you clearly don’t care about it.”
While they put Daniel in handcuffs, he turned to the deputy.
“They said I was able to make an appeal, so I was just waiting to go down there and sign the paperwork, that’s all,” Daniel said.
Daniel was put in handcuffs and walked out of the camp. He was detained for trespassing, a misdemeanor charge. When deputies searched him, they allegedly found a lighter and a plastic baggie that police said tested positive for methamphetamines, a third-degree felony charge.
The sheriff’s department said the encampment was targeted because it was visible from the roads.
‘Don’t treat spirits like trash’
For Rodney, who was arrested on the day of the Point-in-Time Count, he tries to keep a positive attitude.
When Oviedo Community News interviewed Rodney, he was sleeping outside near a retention pond on a sheet of cardboard. He said some nights he sleeps in doorways or bus stops. For a while, he slept in a tent near a business, but had to move.
“You wake up every day and thank god you’re alive and nothing bad happened in the night,” Rodney said. “Pack up your site, make sure you leave it cleaner than you found it. Find a place to wash your face and get something to eat.”
Tucked among the Aldi grocery store canvas bags and backpacks and trash bags and loose bedding that make up his belongings is a well-worn bible, post-it notes sticking out of the top.
He turns to the book of Jeremiah, his favorite verse: Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.
“So many people in the world think good riddance, that’s OK. It’s really not,” Rodney said. “Don’t treat spirits like trash. Don’t treat people like trash. Have that heart.”
He tears up at the thought of getting into permanent supportive housing, a program that would limit his rent to one-third of his income and get him wrap-around services.
“This is a lifetime project: Me, you know what I’m saying? So I gotta go back into me and rewire and reboot it,” Rodney said. “This is giving me a leg up on starting my life over again to where I could be more successful than the last time out.”
