Seminole’s Warley Park — is this the new model for homeless housing?

Jun. 27--On what was once labeled a "nuisance" property near Seminole High School in Sanford, a for-profit developer has started building what some consider the model for future homeless housing in Central Florida.

Warley Park is a $20 million, 81-unit apartment complex that will be home to 41 chronically homeless individuals and 40 homeless families with on-site support services -- including counseling, case workers and educational programs. It's slated to open early next year.

What makes it different is not its mission -- several developments in Orange County and one in Osceola already provide long-term housing for the homeless -- but rather its appearance and the money behind it.

"The place is going to look like a building in downtown Orlando where more affluent people would live," said Mark Brewer, president and CEO of the Central Florida Foundation, a community nonprofit that encourages strategic philanthropy and innovation. "It'll look like The Mayflower [Retirement Community] in Winter Park, where you have all elderly people with access to various health care and other needs -- only in this case it'll be for homeless [people] and the services they need."

Like Orlando's $27.4 million, 166-unit Village on Mercy, slated to start leasing at the end of summer, and the $20 million, 96-unit Woodwinds Apartments in Clermont, opened last fall, Warley Park is part of a growing trend to make housing developments aimed at helping the homeless indistinguishable from market-rate properties, at least in appearance.

"Quite frankly, we've very picky," said Shannon Nazworth, president and CEO of Ability Housing, the nonprofit developer for Village on Mercy, where half of the units will be reserved for the formerly homeless. "We really look at the aesthetics and the closet space and storage space in the units. We consider what we'd want if we lived there."

Most of the new developments are built for a mix of income levels, from below poverty level to middle class. The strategy prevents the concentration of poverty and helps projects win approval from local governments that might otherwise be besieged by not-in-my-back-yard complaints. Even Warley Park, devoted entirely to the formerly homeless, will have tenants with varying resources, including some with disability benefits, Social Security, veteran benefits and jobs.

"When we first brought our plans to the county, the response was, 'This is great! We love the idea! But can you find another jurisdiction to put it in?'" said Jonathan Wolf, president and founder of Wendover Housing Partners, which is building Warley Park.

Wolf assured the county the development would be built to the same specifications as the company's market-rate communities. "This will not be a homeless shelter," he said. "This is a $20 million investment for a piece of property where people were dumping trash."

The development will feature one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments in three buildings -- one for single adults, one for families and a clubhouse that can be used for meals, fitness classes and meetings, as well as a classroom for educational programs. Each apartment will have full-size washers and dryers, ceiling fans, walk-in and linen closets, window blinds and kitchen islands. Rents will average about $700 a month -- well below Sanford's $1,159 average -- paid for largely through government housing vouchers.

The development also will be the first to tap a new Homeless Impact Endowment Fund -- established at the Central Florida Foundation -- to pay for those on-site services. The fund combines contributions from businesses, individuals, charities and the faith community and invests them for the long-term.

"We're entering a point where the private sector is going to have to take a stronger role in this process, because there may not be enough government funds going forward, and we won't be able to wait around for the government to fix that," Brewer said.

As Warley Park held its groundbreaking ceremony earlier this month, Brewer was announcing the launch of the impact fund, aimed at raising millions of dollars that can care for people with disabilities -- including serious mental illness -- who need support services for the rest of their lives. Extensive research has shown that without that kind of support, many of those chronically homeless people will not remain stably housed, even when their rent is covered.

Instead, they'll wind up back on the streets, in hospital emergency rooms or in jail.

"This endowment allows investors to make a one-time [contribution] that will then last forever," Brewer said. The Central Florida Commission on Homelessness is charged with the actual fundraising, he noted. "But they won't have to go back out every year to raise money to support the families that'll be in this development. They just have to do this once."

Not that it's expected to be easy. Brewer estimates that, for Warley Parka alone, an endowment of at least $4 million will be necessary to ensure there's enough money in perpetuity. And once that amount is raised, more funds will be needed for other future homeless housing developments.

But David Swanson, senior pastor at First Presbyterian Church of Orlando and chairman of the Central Florida Commission on Homelessness, said the step is essential.

"In the absence of a sustainable source of funding [for these services], we have to get creative. And this is one example of what we need," he said. "If people are starting to have heartburn about that, go look at what's happening in Los Angeles and San Francisco and all along the West Coast. They don't have a [united] strategy, and you can see the result."

In Los Angeles County, Kaiser Health News reported in April, "a record number of homeless people -- 918 last year alone -- are dying across [the] county, on bus benches, hillsides, railroad tracks and sidewalks."

The number of deaths rose 76 percent over the past five years, outpacing the growth rate of the homeless population, which soared to 53,000 in 2018, most of them living on the streets or alongside the region's concrete riverbeds.

By contrast, in Central Florida, the latest homeless census counted 2,010 people, including 102 who have completed the region's application process and are ready to move into their own place -- if only a place were available.

"We're grateful for all the developers -- for-profit, nonprofit, everyone -- who heard about this huge need and are willing to step up," said Martha Are, executive director of the Homeless Services Network of Central Florida. "Our system doesn't work if we don't have that support."

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