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Camillus House reduces emergency shelter beds amid rising costs

 A person sleeps inside a makeshift shelter on park bench
Rebecca Blackwell
/
AP
A person sleeps inside a makeshift shelter on park bench in downtown Miami, late Thursday, Jan. 25, 2024.

Changes are underway at Camillus House, the largest organization that cares for South Florida's homeless population.
 
Its main building near UM-Jackson was originally built with 68 emergency shelter beds. In recent years, that number has spiked to over 300.
 
Now, CEO Eddie Gloria is taking steps to reduce those beds, saying the Miami-Dade Homeless Trust, which funds much of the shelter’s operations, needs to pay more per bed, amid rising costs. The Homeless Trust told the Miami Herald that's not going to happen.
 
Gloria says Camillus House has been stretched past capacity for too long.
 
"Camillus House is an organization that has been here nearly 65 years. We’ve been through the economic changes, the political upheavals in Miami, we’ve been through the fires, through the riots, we’ve been in the parts of town that nobody wanted to be in. To protect the sustainability and the viability of a system like that is priority one," Gloria said.

Over 100 emergency shelter beds have been removed already — but other shelters have coordinated to pick up some of the slack.

READ MORE: Mental health facility will help with anti-homeless law, says judge

This is a News In Brief report. Visit WLRN News for in-depth reporting from South Florida and Florida news.

Daniel Rivero is part of WLRN's new investigative reporting team. Before joining WLRN, he was an investigative reporter and producer on the television series "The Naked Truth," and a digital reporter for Fusion. He can be reached at drivero@wlrnnews.org
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