THE PROBLEM:

Palm Beach County has a homelessness crisis.

1. There are 4,414 homeless children in Palm Beach County (Homeless Coalition of Palm Beach County)
2. In Palm Beach County, 8,210 homeless adults accessed healthcare services in 2017 (Health Care District, Public Records Request 2017)
3. 135,510 families pay more than 50% of their income for housing. 60,306 of these families are making less than 30% AMI and of those families, 20,323 are senior citizens (Shimberg Center for Housing Studies, University of Florida)
4. 67,476 families make 30% or below the Area Median Income (AMI) - for a family of 4, this means $25,100 per year (Shimberg Center for Housing Studies, University of Florida)
5. There are only 19 affordable housing units for every 100 families making less than 30% of AMI (Shimberg Center for Housing Studies, University of Florida)
6. 42,886 families live in substandard housing – no fuel used, lacking complete kitchen facilities, lacking complete plumbing facilities, or more than 1 person per room (Shimberg Center for Housing Studies, University of Florida)
7. The Lewis Center, the only central intake and resource center for the homeless, has 66 Beds (Homeless Coalition of Palm Beach County) 

Most Recent Update:

Over the last several years, homelessness in Palm Beach County has increased but the supply of affordable housing has decreased. The County’s own plan to end homelessness called for three homeless resource centers (HRCs), but they had only built one. Two years ago, PEACE pushed the County Commissioners to open a second HRC off of Lake Worth Road. In 2019 the Commissioners agreed and construction is underway. Then in 2019 PEACE asked Commissioner McKinlay to champion a third HRC in the Glades. She agreed and in June 2020 she brought the proposal before the County Commissioners, who voted unanimously to
fund this HRC. The 3 rd HRC is slated to open in December 2020 and the 2 nd HRC is slated to open in 2022. This year the Homelessness Committee will be monitoring progress on HRC 2 and 3 to ensure both are completed on time. We are scheduling a meeting with County Administrator Verdenia Baker to follow up on this
matter and anticipate having that meeting scheduled for December.

If you are interested in joining the homelessness committee and to get updates on the campaign please contact PEACE's lead organizer Paige at 

(207)-956-1325 or [email protected]