An Orlando organization that helps people experiencing homelessness has had to make a tough decision — Service and Love Together, better known as SALT, is temporarily suspending some of their direct services due to a massive loss in donations.
Eric Camarillo, executive director of SALT, was fighting back tears as he talked about it, just after he told his staff about the budget cuts and suspension of services. He said he’s worried about the people who depend on these services every day.
“There are people out here that just can't care for themselves, and they don't have anyone that can care for them. People with disabilities, seniors, 70-80 years old. It’s families with kids. It's-- it’s a lot. We have a lot of weight on our shoulders,” Camarillo said.
The grassroots organization was expecting hundreds of thousands of dollars from different sources — a big part of which fell through or got significantly delayed, forcing the organization to cut back on its donor-reliant mobile laundry and shower services downtown.
But one of the biggest concerns, Camarillo said, is the mail services. Many of the organization’s clients who are without their own mailing or residential addresses receive their mail, including forms, paychecks, disability or social security payments, food stamp cards, Medicaid information, identifications or other legal documents at the SALT location.
“We're doing 80 showers a day, 50 loads of laundry a day. We're doing mail for 400 different clients, we're storing belongings for people going on job interviews and going to work. We're charging people's phones and their devices,” Camarillo said. “It’s a lot.”
The mail service is so important, Camarillo said, that the organization plans to keep at least one staff member or volunteer at the site, but it will have to be on a part-time basis.
SALT started out feeding people in downtown Orlando on a $90,000 budget. Today, it’s a $2.75-million-dollar operation. Donations to SALT have proven well used through their work.
Since August of 2020, SALT has helped nearly ten thousand different people, providing over 300,000 services and resources. Last year, its case management team helped directly house 77 people, and, so far this year, the organization is on track to almost double that number.
This was in part possible due to federal grants and funding from Orlando and Orange County. However, the money they once got from local government sources has dried out, the ones used for the direct services, has dried out.
The organization is trying to run now despite a $600,000 deficit from city and county funding.
“It's not necessarily (Orlando and Orange County’s) fault. For the last four years, they were infused with COVID funding that was infusing us in that time period,” Camarillo said.
As funding decreases, the number of people needing help continues to grow. The Homeless Services Network of Central Florida reported last month that the count of unsheltered homelessness in the region has more than doubled in the last year.
“We ran close to the wire this year, because we wanted to continue to at least maintain services, as we see unsheltered homelessness double in the area,” Camarillo said. “With unsheltered homelessness doubling, logically, you would think that our resources need to double, too, right? Because we need to keep up with that need. But that's not what's happening.”
The SALT offices in Orlando are in a building in the back lot of the Christian Service Center in Orlando. Executive Director Eric Gray said SALT is an “emerging powerhouse” in homeless services, so its absence will be felt, but he has full confidence in Camarillo and his staff.
“In this business of helping our community, these kinds of changes are not uncommon. They will adjust; I have no doubt. This is just a hiccup. (Camarillo) and his staff are some of the most ambitious and energetic groups of people that we've ever worked with,” Gray said.
SALT is not the only local organization experiencing financial hardships. Last month, Gray’s Christian Service Center made a call for more support from local government, saying faith-based and nonprofit organizations can’t continue bearing the brunt of the work alone.
In October, the Homeless Services Network of Central Florida, an agency funded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, held their first-ever fundraiser in 30 years.
According to Gray, this situation has to do with the decrease in COVID-based funding, especially for a hygiene-based mission like SALT’s, as well as the skyrocketing increase in the region’s homelessness numbers and poverty needs that lack social and government support.
“SALT has been doing a great job adjusting to the end of a COVID era of funding in a way that some other organizations haven’t had to,” Gray said. “But this isn’t just funding, this is a social services issue because the wealth gap in the U.S. continues to increase, housing continues to decrease, and homelessness is increasing rapidly. We just had a 150% increase in homelessness in the last year. There is no business model that could handle a 150% change in anything -- it’s unheard of.”
The HSNCFL’s latest PIT count report shows a nearly 157% increase in unsheltered homelessness since 2022 and about an 86% increase in the last year.
The CSC Director of Operations Carla Cox said the organization will do all they can to support SALT during this difficult challenge.
“We’re all beyond capacity. If there is anything we can do we will because we need them in our community. If they don't exist our jobs become 10 times harder because they carry a very large load,” she said.
Camarillo said SALT plans to tell clients about the “heartbreaking” news on Sunday.
The organization’s Outreach Director Kathleem Jorge said her main concerns are the unhoused community’s safety and morale. She said clients have been worried about a new Florida law that bans sleeping or camping in public spaces.
Jorge said losing SALT’s services might force some clients into accidentally breaking this law to survive.
“I think some of them are probably just gonna be like, ‘Wow, this is another barrier, another hurdle that I'm gonna have to figure out.’ And a lot of clients have already been sharing with us the fears they have about the law that's going to be passed in October that it's going to be basically criminalizing homelessness,” she said. “They’re just going to ask, ‘What are we supposed to do? Where are we supposed to go?’”
While Camarillo is still processing this change, he said he isn’t worried. SALT has been through changes and challenges before, and he said they are adaptable and will figure it out.
For now, he said, the organization’s youth homelessness services and case management office are grant funded, so those will not be affected -- while the direct services to the public with mobile showers and laundry in the downtown location are purely donor-based.
In fact, Camarillo said, no one will be losing their jobs. He is moving his direct services staff over to their Sanford office and their youth homelessness drop-in center.
The way he sees it, some good can come from this. In the three months that direct services will be suspended, the staff will be able to beef up and better prepare their grant-funded services. Once those are stronger for it, they hope to be able to open other services again.
During the months mobile services will be closed, Camarillo said, the organization will be focusing on fundraising -- with a goal to raise at least $200,000.
Donations can be sent by texting the words “Summer Salt” to 44321, which will link to the organization’s summer fundraiser, or through their website.
Lillian Hernández Caraballo is a Report for America corps member.
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