Total bummer for those who give a hoot about the homeless plight in Orlando. The Orlando Sentinel reports:
The Central Florida Commission on Homelessness — the high-powered public-private partnership that vowed to end the region’s homeless problem by 2018 — may be dissolved and its mission turned over to the local United Way.
An email sent on behalf of the group’s chairman this week calls for a telephone conference May 16 to discuss ending the commission, formed in 2008 amid great celebration and a call for millions of dollars in public funding — a financial commitment that has never materialized.
“Since the funding cannot be obtained, the future of the commission is jeopardized and in question,” said the memo. It was sent by the commission’s executive director, Ray Larsen, on behalf of its chairman of the board, prominent banking executive Ed Timberlake. “It is recommended that the existing programs of the commission be moved to the United Way and that the commission cease to exist.”
Timberlake could not be reached for comment, and Larsen would say only that the matter was under discussion and that no action would be taken without a vote of the commission’s board of directors.
He did not explain why none of the government members of the board — including Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer, Orange County Mayor Teresa Jacobs, Osceola County Commissioner Brandon Arrington and Seminole County Commissioner Brenda Carey — were copied on the emails. Elected officials’ emails are considered public record and available to the media.
“That’s curious to me,” said Deputy Orange County Administrator Linda Weinberg, who often attends the commission meetings for Jacobs, when asked why neither she nor the mayor had been informed of the discussion. “And I would hate to see the regional commission just dissolve. You have a prime board of really strong community leaders that have a lot of clout … and I think it would take a long time to get a board like that back together again.”
In August 2011 — the last time the entire commission officially met — Weinberg said members were still discussing a possible merger with the Homeless Services Network, an Orlando-based nonprofit that works to secure grant funding for homeless programs. The agency brought in more than $7 million last year.