Cori McMurty, 22, holding a sign that read, “Homes, Not Handcuffs,” said he came out to the rally to support Lewis and because he believes in “homes for everybody.”

“There shouldn't be any reason that somebody shouldn’t have a roof over their head or safety or shelter,” he said.

Standing next to McMurty was Nico Clayton, 21, who told VoxPopuli that housing was a “human right.”

“One of the things people need to survive is shelter, and I don’t think anybody should be denied that. I don’t think people should be arrested for the crime of simply existing in public,” Clayton said. “If you don’t have a place to go, then where are you supposed to go? I’m out here supporting that housing is a human right, and I don’t think being homeless should be criminalized.”

Bronson said that the Framily Support Network, which supports people who are homeless and those who are in imminent danger of becoming homeless, often hears from families who are sleeping in their cars because they have no place else to go.

“A lot of people have these preconceived notions that they're not trying to help themselves,” she said. “But that's not the case with what we're seeing today in the homeless population,” she continued. “They're nurses. They are teachers. They’re working for our theme parks. They are working, and they cannot [afford] to live in any of the housing that's available here in Florida. It's not attainable. It's not affordable. So what we're advocating for is truly affordable housing in practice, actually meeting the community where they're at, where the poverty line really truly is right now.”

Lewis, the key rally speaker, told VoxPopuli that much of what passes for affordable housing is geared toward working and middle-class families earning about $75,000 a year while “the people that are in crisis” earn $30,000 or less.

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“We're ignoring the entire bottom part of the population, which actually makes up a majority of what our homeless population is making,” he said.

In other words, it’s not just putting more housing units on the market, but housing units that are appropriately priced so that those who most need them can afford them.

“ We need to ensure that if we're going to build new housing, that we're building actual affordable housing for our extreme low-income renters. We need to ensure that the housing inventory that we do have is being priced at a point to where low income renters can afford it, and we need to ensure that we are also taking steps to allow the community to want to partake in affordable housing.”

Lewis said that it’s a “constant misconception” that building affordable housing in a community lowers property values. He explains that when people don’t spend so much of their income on rent or mortgages, they have more discretionary income to support the community by dining out in restaurants, shopping at local businesses.

“When rents are so high, they can no longer support the community,” he said.