In essence, DeSantis and the Republican-controlled legislature had just declared war. Homeless people would no longer be able to sleep in public spaces, despite local communities not having the proper infrastructure, resources, and funding to get them off the streets. The “resources they need to get back on their feet” were promised, but far from in place. The message to local governments was pretty clear: The law’s the law, with the details of how to enforce it left up to local governments to determine.

HB 1365 went into effect on Oct. 1, 2024, but many considered that date a kind of soft launch, as there was no real penalty for being caught sleeping (camping) in a public space. On Jan. 1, 2025, however, things changed: the second part of the law took effect with a unique twist to “enforcement.”

As the new year kicked off, any resident or business owner could now sue a local government if they believed no action had been taken to remove a homeless individual from a public space within five days of filing a written complaint.

Communities across Florida were suddenly on the hook for inaction, and local leaders found themselves between a rock and a hard place: state law says you can’t sleep in a public space, and law enforcement has to move a homeless person despite not having anywhere to move them to. And if they are not moved, deputies and officers expose their communities to the possibility of a civil lawsuit.

Meanwhile...

Last summer, more than 250 miles away from the governor’s mansion in Tallahassee, Judith Smelser, president and general manager of Central Florida Public Media in Orlando, was milling over an idea that she’d been pondering for years: “Could we get local news leaders in a room together to talk about what are our common challenges?”

Though HB 1365 wouldn’t officially go into effect until October, Smelser wasn’t immediately focused on the new homeless camping ban. She instead was thinking about a new landscape in local journalism: splintered audiences, thinner budgets, and newsroom leaders asked to do more with less.

“The business models that long supported independent journalism have in many cases evaporated,” she said. “We’ve seen some contractions in local news here. And I didn’t want that to continue. I didn’t want us to become a news desert.” Local newsrooms were facing common challenges, but Smelser didn’t know if there was going to be a willingness to come together and collaborate.

Smelser called a few friends at local news outlets, and before long was organizing an unprecedented meeting of leaders from about a dozen newsrooms from around Central Florida.

“We spent a lot of time talking about what are our common challenges, what are our gaps, what do we wish we could do more of if we had more capacity,” she said. “People were so open and candid and vulnerable in those conversations. It was like there was an immediate trust in the room.”

Nicknamed the journalism ecosystem summit, the meetings took place with some newsrooms enthusiastic to join, while others said thanks, but no thanks. By late 2024, nine newsroom leaders bought into the idea that collaborative journalism was worth setting aside competition.

Today, those newsrooms now number twelve. They are of various sizes, platforms, and locales and have been working together for the past three months, pooling resources and sharing content as they focus on one subject. The first issue to be tackled: the effects of the camping ban on homeless people and their communities.

“It’s not just a story,” Smelser says. “The impact of this, of this law, is going to be far-reaching and wide-ranging.”

Counting homeless people

According to recent data released by the Homeless Services Network of Central Florida, despite seeing spikes from 2023 to 2024, the population of people in Metro Orlando living without a home held relatively steady in 2025.

The 2025 PIT count (PIT stands for Point in Time) for Orlando, Orange County, Osceola County, and Seminole County took place several months ago on Jan. 27. More than 300 volunteers spread out across the region in an effort to tally the homeless population.

But why was there such a dramatic slowdown in the rise of numbers in the homeless population, especially in the number of people sleeping outside (unsheltered homelessness), which decreased from 1,090 (2024) to 1,086 (2025)?

“There are places where we’ve historically been able to find people, and they were not there this year,” said Martha Are, CEO of the Homeless Services Network of Central Florida.

Are, speaking at the news conference, added that despite housing focused interventions that helped the numbers from ballooning, the new law was a negative contributing factor: “We know that part of the reason we had challenges finding people was because of the implementation of the state bill, the anti-camping, anti-sleeping bill, that has resulted in people intentionally trying to find places to be that can’t be found.”

Florida compared to the rest of the country

According to the latest report on homelessness by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Florida’s 2024 homeless count of 31,362 ranks fourth in the country behind California (187,084), New York (158,019), and surprisingly, Washington state (31,554). Rounding out the top ten: Massachusetts (29,360), Texas (27,987), Illinois (25,382), Oregon (22,875), Colorado (18,715), and Arizona (14,737). At the bottom of the list was Wyoming with just 501 homeless people.

But, just how prevalent is homelessness throughout our state?

When compared to homeless populations of other states, Florida barely makes the top half of homeless people per capita, compared to other states (it's 24th).

That, however, in no way diminishes the seriousness of the problem because just one homeless person is one too many.

Across our 10 Central Florida counties, most homeless people are found in the three biggest counties of Orange, Osceola, and Seminole.

One thing to note: the dramatic drop in 2021 as the pandemic severely restricted the ability for volunteers to effectively count everyone who was homeless at the time. Another trend: the jump in the number of homeless people in five of the six regions between 2023 and 2024.

The Collaborative

Though data helps shape a narrative, it doesn’t tell a full story; personal stories can only be uncovered by the work of dedicated journalists. Over the last three months, the men and women associated with The News Collaborative of Central Florida have done some amazing reporting.

Ryan Gillespie and Michael Cuglietta of the Orlando Sentinel did an eye-opening piece in early January as the “penalty phase” of the camping ban kicked in.

Also in January, Ken Jackson of the Osceola News-Gazette focused on the volunteers who, each year, help count the number of homeless people in our area.

In February, Lillian Hernández Caraballo of Central Florida Public Media spent days at a homeless encampment in East Orlando, and Beth Kassab of the Winter Park Voice previewed the Winter Park Police Department’s new homeless outreach unit.

Another February story: the Sentinel reported the Orlando Police Department had made 25 arrests for individuals who had run afoul of the new law. There have now been 39 arrests throughout Orange County, with the majority in Orlando.

In contrast, Abe Aboraya of the Oviedo Community News recently reported on Seminole County’s first (and so far only) arrest for a public camping ban violation.

Those are just six of about 50 pieces The Collaborative has shared amongst member newsrooms in just a three-month period – and they have made an impact.

The investigative stories produced have been viewed more than 170,000 times across member websites, according to analytics shared by the news organizations.