Hidden Figures: Is Florida Accurately Tracking Its Homeless or Simply Making Them Invisible?

ORLANDO, Fla. – At the end of January 2025, volunteers throughout Florida participated in the yearly Point-in-Time (PIT) count, providing a brief, multi-night snapshot of homelessness across the nation.

This year’s count holds increased importance for Florida as it marks the first one since the implementation of a recent and controversial state law prohibiting public camping.

Conducted during the final week of January, the 2025 PIT count results are being fully analyzed three months later. These results offer insights into the number of individuals experiencing homelessness in our ten-county region and shed light on the potential impact of the camping ban on the count.

First, some background about the new law.

On March 20, 2024, Governor Ron DeSantis signed HB 1365, Unauthorized Public Camping and Public Sleeping, a bill that banned camping and sleeping in Florida public spaces. Because of the new law, homeless people are no longer be able to sleep in a public area, despite local communities not yet having the proper infrastructure, resources, and funding to get them off the streets.

HB 1365 went into effect last October. Initially, there were no penalties for non-compliance, but that changed in 2025 when the second phase of the legislation took effect.

Starting Jan. 1, any resident or business owner is now empowered to bring a suit against a local government if they believe no action has been taken to remove a homeless individual from a public space within five days of filing a written complaint.

The threat of civil lawsuits now has many local governments scrambling to come up with comprehensive plans to not only remove homeless individuals from the streets, but to also provide the needed services and shelter space for individuals and families.

Moreover, people who are homeless now face the real possibility of being arrested for non-compliance with orders from law enforcement to vacate a public space.

In April, PIT count numbers were released for Orlando, Orange County, Osceola County, and Seminole County. The three counties and one major metropolitan area make up what is known as FL-507.

FL-507 is just one of six groupings that homeless advocates and the U.S. government use to keep track of homelessness on a community level.

These regions are classified as “Continuums of Care” (CoCs) – collaborative networks of local organizations that coordinate services for people experiencing homelessness.

Aside from FL-507, the other five CoCs are:

• FL-503 (Polk County)

• FL-504 (Volusia and Flagler Counties)

• FL-513 (Brevard County)

• FL-514 (Ocala and Marion County)

• FL-520 (Lake and Sumter Counties – though FL-520 also includes Hernando and Citrus Counties)

The April FL-507 PIT count numbers showed the following: 2,781 people were counted as homeless in the three county/one major city region, compared to 2,776 in 2024 (an increase of only 5 people, or 0.18%). Between 2023 and 2024 the PIT count for this region rose from 2,258 to 2,776 (up 518 people, or almost 23%).

In the past week, News 6 has gathered PIT count numbers for three other CoCs: FL-513, FL-514, and FL-520.

Let’s start with Brevard.

The 2025 PIT count for Brevard was 1,062 people experiencing homelessness. The number was down 4.84% from the 2024 number of 1,116.

“Overall, the Brevard CoC PITC went well,” said Sarah Slone, who is the CoC Planning Director for the Brevard Homeless Coalition. “We were not surprised by the overall count. We decreased our total count by 5%.”

When we asked Slone how the state’s recent camping ban law affected Brevard’s 2025 PIT count, she told us the outreach committee anticipated the law’s impact and took proactive steps to maintain count accuracy.

“We anecdotally know it’s had an impact as our unsheltered residents were well-versed in the law and expressed concern,” Slone said.

She added that the low PIT count number “may be attributable to the new Stare Law 1365 and/or the bitterly cold conditions on the night of our count (on) Jan. 23,” but also cautioned that more analysis is needed.

Over in Marion County, according to our Central Florida News Collaborative partner the Ocala Gazette, this year’s PIT count was 391 people experiencing homelessness, up 3.44% from last year’s count of 378.

Andy Fillmore of the Ocala Gazette asked Karla Greenway, CEO of Interfaith Emergency Services, about the 2025 PIT count. Greenway said that although the PIT count is the “best method” for counting those experiencing homelessness, it can be “misleading.”

One factor Greenway pointed out that can have an effect on accuracy: homeless camps are becoming “more mobile” because of the fear of trespass and the recent state ban on camping on public property.

Fillmore wrote in his article “Neither the Ocala Police Department nor the Marion County Sheriff’s Office report any arrests to date related to the Florida “no camping” on public property (statute FS 125.0231).”

Our final PIT count: FL-520, Lake and Sumter Counties. As noted earlier, FL-520 actually is made up of four counties: Lake, Sumter, Citrus, and Hernando. For 2025, Fl-520 counted 767 people as being homeless, down 2.4% from 786 people in 2024. Looking at just Lake and Sumter Counties, the PIT count for 2025 was 227, down 28% from 2024’s count of 227.

When we contacted Barbara Venditto at the Mid Florida Homeless Coalition, she had these two things to say about the drop off in numbers for FL-520:

“There are several reasons for the lower count numbers year over year. During this past year, partnerships with faith-based community partners, the Lake County Housing Dept, and the Continuum of Care got creative.” Venditto went on to say that those efforts resulted in getting housing for 50 families in Lake County over the last year.

But, when we asked Venditto specifically if the state’s new camping ban had an effect on their 2025 PIT count, she answered: “That was another reason for the lower counts. There were rumors flying through that community that Law Enforcement would use the information they provided to seek them out. However, our Law Enforcement agencies are all working closely with the agencies in order to avoid any ill effect, and to assist in every way we have available.”