NOTE: This story originally appeared on the Oviedo Community News website.

Five days a week, Rousa Solis drives an hour from Volusia County to get her son to Red Bug Elementary in Seminole County.

Why? Because Seminole County, and Red Bug Elementary, is her home, she said – even though she’s technically homeless.

Solis’s son is considered one of the county’s homeless youth, as defined by the federal McKinney-Vento Act, which outlines the rights of families experiencing homelessness. Due to financial difficulties, Solis rents a room in Deltona. It’s the only available accommodation she could find, but she has no lease and shares a single room with her son. With the house soon to be sold, she will need to find another place to live.

[RELATED: Stories about homelessness in Central Florida]

“This is our home, and for his mental well-being, he needs to be here,” Solis remarked about Red Bug Elementary. “I travel 45 minutes to an hour each morning and afternoon, paying tolls, just to see him happy.”

Speaking to Oviedo Community News at Trotwood Park in Winter Springs, Solis expressed gratitude for what she has. She has previously lived in her car, stayed with friends, and sought refuge at Rescue Outreach Mission, the county’s sole homeless shelter not specifically for those escaping domestic violence.

Her son is one the 47 students at Red Bug Elementary counted as homeless in April of this year. The numbers have been rising in Seminole County. Editor’s note: Oviedo Community News is not naming her minor son in this story.

“We were not taking showers, we were not eating well, we were not sleeping well,” Solis said. “So my son would go to class and fall asleep or cry.”

[RELATED: Debunking 8 myths about homelessness in Central Florida]

In 2023, there were 2,640 homeless students. Now, that figure has climbed 32 percent to 3,485 students in Seminole County Public Schools.

The school is her home base, and she’s excited for the middle school her son got into next year. Before Red Bug Elementary, he was bullied when kids found out he and his mother were staying at a shelter.

“If you speak to him, he says, ‘Mama, I have trauma,’” Solis said. “And I tell him, don’t ever say that in school.”

Her son has grown his hair long – “haircuts are expensive,” Solis adds. Jason Mamoa in the Minecraft movie has made her son’s look more popular these days.

The face of homelessness is increasingly children, elderly

Amy Elwood, Assistant Superintendent of Student Support Services for Seminole County Public Schools, said when people think of homelessness, the image is people living on the streets or panhandling.

Increasingly, that’s not the case. Every single school in Seminole County has homeless students.

“It’s a student sitting next to yours in class,” Elwood said. “The mom serving you dinner at your restaurant. Every one of our schools has homeless students. There’s a good chance that your student is sitting next to a homeless student.”

Elwood runs the Families in Need office for Seminole County Public Schools. Geographically, the schools with the most need tend to be located in Casselberry, Altamonte Springs and Sanford. But Oviedo and Winter Springs aren’t immune.

Check here to see the data Oviedo Community News compiled for this story.

In fact, 25% of the students getting free and reduced lunch at Winter Springs Elementary are homeless, a total of 73 students, and nearly 16% of children getting free and reduced lunch at Layer Elementary are homeless, or 46 students.

And Tuskawilla Middle School had the third-highest growth from 2023 to 2025 in the entire county. The homeless student population grew 123%, from 26 students in 2023 to 58 students in 2025.

Winter Springs Mayor Kevin McCann said the numbers were “deeply troubling” and that every resident should be concerned by them. Homelessness might not be as visible in Winter Springs and Oviedo as other communities, but “it’s still here.”

“This is not something Winter Springs can solve alone,” McCann said. “We all have to pull together.”

Elwood said the most staggering statistic is that there are about 400 homeless students in Seminole County Public Schools who are unaccompanied minors – homeless, and without a family.

“Those unaccompanied minors we pay special attention to because they’re navigating the world on their own,” Elwood said.

But there are bright spots. Elwood said she was able to watch an unaccompanied minor graduate high school this spring.

“We tell them your education is something no one can take away from you,” Elwood said. “That’s really rewarding.”

[WATCH video below from our partner, WUCF, to hear one former homeless student’s story]

As region’s housing costs grow, so do the number of homeless students

So what’s causing the rise in homeless students?

It’s not just a Seminole County problem. In Orange County, there were 8,167 homeless students in April, and in Osceola County, there were 3,281 homeless students at the same time. In west Orange County, there were 550 homeless students.

Oviedo Community News is part of the News Collaborative of Central Florida, a group of around a dozen newsrooms covering the issue of homelessness.

Martha Are, CEO of the Homeless Services Network of Central Florida, said during the 2025 Point-in-Time count, which provides a snapshot of the region’s homeless population on one night in January, children under the age of 18 and seniors made up more than 40% of the homeless population. If you include unaccompanied youth up to age 24, it’s more than half of everyone who’s homeless.

The big issue: The metro Orlando region has the sixth highest need for affordable housing in the country, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition’s Florida GAP report. There are just 19 affordable rental homes per 100 rental households.

In total, Orange, Osceola and Seminole counties are short 54,273 units for extremely low-income households (those making 30% of the median income in the area).

“It’s a basic math situation,” Are said. “We have more people and not enough units. So as a consequence, more people become housing insecure.”

[WATCH video below to see the latest data on homeless people]

So what can people do? Are said the first thing is to support the organizations helping people experiencing homelessness. In Seminole County, that includes Rescue Outreach Mission, the Sharing Center in Longwood and Hope Helps Inc in Oviedo, a food pantry and thrift store. If people are willing to support a shelter in their neighborhood, they can sign up here.

And people in schools should pay attention to see if students are suddenly missing class, don’t have supplies, or are accruing an unpaid balance for school lunches.

School Board Chair Kristine Kraus said the schools are always worried about families having access to food over summer. She encouraged people to look for summer break spots where families can get free food over summer.

Kraus said the schools need to keep staff “fully on board and engaged.”

“The resilience of these students is awe-inspiring,” Kraus said. “I don’t know that I would have had the grit to endure what they’re enduring.”

‘I just need a couple of days’ What one woman’s story shows

For Solis, her issues started in earnest in December 2022.

Solis has two children: one is now an adult, and her 11-year-old attending Red Bug Lake. The father of her oldest killed himself in 2012. They left South Florida, moving in with friends and family, before settling in Seminole County.

By 2022, things were going well. Solis had a job as a home health aid, and was renting an apartment in Casselberry. But her main client in Winter Springs moved, and she lost income. Then Hurricane Ian came through, and her car was flooded.

She found herself without transportation and without regular income. That was in September of 2022. She managed to stay in the apartment for a few more months, cooking Thanksgiving dinner in an air fryer.

But by December, Solis was evicted from the home, with a $7,000 judgment against her.

She paid someone to take her to Sanford so she could file a handwritten note pleading with the judge for more time.

“I am Requesting, Pleading, Praying, that we can have more time to be able to find a place to move and that I get calls for work,” Solis wrote in the note.

“I was drowning,” Solis said. “I was like, I should have drowned with the car. This is not okay.”

After the eviction, Solis said she didn’t know what to do. She said she wasn’t able to get help until she was actually homeless.

She stayed with friends off and on, pretending they were visiting for the holidays (most leases don’t allow people not on the lease to stay long-term). But by 2023, they were living in their car and stayed at Rescue Outreach Mission.

Solis said all she needs is help: Help with child care. Help with finding a place she can afford.

“Seminole County doesn’t have enough funding,” Solis said. “It doesn’t.”

Currently, Solis is on the verge again. She makes $13.77 an hour, working as a preschool teacher. She got hurt at work recently, she said, and has missed time. She’s falling behind on rent, and she’s worried her car is going to need work soon.

She said people put all homeless people in the same bucket.

“I was working,” Solis said. “I was doing Bible school, when the church would come and visit. I’m not an alcoholic. I don’t do drugs. I don’t do any, any illicit things.”

She said the county needs to have more programs to prevent people from becoming homeless.

“Do I need to sleep in the car again?” Solis asked. “Do I need to sleep under a bridge? It shouldn’t be like that.”