Early in my term as Mayor, I began a project to help the chronic homeless. I continued to see men on the street that were being arrested constantly for crimes involving being homeless. I felt something needed to be done to help them. About that time, former Mayor Rick Baker from St. Petersburg spoke at the evening lecture series at IHMC about his new book The Seamless City. He was describing a scene of a homeless encampment in front of his City Hall and the demands of the community to do something about it.
He then told the story of how he worked with the community to create Pinellas Hope, a tent city of sorts that got the homeless population the help they needed to get back on their feet. Many in the room turned to me and said “Mayor, why don’t you do that here in Ocala”. So the two year journey began.
I, along with Karla Grimsley, Father Patrick Sheedy of Blessed Trinity, Brothers Keepers, Catholic Charities and First Methodist Church, all gathered together and went to visit Pinellas Hope. We brought the idea back to Ocala and folks said, “that’s a great idea, but not in my back yard”. At one point, we had 22 acres in Northeast Ocala donated to us but since the neighborhood wasn’t behind it, it didn’t pan out for our project and ended up becoming the home of Transitional Learning Center (TLC) which was a perfect fit for them as they needed exactly 22 acres for their project. However, we still needed a home. St. Marks Methodist Church on Northeast Eighth Ave. heard about our project and wanted it to be their mission. We met with them and members of the neighborhood to get their buy-in and they all wanted to be a part of it.
The idea was to convert unused Sunday School rooms to small apartments for the homeless men. We got that done and started the process of bringing in men. We hired an Executive director to run it and a counselor do case management. It is run on a small budget but here are the results: At any given time, we have around 12 to 15 men in the program. These are men who have come to us and have said, “I’m done. I can’t live like this anymore, I need help and I’m willing to do all the things necessary to get myself out of this situation”. And this is the most important part and the key to what separates them from others you see on the street who are not willing to commit. And we hold them accountable. When they leave our program, they have moved from being homeless with only the clothes on their backs to having a job, a place to live and thousands of dollars in the bank.
We have an 85% success rate. To date, we have served 178 men through this program. I always brag on our community about how compassionate we are and how we want to help people if we know there is a need.
So now you know about Open Arms Village and the great work it does. If you’re interested in helping, please call our Executive Director, Pam McBride, at Open Arms Village, 1839 N.E. 8th Road, Ocala 34470, tel: 352-304-6229
