Tiny homes for Tampa’s homeless welcome first residents after delays

TAMPA — Tucked between the interstate and the railroad tracks, woven into the industrial sprawl of Tampa’s eastern edge, 99 tiny white homes sit in a sunbaked lot.

These 64-square-foot structures, with fold-out beds and air conditioning, were assembled last April as transitional housing for the homeless. The city of Tampa provided $750,000 to get the project off the ground.

But the small cottages sat empty for a year.

This month a nonprofit began quietly moving the first residents in, the Tampa Bay Times has learned.

Asked what day people began moving into the cottages, Louis Ricardo — a spokesperson for the Catholic Charities Diocese of St. Petersburg, the city’s nonprofit partner that operates the project called Tampa Hope — wrote in an email: “I’m not sure.”

When asked how many cottages are currently occupied, Ricardo wrote: “I am not certain. I’m sure we will continue filling them in the ensuing weeks.”

While there may be some moved off the streets and into the newly opened homes, Ricardo wrote it is more likely that people already living in Tampa Hope’s 125 tents are being prioritized for transition to the cottages.

Bringing the project across the finish line came with “the same timeline challenges all construction projects face,” including permitting delays, contractor availability and supply-chain disruptions, he wrote.

Another source of the slow down? Getting the cottages hooked up to the electrical grid.

Tampa Mayor Jane Castor had to place a call to the chief executive officer of Tampa Electric to get the job done, according to a city spokesperson.

“The delays have been frustrating,” Castor said in a recent interview with the Times. “But Tampa Hope is a great resource for our city.”

A record number of people across America are experiencing homelessness: The federal government’s annual tally last year revealed the highest numbers of unsheltered people since the count began in 2007. Throughout the country and around the Tampa Bay region, the rise in homelessness is largely attributed to a lack of affordable housing, an issue that Florida lawmakers mostly ignored until last year.

Last month, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed legislation that bans people from sleeping overnight in parks, on sidewalks and in other public spaces, calling it a solution to communities “plagued” with homelessness.

The law creates a mechanism for counties to create camps, much like Tampa Hope, equipped with security, sanitation and health services. Critics have said the law does nothing to address root causes of homelessness or provide the funding necessary for long-term solutions. Citrus County leaders toured the Tampa site last month as a possible model.

In March of 2020, Castor called Catholic Charities Chief Executive Officer Maggie Rogers.

“She asked how to serve the homeless and how to do it very, very quickly,” Rogers, who the nonprofit said was not available for an interview for this story, said at a recent forum on homelessness in Hillsborough County.

They partnered on creating a temporary location, called Hillsborough Hope, where 100 people could shelter in place on Florida Avenue and receive three meals a day.

The shelter was put together in little more than a week. Shrubs and bushes were cut down. The site was sprayed for mosquitoes. Electric and water connections were put in place. Temporary floodlighting was installed. The beds were filled within two days.

The nonprofit then spent more than a year looking for a plot to build a permanent shelter.

On Tampa’s Third Avenue, they found it. They purchased the site in late 2021 for $2.1 million, according to property records.

That December, city officials joined the nonprofit to announce the shelter’s launch, predicting that 100 cottages ― 75 funded by the city ― would be built sometime in 2022, with more to come later.

The cottages weren’t assembled until last spring.

At the time, the city said it expected the installation of the electrical system to be completed by fall 2023.

That didn’t happen until this month.

Finalizing permitting plans and burying electrical connections underground to avoid tripping hazards delayed final checks by electrical inspectors, according to the city.

Tampa Electric didn’t receive the necessary release from the city, which allows the electrical work to be completed, until the evening of April 1, according to company spokesperson Cherie Jacobs.

Once a release is received, the process of completing the work typically takes Tampa Electric seven to 10 business days, Jacobs wrote in an email to the Times.

“We went above and beyond to complete the work in two days,” Jacobs wrote.

To date, 99 cottages have been hooked up and grounded to withstand Category 5 hurricane force winds. One cottage is being held aside for fundraising events, said Ricardo, the nonprofit spokesperson.

Contractors faced labor shortages and “extremely long lead times for equipment,” Ricardo said.

The nonprofit began moving people into the cottages after receiving clearance from the electrical inspectors this month, he said.

Each cottage is equipped with a bed, air conditioning and heating, a smoke detector, fire extinguisher, power outlets, shelving, windows and storage space. The University of South Florida’s Tampa Bay Street Medicine group regularly visits Tampa Hope to run a free health clinic.

Rogers calls the project her “2-year-old baby.”

“It’s learning to walk,” she said at the recent forum on homelessness in the county. “It is not where it needs to be and it is not where it will end up.”

The site currently has one permanent building, she added, which functions as an office space, classroom, dining hall, computer lab, warehouse and intake room.

“It is a little bit of everything,” she said.

The nonprofit has its eyes on future expansion, hoping to add more tiny homes to the complex and construct another building with showers, laundry machines and a kitchen. Sen. Darryl Rouson, D-St. Petersburg, whose district covers parts of East Tampa, unsuccessfully requested $1.5 million from the state during the recent legislative session for 100 additional cottages.

Catholic Charities Diocese of St. Petersburg also operates Pinellas Hope in Clearwater, opened 17 years ago on swampland that has transformed into a sprawling homeless refuge, helping thousands of people get off the streets and access social services. It has an annual budget of $2.1 million, the Times previously reported, a mix of donations and tax dollars.

On a recent morning in Tampa, as the sun rose over the city’s distant high-rises, their windows winking in the morning light, the shelter stirred to life. Residents hopped on bicycles and headed to work, or waited roadside for a carpool.

A line grew by the main gate as new people arrived, hoping to nab an available bed.