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Salvation Army Women's Shelter closes for renovations

ORLANDO, Fla. — Some homeless Orlando women may be out on the streets again. The women have been living at the Salvation Army Women's Shelter, but it closed its doors on Thursday for renovations.

Now that the women have been forced out of the shelter on West Colonial Drive, they'll have to find somewhere else to stay temporarily.

Channel 9's Steve Barrett was there as more than a dozen homeless women packed up moved out of the shelter.

It's a short displacement that worries some residents.

"A lot of anger, a lot of disappointment," one woman told Barrett. "I don't know what to do."

This weekend, BB&T Bank volunteers will renovate and make more space at the shelter, including giving attendees more personal space.

"In doing so, we have to shut down a component of it so that we can move beds and we can refurbish and make the living conditions even better here," said Maj. Mark Woodcock of the Salvation Army. "We have beds in very tight spaces, so people are kind of on top of one another. That's just not acceptable to us."

Woodcock said it was a tough move to clear out the emergency shelter, but he said it's necessary and his agency has worked for weeks to find alternate living arrangements for the women and some children.

Only short-term emergency residents are being displaced by the remodeling. Some longer-term residents have been moved to other parts of the Salvation Army campus.

The shelter will reopen at 5 p.m. on Monday.