DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Dozens of homeless people who were staying at a Daytona Beach motel had to pack up and leave Friday.
The city paid $25,000 for the homeless to stay at motels when the Salvation Army could no longer afford to house them.
About 70 people packed up their belongings for a move with no stable destination.
“I’m nervous about where I’m going to go, because I don’t have any place to go,” said Wayne Perry. “There’s no place to go right now.”
Perry moved into the motel with many others after the Salvation Army forced them out of the Bridge Bed program.
Since then, the city of Daytona Beach has paid about $25,000 to house them.
“They definitely needed to do something, and the 11 days wasn’t much, but it gave them the opportunity to say to other organizations, ‘You guys need to step up.’ But nobody did,” Perry said.
The city contracted with a few churches and organizations to take in about half of the homeless people, when they leave the motel.
The rest will be able to go to a designated “safe zone” at the corner of Bellevue Avenue Extension and Clyde Morris Boulevard.
The area is a field with two portable bathrooms.
None of the homeless had relocated there by 1 p.m. Friday.
Perry said the problem is too big for the city to handle oon its own, and officials hope someone comes up with a more permanent solution soon.
“We’ve got an 8-inch pie and we’re trying to feed 16 different people with it,” said Perry.
It’s unclear if the city is providing transportation to the safe zone or when it expected people to move to the area.