November 20, 2024- Florida Politics- by Jesse Scheckner
Miami-Dade County’s lead agency for overseeing the operation of homelessness services and assistance just got a $5 million infusion from billionaire Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and his fiancée, Lauren Sánchez.
The donation to the Miami-Dade Homeless Trust comes through the Bezos Day 1 Families Fund.
It’s the largest single philanthropic contribution that the county organization has ever received and is equal to a donation Bezos gave Miami-Dade’s homelessness-focused Chapman Partnership nonprofit in 2022.
Lobbyist Ron Book, the Homeless Trust’s longtime Chair, called the donation a “transformative gift” and “a lifeline for Miami-Dade.”
“It comes at a time when too many families are struggling and finding themselves caught up in the housing affordability crisis,” he said in a statement.
“We are beyond grateful for their generosity and are committed to making strategic investments to dramatically reduce family homelessness and ensure no child sleeps outside.”
A press note from the Homeless Trust said the money will go toward providing immediate, short-term “crisis housing,” offering short- to medium-term rental assistance with supportive services and creating new housing through the acquisition and renovation of property.
The contribution from Bezos, a graduate of Miami Palmetto Senior High School and now the world’s third-richest man, is part of a $110.5 million round of expenditures through his charity organization that he’s making this year to combat homelessness.
It’s the seventh annual round of awards. So far, he’s made $749 million in donations for the cause. He pledged in 2018 to give $2 billion in total.
Other recipients this year include the Dallas-based Family Gateway group, Kentucky-based Welcome House and Los Angeles-based Jenesse Center, all of which received a $2.5 million check.
“No child should sleep outside, and it’s a privilege to help in the extraordinary efforts of these organizations,” said Bezos, who is worth an estimated $220 billion, according to Forbes.
Sánchez, a media personality and former news anchor who has been engaged to Bezos since May 2023, said that “with homelessness on the rise, there has never been a more important time to support those individuals and organizations making a difference.”
Family homelessness in the U.S. rose dramatically in 2022 and 2023, with families today representing more than 28% of the country’s homeless population, according to a report this year from the National Alliance to End Homelessness. More than a million people experienced homelessness for the first time last year, when the number of unhoused people nationwide rose by 12% compared to 2022.
“Over the past three years, emergency shelters have seen a 31% increase in families with children (age 10 and under),” Homeless Trust Executive Director Victoria Mallette O’Brien said in a statement. ““We must invest in housing and services that help families experiencing homelessness regain housing stability. This includes the more than 130 families in our care where at least one member of the family is disabled.”
The $5 million donation comes two months after Miami-Dade Commissioners approved a nearly $15 county purchase of a La Quinta Inn in the county’s Cutler Bay municipality, which is to be repurposed as an apartment building for unsheltered people.
On Oct. 1, a new state law went into effect that largely prohibits local governments from allowing people to sleep or camp on public property and mandates that counties and cities must relocate unhoused people to short-term communal areas with set sanitary and substance abuse standards.
The donation was also announced on the same day Book again sought renewal as Chair of the Miami-Dade Homeless Trust from the County Commission, which must alter term limit and residency restrictions for him, as he lives in Broward County and has held the post for decades.
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