{"id":29967,"date":"2023-02-09T22:10:22","date_gmt":"2023-02-10T03:10:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=29967"},"modified":"2023-02-09T22:10:29","modified_gmt":"2023-02-10T03:10:29","slug":"affordable-housing-complex-in-lakeland-for-at-risk-residents-approved","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2023\/02\/09\/affordable-housing-complex-in-lakeland-for-at-risk-residents-approved\/","title":{"rendered":"Affordable housing complex in Lakeland for at-risk residents approved"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/polkhomeless.org\/\">homeless coalition of Polk County<\/a>&nbsp;reports a growing population of people experiencing homelessness in the county.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"790\" height=\"499\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1110px) 100vw, 1110px\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/GriffinRoadDevelopment.webp?resize=790%2C499&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-29968\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Shelters told us they&#8217;re having to turn people away because there aren&#8217;t enough beds, but a new $20 million development in Lakeland hopes to change that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Lakeland city commissioners just approved a 60-unit, multi-family complex for those who are at risk of being homeless or who have been homeless in the past.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The idea came from\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.greenmillsgroup.com\/contact\/\">a developer out of South Florida<\/a>\u00a0who said he plans to have the loft-style units look just like market-rate apartments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The resource would help many that are looking for permanent housing at crowded shelters.<\/p>\n\n\n        \n        <div class=\"embedpress-gutenberg-wrapper source-provider-Youtube aligncenter ep-clear   ep-content-protection-disabled inline\" id=\"\" data-embed-type=\"Youtube \">\n            <div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper \">\n                <div id=\"ep-gutenberg-content-\" class=\"ep-gutenberg-content\">\n                    <div >\n                        <div class=\"ep-embed-content-wraper preset-default insta-grid ep-google-photos-carousel\"\n                            style=\"max-width:600px;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto\"                                                                                                                >\n\n                            <div class=\"ose-youtube ose-uid-4f3d0515bd67b9c87a745a94371cf9d4 ose-embedpress-responsive\" style=\"width:600px; max-width:100%; height: 100%; display:inline-block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" allowFullScreen=\"true\" title=\"lighthouse\" width=\"600\" height=\"450\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/s1bzRrPOLO4?feature=oembed&#038;color=red&#038;rel=1&#038;controls=2&#038;start=true&#038;end=true&#038;fs=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;autoplay=0&#038;modestbranding=0&#038;cc_load_policy=0\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen title=\"Affordable housing complex in Lakeland for at-risk residents approved\"><\/iframe><\/div>                        <\/div>\n\n                                            <\/div>\n                <\/div>\n            <\/div>\n        <\/div>\n    \n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWe have had to turn some people away,\u201d said Steve Turbeville, the President of&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.lighthousemin.org\/\">Lighthouse Ministries<\/a>. \u201cWe have a large facility here and we are growing, but we only have so many beds.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Lighthouse Ministries&nbsp;is a well-known homeless shelter in Lakeland. They house people who are homeless, but people who have received their services say the Lighthouse does much more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThey helped me change my entire life around,\u201d said Paul Vess. \u201c17 months ago I was homeless, living out of my car, addicted to drugs and alcohol. I couldn\u2019t get out of it. Got to the point where my addiction robbed me of everything.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Paul Vess works for Lighthouse Ministries, but it didn\u2019t start that way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cI was walking down the road with two pairs of basketball shorts on and someone wanted to help me,\u201d said Vess. \u201cThey took me in, clothed me, and brought me to lighthouse ministries the next day.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Vess is now working on saving enough money to move into permanent housing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThat\u2019s my main priority right now,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cYou can\u2019t just jump into things, you have to take steps,\u201d said Vess. \u201cMy next step here at lighthouse ministries is saving enough money to get housing for me and my children.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">At Lighthouse Ministries, they provide residents with the option to work on the property and save up to $5,000 before they assist with finding them permanent housing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There is no ground-breaking date for the affordable housing complex yet, but the developer has a steady plan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The&nbsp;homeless coalition of Polk County&nbsp;reports a growing population of people experiencing homelessness in the county. Shelters told us they&#8217;re having to turn people away because there aren&#8217;t enough beds, but&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29968,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"0","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[6],"tags":[4503],"class_list":["post-29967","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community","tag-affordable-housing-complex-in-lakeland-for-at-risk-residents-approved"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29967","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29967"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29967\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29968"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}