Hope for Tampa’s Homeless

Story and photos by Robin Rayne/ZUMA Press

Doug Craven, 65, outside his tent at Tampa Hope Shelter, which has been his home for the past year. Craven, a traveling carnival worker for most of his life, lived on the streets for the past 20 years.

Sprawled behind a former telecommunications warehouse in a quiet industrial section of Tampa, Florida,100 identical raised-floor tents are lined up in tidy rows in a 10-acre fenced and supervised
village that offers fresh hope for homeless men and women who previously lived on the streets.
Simply named “Tampa Hope,” the shelter is known in the homeless community as “Tent City.”
“Our mission is to take those who are chronically homeless, assess their needs, provide
them with the resources and tools they need to be able to gain an income and become self-
sufficient, and refer them to permanent housing,” explains Lou Ricardo, director of donor
relation at Catholic Charities Diocese of St. Petersburg, the non-profit organization that
operates the shelter.
Opened in 2021, the shelter is jointly funded by Catholic Charities and the City of Tampa.
Residents are provided with a tent, bed, blankets, shower and laundry facilities, portable
bathrooms and daily meals. Residents also work with case managers for access to health care
and social services. The shelter provides 24-hour supervision.

Ricardo Garcia, 70, known as ‘Limo’ to his friends, uses clippers to give a fellow resident a haircut at Tampa Hope Shelter.

Two Tampa Hope residents wait for a driver who will take them to a clinic

“We bring all the resources to bear in one location, partnering with agencies that provide
behavioral health care and substance abuse counseling. We connect them with the Social
Security Administration, and basically everything they need” to get their lives back. “We don’t
just feed them and send them on their way, we provide a continuity of care,” Ricardo said.
Tampa Hope emerged during the height of the Covid pandemic when businesses were shutting
down and homeless individuals had no place to use a bathroom or get a drink of water, Ricardo
said. City officials asked Catholic Charities to set up a shelter to keep those individuals safe,
based on the success of the non-profit’s Pinellas Hope Shelter in nearby Clearwater, Florida,
that opened in 2007. That shelter served as a model for Tampa Hope and became a model for
homeless shelters nation-wide. The charity was quickly able to set up 100 tents on land it
owned in Tampa, and Tampa Hope was born in a matter of weeks, he said
When it was time to expand, Tampa city officials helped the non-profit to find a more suitable
location. “The city helped get everything up and running as quickly as possible and helped fund
us for a few years as we get the word out,” Ricardo said.

An elderly Tampa Hope resident sits alone outside his tent as he waits for dinner to be served in the dining hall.

A painting by a local middle school student decorates the storeroom that serves as Tampa Hope’s dining room.

Tampa Hope residents take advantage of hot water showers in a Salvation Army portable shower unit installed at the shelter.

“When folks see that they have a place to call their own and a roof over their head, there’s no
better felling than that, especially when you’ve been living on the streets,” Ricardo said. “We
treat everyone with dignity and respect. We help them get their lives back.”
Tampa Hope is a starting point, but it’s not a permanent home, Ricardo said. “The goal is to
provide building blocks so residents can get a fresh start and leave. As long as residents are
making progress, they can stay in the shelter. We work to help them find their own homes,” he
said.
“When we see former residents a year later and they’re working and self-sufficient and no
longer homeless, when they’re living in their own homes and doing well, they have that sense
of self-worth. It warms our hearts that we were able to help,” he said.
Tampa has one of the nation’s largest percentage of residents who are homeless, with numbers
in Hillsborough County well over 1,500 during a recent count. Statewide, the numbers of
homeless men, women and children have increased 50 percent in the past year, officials said.
Catholic Charities plans to triple Tampa Hope’s capacity in 2023 with the addition of 200 pre-
built, aluminum individual Hope Cottages that provide heat and air conditioning and electricity,
a lockable door, a bed and table, as well as smoke alarms and fire extinguishers, Ricardo said.

A resident walks past a tent decorated with a U.S. flag, where Cuban immigrant Ricardo Garcia lives.

Doug Craven, 65, in his tent at Tampa Hope Shelter which has been his home for the past year. Craven, a traveling carnival worker for most of his life, lived on the streets for the past 20 years.

Tampa Hope is a starting point, but it’s not a permanent home, Ricardo said. “The goal is to
provide building blocks so residents can get a fresh start and leave. As long as residents are
making progress, they can stay in the shelter. We work to help them find their own homes,” he
said.
“When we see former residents a year later and they’re working and self-sufficient and no
longer homeless, when they’re living in their own homes and doing well, they have that sense
of self-worth. It warms our hearts that we were able to help,” he said.
Tampa has one of the nation’s largest percentage of residents who are homeless, with numbers
in Hillsborough County well over 1,500 during a recent count. Statewide, the numbers of
homeless men, women and children have increased 50 percent in the past year, officials said.
Catholic Charities plans to triple Tampa Hope’s capacity in 2023 with the addition of 200 pre-
built, aluminum individual Hope Cottages that provide heat and air conditioning and electricity,
a lockable door, a bed and table, as well as smoke alarms and fire extinguishers, Ricardo said.

Tampa Hope residents are served breakfast and new socks by shelter volunteers.

A resident on a bicycle pedals through the modest entrance to the Tampa Hope shelter before the gate is closed for the night.