As many as 609 Puerto Rican households still live in Florida hotels under the Transitional Shelter Assistance program set to expire June 30, according to FEMA.
Families and advocates met Friday morning at the Woodsprings Suites near Orlando International Airport to demand Gov. Rick Scott help them find permanent housing.
“We’re here because the governor is visiting Puerto Rico instead of realizing that here, our Puerto Rican community urgently needs help,” said Kira Moreno-Craft, an attorney who spoke on behalf of Vamos4PR, the coalition of advocacy groups that organized the event.
Scott visited the island this week, speaking about public-private partnerships at an economic conference.
Speakers at Friday’s rally included advocates from different organizations like Mi Familia Vota, an organization that aims to increase voter engagement, and Faith in Florida, a statewide interfaith nonprofit.
Moreno-Craft said it’s a particular group of families who haven’t been able to find permanent housing after relocating from Puerto Rico: those who have to support children, the elderly or family members with disabilities.
She urged Scott to use the state’s affordable housing fund to help these families at risk of homelessness and to pressure FEMA to provide permanent housing assistance, like the agency has done after other natural disasters in the U.S.
“He has the power to make change,” Moreno-Craft said. “We’re not asking for something that’s out of his power.”
In a statement, John Tupps, a spokesman for the governor, said Scott “has continued to do all he can to ensure state resources are available to help families in need.”
“The Governor has also spoken many times with officials from Puerto Rico and the federal government,” he added. “This includes working directly with FEMA Administrator Brock Long to support displaced Puerto Ricans by keeping the FEMA case managers the Governor requested on the ground across the state.”
Among the rally’s speakers were a psychiatric patient and a man with physical disabilities, both of whom talked about the difficulties of finding affordable housing with their conditions.
Another demonstrator, Ariana Colón, said that although she works, she hasn’t been able to save enough money to pay what’s required for a long-term lease: three months’ rent and a security deposit.
After Hurricane Maria, she was forced to stop attending nursing school, and came to Central Florida with her now 1-year-old-son Sebastian.
For seven months, they’ve been staying at the Holiday Inn hotel in Kissimmee.
Since Colón left after the storm she’s had to pay most expenses out of pocket — plane tickets to relocate, food to prepare at the hotel and transportation. She began receiving food stamps in February.
Right now, she works at Burger King and earns about $200 every two weeks, which she said goes toward childcare.
“I work to pay [the expenses],” she said. “The money I make, I spend it.”
Four months pregnant with her second child, Colón has been able to stay thanks to her boyfriend, who also moved from Puerto Rico after the hurricane and found a job as a barber. But except for him, she doesn’t have any other friends or family here to lend her a hand.
With the TSA deadline approaching, she said desperation has set in.
“I thought of going back to Puerto Rico,” she said. “I said [to my boyfriend] it wasn’t worth it — so much work, so much sacrifice for nothing … That’s how I feel every day, waiting to see what happens, if there’s a miracle.”
mvizcaino@orlandosentinel.com, 407-420-5257 or @vizcainomarie on Twitter.
