Six months into St. Pete’s housing experiment, enforcing rules and measuring success

The Tampa Bay Times has been covering this housing experiment since residents moved in on Valentine’s Day. We will follow tenants and staff throughout the year.

Chapter 1: In St. Petersburg, homeless people get an apartment, support — and a fresh start

Chapter 2: A St. Petersburg housing experiment is 2 months old. Here’s how it’s going.

Chapter 3: Formerly homeless St. Pete residents mark milestones in housing experiment

Chapter 4: Some thrive, some struggle as formerly homeless residents adapt to St. Pete apartments

ST. PETERSBURG — Janet Stringfellow gasped when she looked out the wide window of her second-floor office. A pickup was pulling out of the parking lot — with one of the new beds in back.

As CEO of the Volunteers of America of Florida, she and her staff had convinced Kane’s Furniture to discount those mattresses and headboards and lined up sponsors to furnish 25 homes for homeless people. Brand-new everything for residents who had nothing.

Now, one of those queen-size beds was rolling away.

On the sidewalk, a tenant was waving off the driver. Janet, 54, knew her by the baggy gym shorts and backward ballcap.

“Hey, Nicole!” Janet shouted down. “You have to get that bed back!”

Nicole “Nic” Lines, 40, looked up, confused. Everyone had told her that the new place was hers. “Your apartment.” Didn’t that include the furniture?

Nic had been living on the streets for five years. After months in the new home, she was still sleeping on an air mattress, like the one she’d had in her tent. That new bed was too tall, too big, too soft.

So when a guy from the shelter offered $80 for it, she jumped. She couldn’t remember the last time she had that much money.

Nic told Janet, “I don’t think I can get it back.”

• • •

Six months into the housing experiment, no one had been kicked out. One resident and one staff member left.

Finances were still in flux. Residents, agencies and donors had different demands. And staff were trying to keep tabs on dozens of different metrics.

But how do you measure success?

Some people had jobs, were looking for work, taking classes. Others already had quit new jobs. Five still had no income, including Nic. Police hadn’t been called to the property since June.

“I’m surprised we’ve only lost one person so far,” Janet said.

Innovare apartments opened on Valentine’s Day, two new six-story towers in downtown St. Petersburg.

Half of the 50 units were for homeless people chosen from shelters, most with mental health diagnoses. They pay 30% of whatever income they have from Social Security or disability, some as little as $100 a month.

The rest are for low-income tenants who make less than $37,000. Rent, for them, starts at $978 for a one-bedroom.

Residents have access to counselors, cooking classes, rides to a food pantry, movie nights. “Everything they need to start over,” Janet said.

Leaders hope it will become a model for similar projects across the country.

Since February, counselors have spent six hours a month with each formerly homeless tenant, helping them set goals. They’ve encouraged people to make “honest budgets,” including expenses for Bud Light, 305 cigarettes and lottery tickets.

They rank residents on 20 “daily living activities.” Is the person bathing? Brushing their teeth? Managing their moods?

“We’re trying to create a baseline so we can measure outcomes,” Janet said. Eventually, the goal is for 85% of residents to be able to live on their own.

For now, the question is: Are they at least making progress?

“People said this would never work,” Janet said. “The residents — and community — already are proving them wrong.”

As people read about the project in the Tampa Bay Times, they have clamored to help. Some set up a free clothes closet in the community room. Volunteer tutors teach English and help with online classes. The Garden Club of St. Petersburg will plant vegetable boxes. Gulfcoast Legal Services wants to offer free counsel.

Some tenants were trying to figure out how much autonomy they really had. If the apartment was theirs, if they had a lease and paid rent, why did management get to inspect their homes? Tell them what temperature to set their air conditioning? Limit how long their guests can stay?

“We’re working through lots of unexpected issues,” Janet said. “We’re starting to have to hold our residents accountable. So many of them haven’t had any of that in so long.”

When Nic sold that bed, Janet said, staff took it personally. After all they had done to make the apartments feel like homes, what were they supposed to tell the donors? How could they support Nic but also make an example of her?

“It’s hard. Like parenting,” Janet said. “She had to pay a bit for her bad decision.”

• • •

Janet is animated, talkative, perpetually positive. She grew up in Puerto Rico and moved to Miami in 1998 with two suitcases and a master’s degree in rehabilitation counseling. Her first job at Volunteers of America helped people with schizophrenia. She earned $1,000 more than the low-income residents she served.

She moved to St. Petersburg when she got a job working for the organization’s state office. Here, she has launched housing programs for seniors, veterans and people with mental health needs. She oversees $100 million in properties across Florida — more than 2,000 rental units.

She spent the last six years trying to build the $18 million housing experiment. She staked her career on this unprecedented project, convincing bosses and bureaucrats that, with the right partnerships, the community could get people off the streets and out of shelters, into permanent places of their own.

Providing a home and social services for someone costs about $20,000 a year, she said — about one-third the cost of supporting people on the streets. The approach is layered: Get them Medicaid so they don’t go to emergency rooms. Help them find jobs so they don’t need food stamps. Offer counseling to keep them out of mental health wards and jail. When you connect people with resources, Janet said, you can help them reclaim their lives — and save taxpayers money.

With rising rent and home prices, and a new Florida law about to make it illegal for people to sleep outside, the need for safe, permanent housing is skyrocketing, Janet said.

“I cried, pleaded and prayed for this place,” she said. “I still do, every morning, down on my knees.”

Now, people are lining up to be a part of the experiment. The woman who moved out — a low-income renter who wouldn’t work on a payment plan or stop smoking inside — opened up another unit. Janet capped the waiting list for it at 50 people. Thousands of others around Tampa Bay need affordable places to live.

Behind the housing experiment, tall luxury condos are rising from the pavement.

On the empty lot beside it, people camp with shopping carts and milk crate stools. A block away, on a summer night, an older man spread a blanket beneath the overpass. A barefoot woman carried bags of her belongings through the rain.

• • •

Budget classes are held on Fridays at 9 a.m. — hours before Nic usually gets up.

But for the last few weeks, she had to rouse herself off the floor, grab her ballcap and ride the elevator to the community room to sign in.

She still didn’t have a job, still wasn’t charged any rent. But now she had to find $150 a month to pay off the $800 bed.

“How much do you spend on household cleaning items each month?” counselor Christy Smith asked the residents that morning.

One man shrugged. “Nothing?” said another. “No idea.”

“Probably about $20,” Nic offered. “I don’t cook, so I don’t do dishes. But I like the place to smell clean.”

Christy passed out dollar-store flyers and told the tenants to clip coupons, download apps for deals. “Look here!” she said. “Febreze is a BOGO this week.”

Nic seemed bored. She kept dropping her head into her hands. She had been holing up since the bed debacle, trying to avoid Janet and the other staff.

At night, she was enjoying not having a curfew, unlike at the tent city. She walked Central Avenue in the dark, hands in pockets, earbuds blasting “Nine Inch Nails.”

“Now, take out your red folders,” Christy said. “You need to track everything you spend. Even for a stick of gum.”

Nic’s wants: Cigarettes and a vape pen.

Her needs: New shoes. Toilet paper. A job.

She was supposed to have one by now and was terrified she was going to get kicked out of the only place she had ever had to herself. “I know they can rip it right out from under me at any moment.”

She was still wondering what she had done wrong. Other residents thought the furnishings were theirs, too.

• • •

Nicole’s forearms are inked with signatures of the only people she said ever loved her: Grammy and Mom. She was 23 when her mom died, which sent her into a dark spiral: meth, crack, Dilaudid. She wound up on the streets, desperate for the next escape.

After years of bouncing between hospitals, rehabs, sofas and shelters, after her Grammy got sick, she moved in to take care of her. When Grammy died, her uncle wouldn’t let her stay in their trailer, so Nic slid back outside.

She had jobs as a prep cook and at Target and Tradewinds Resort. She started working steps toward sobriety. At the tent city, she relapsed. But she started over at Innovare, where a counselor holds Wednesday night meetings.

To mark her new beginning, she went to Billy’s Corner Barber Shop on Fourth Street. She met her friend, Billy Hume Jr., in recovery, and he had been giving her free haircuts — and bags of clothes — for years. He shaved Nic’s neck, edged her dark hair into a “high and tight” summer cut.

She promised she wouldn’t come back until she finished all 12 steps.

“Took me four years to get through all that,” Billy said, laughing. “Good luck!”

To pay off the bed and buy smokes, Nic started cleaning houses, watching dogs.

One night, alone in a house with two French bulldogs, she curled on the floor and started sobbing. Deep, desperate tears wrenched out in waves. She hadn’t cried like that since her Grammy died.

She wouldn’t let herself weep in her new apartment. The walls were too thin. But there, in that concrete house, years of anger, sorrow and shame spilled out of Nic while the dogs licked her face.

• • •

On the last Friday in July, two dozen people poured into the community room for free subs — and the residents’ monthly meeting.

“So, smoking is still a concern. And now there are going to be more harsh consequences, including termination of your leases,” said Hendrick Forbes, who was filling in as housing director.

“Getting kicked out for smoking seems like the harshest thing,” a resident said.

Another jumped in. “But we have to respect the rules. Can we have candles?”

“No.”

“And a lot of you aren’t running your air conditioning,” Hendrick said. “This is Florida. You have to keep the thermostat at 75 degrees. We don’t want mold or mildew.”

Some people, he knew, were keeping the temperature high because they didn’t want to be charged for the electricity. “You’re not paying full rent, so you should be able to pay those bills,” Hendrick said.

“We have ways we can help, so reach out,” said counselor Christy. A woman bent over a walker raised her hand. “For me, 75 is cold,” she said. “Can I open the window?”

Hendrick shook his head. “Humidity is the problem. Put on a sweater.” “It is your place. You are paying rent. But there are rules,” said the counselor. Residents are responsible for their guests.

“We see everything with the security cameras. We’re like Big Brother,” Christy told them. “If you got wild friends, you’ve got to put up some boundaries, or they’re going to jeopardize everything for you.”

If a guest stays more than one consecutive night, residents must tell the office.

Staff inspect apartments every month, with warning. Every quarter, housing officials rate units’ cleanliness in 50 categories: floors, screens, cobwebs, bugs, dust, clutter.

“You all are the first people to live in your apartment,” Christy said, “so there shouldn’t be a natural disaster in there when I come.”

Staff have to protect the property for investors. Every month, they report to nine funders.

Volunteers of America of Florida is a faith-based nonprofit. But they made Innovare a for-profit entity so it could get tax credits that would attract investors. TD Bank underwrote much of the construction. In 15 years, if the project breaks even, the Volunteers of America will own it and convert it to a nonprofit.

“If we find problems in your unit, we’ll give you a chance to correct them,” the counselor told the residents. “We have people coming to check on us, too.”

• • •

Janet gives at least one tour a week. Churches and government groups and potential donors all want to see Innovare for themselves.

In late July, she showed around six people from a Clearwater nonprofit called Corinne’s Food Pantry.

“We saw the story in the newspaper about how you were driving people to the food pantry and thought: Wait! Our food pantry can come to you!” said Dawn Winder, mom of the nonprofit’s late namesake.

Janet showed them an apartment, the counselors’ wing and the community room, where residents were waiting to carry food.

On the way to the parking lot, Nic stopped Janet. “I got a job interview,” she told her. “I did it all by myself.”

She had made a resume on her phone, figured out how to upload it to Indeed. That morning, someone from Potbelly Sandwiches had called.

“That’s going to be a game changer!” Janet said. “Don’t be shy in the interview. Do you want to practice?” Nic laughed, then hung her head. “I think I know how to talk myself up for sandwiches,” she said.

“And is the bed thing going well?” Janet asked.

“I’m down to $550,” Nic said. “But I can’t pay this month unless I get this job.”

Janet nodded, smiling. “When you’re done paying that off, we’re going to have a party,” she promised. “To celebrate your accountability.”

Nic glanced up, looked Janet in the eye. “A party? For me?” she asked. “For real?”

She couldn’t remember the last time anyone had a party for her.

How to help

To help, or get on the waiting list, contact Volunteers of America of Florida at 727-369-8500.