Jesse Scheckner
Fewer and fewer people are experiencing homelessness in Miami-Dade, Mayor Daniella Levine Cava’s administration says, and it’s not because the county and its municipalities are ramping up arrests.
Well, one is.
A memo Levine Cava’s office sent the County Commission this month reported a 17% decline in its unhoused population, based on a January point-in-time count. The census, conducted by the Miami-Dade Homeless Trust, identified 858 people living without a home, down 175 people from the prior year’s count.
That’s counter to an upward trend nationally, according to an annual report from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development that found America’s unsheltered population jumped 18% in 2024.
Meanwhile, Miami-Dade saw a 4% increase in sheltered homelessness, with more than 2,800 individuals residing in shelters, transitional housing and other temporary accommodations.
Levine Cava emphasized that Florida’s ongoing housing crisis — which is particularly pronounced in the Greater Miami area encompassing Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties — is a contributing factor to the problem.
Standout figures the Homeless Trust provided included a 43% decrease in unsheltered homelessness in Miami-Dade south of Kendall Drive, a 31% drop in Miami Beach, a 13% decline in Miami and a 6% dip in North Miami-Dade between Kendall Drive and the Broward County line.
For the most part, Levine Cava’s memo said, “Miami-Dade and its municipalities are not arresting their way out of homelessness.”
Miami-Dade and 33 of its 34 municipalities aren’t. The same can’t be said of Miami Beach.
The memo said police arrested 165 unhoused people in Miami-Dade County between Jan. 1, 2024, and March 17, 2025, in accordance with a 2024 law (HB 1365) Gov. Ron DeSantis signed that banned local governments from allowing unhoused people to sleep or camp on public property except at designated camps that must be relocated yearly.
Of those arrests, Levine Cava’s memo attributed 160 to Miami Beach, which passed a ban similar to the state’s in October 2023. Miami Beach Mayor Steven Meiner touted the city as having “one of the lowest homeless populations in our city’s history” in an X post and newsletter this month.
Last July, Miami Beach announced a program called Operation Summer Relief to reduce the number of unhoused people living within its bounds. The city said its methods would include “encouraging the city’s homeless population to take advantage of available programs and initiatives, including access to shelters, regular meals and treatment options for mental illness or drug and alcohol addiction.”
At a press conference introducing the program, Meiner said the program aimed to be kind and sympathetic but stressed, “Do not mistake our compassion for weakness.”
Halfway through last year, more than a third of the city’s arrests were of people classified as homeless, the Miami Herald reported, citing city records.
After the passage of HB 1365 — sponsored by Fort Pierce Sen. Jonathan Martin and Fleming Island Rep. Sam Garrison, both Republicans — Miami-Dade implemented several initiatives to provide housing solutions. That includes the County Commission-approved purchase of a La Quinta Inn in Cutler Bay in September, converting it into 107 studio apartments for seniors 55 and older.
Additional improvements include upgrades at an eight-unit property in Miami that the Homeless Trust acquired in March, 12 added beds at a property for seniors in North Miami, 51 extra beds at The Salvation Army and other countywide efforts projected to add hundreds of more beds and rooms this year.
Levine Cava said the Homeless Trust is working to maintain existing funding levels and secure new dollars while pushing “for policy changes that further address public camping and sleeping and reduce homelessness in Miami-Dade.” She added that the organization has been communicating with Martin “to better target Florida Housing Finance Corporation housing resources for the homeless.”
Similar efforts are underway at the federal level, she continued, noting that Miami-Dade is awaiting “further guidance” from President Donald Trump’s administration about “any funding opportunities for public housing, voucher programs, the Special Needs Assistance Program and any other federal funding used to address affordable housing and homelessness.”
