The District Magazine Vol. 2 Issue 5, Winter 2017-18 | Page 32

Blanket
Tampa Bay
A SELFLESS ACT
According to the 2017 Homeless Count in
Hillsborough County, on any given night there
are at least 1,549 homeless men, women, and
children in Tampa-Hillsborough County. These
are people who are sleeping on the streets,
behind buildings, in encampments, in cars,
emergency shelters, and transitional housing.
People become homeless every day and it
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is regularly not something they could have
controlled. The loss of work, unaffordable
housing, mental illness, depression is only a few
of the circumstances.
In late 2014 a local church provided each of the
families attending their service $100. The church
instructed them to take the money with the idea
of paying it forward and to return after the New