The Miami-Dade County Commission passed an agreement with the city of Miami Beach on Wednesday to fund the Homeless Trust.
That city had canceled a referendum which could have raised millions of dollars for the Trust through a restaurant tax. That move incensed the county because Miami Beach was one of only three cities in the county not contributing tax revenue to the Trust.
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On Wednesday, Miami Beach agreed to contribute up to $5 million a year, with the money to be raised from a bed tax on the still-under-construction convention center hotel.
Until that hotel opens, the county will take $9 million from community redevelopment funds slated for Miami Beach’s North Beach area.
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Also Wednesday, the Jeff Bezos Foundation announced on NBC’s Today Show that it was donating $5 million to the Homeless Trust.
“I think what it does is it says something to the rest of our philanthropic community and I’m hopeful that some of the other large donors in our community will feel a desire to step up and help match what the Bezos group did today,” said Ron Book, the CEO of the Homeless Trust, whose term was renewed by the county commission for another three years. “At the end of the day, all I care about is getting $10 million more a year which helps us get to the end of homelessness, we have a plan, we see the light at the end of the tunnel.”
Book said in the three decades the Trust has existed, the number of homeless people in Miami-Dade County has decreased by 90%.
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The new funding from Miami Beach, Book said, will be used to move more people from shelters to long-term housing.
