In a Florida boom town, builders and homeless services providers fret: ‘We can’t be L.A.’

Bulldozers and For most of the last decade, developers and nonprofits in Jacksonville have sought to meet the growing demand, building almost enough houses and apartments to keep even most low-income residents from becoming homeless. L.A. County has about eight or nine times the number of homeless people per capita compared with Jacksonville’s three-county homeless services area, based on local estimates and census data. Alex Sifakis’ company, JWB Real Estate Capital, doesn’t work directly with homeless people, but his for-profit business model helps explain why Jacksonville has had a relatively fluid real estate market. He was finally able to move into Tiny Houses on Navaho, a community of one-bedroom homes, a month ago with the help of Ability Housing, a nonprofit developer in Jacksonville, Fla. Housing and homeless specialists say cities benefit from having more affordable homes on the market, even if those houses and apartments aren’t directly rented to unhoused people. Many have mental health issues that he’s “basically never seen before — I mean, on this level, you know, schizophrenia, bipolar, all kinds of disorders.” The backlash against homeless people is partly the result of their increased visibility in the downtown area, which has fewer residences than other parts of Jacksonville and can look more desolate when office workers are doing their jobs from home.