Over the past few years local governments in the Tampa/Hillsborough County area haven't done much regarding the explosion of homeless people in the community, though that's now changing with the County's recent approval to allocate over $2 million to fund the acquisition and rehabilitation of a 24-unit affordable housing development located off of Fowler Avenue in the University area of North Tampa.
There are a variety of social service agencies providing services to the homeless in Tampa Bay, but none has been bigger in the area than Metropolitan Ministries, now a 40-year-old institution in Tampa Heights that has provided millions of hot meals for the homeless and hundreds of thousands of shelter nights over the past four decades.
Now the agency is going big — a planned expansion of its campus to be called "MiraclePlace," that officials say will more than double the number of families and children served, to more than 200 families and over 450 children annually.
This article appears in May 10-16, 2012.