- February 26, 2025
Volunteers serve dinner at the Sheltering Tree's cold weather shelter on Feb. 20 at the Rock Transformation Center. Photo by Brent Woronoff
“Life can get real hard," said cold weather shelter guest Jon Anderson. Photo by Brent Woronoff
Donny, who lives in his car, helped set up the cots at the Sheltering Tree's cold weather shelter on Feb. 20. Photo by Brent Woronoff
Sheltering Tree Chairperson Sue Bickings with Flagler County bus driver Marie Smith. Photo by Brent Woronoff
Men and women file out of the bus and walk across the parking lot to the front door of the Rock Transformation Center in Bunnell.
It’s 5 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 20, check-in time for the Sheltering Tree’s cold weather shelter for the homeless and those who don’t have heat. It was a warm day, but the forecast says it will be a cold night, and the temperature is already falling fast.
The shelter opens when the U.S. National Weather Service is predicting temperatures to fall below 40 degrees. This has been a cold winter. Feb. 20 was the 23rd night the shelter was open, a record since the Sheltering Tree was founded in 2008.
Twenty-eight guests, including a family of five, are sheltered on this night. They are all served a hot meal for dinner, provided a cot with a pillow, sheet and blanket to sleep on and then fed breakfast in the morning. There’s a room for men, a room for women and separate rooms if families are scheduled to come in.
“This shelter is a blessing, it really is,” says Donny, who learned about it through social media three months ago. Donny lives in his car. He calls himself chronically homeless.
“It started during the pandemic,” he says. “Everything started snowballing after that with the cost of housing, the cost of living.”
Donny says he recently got a job as a part-time custodian.
“I’m happily, gainfully employed,” he says. “It’s better than not working. Car insurance isn’t cheap.”
An average of 22 guests a night have been sheltered this season, which is also a record, says Sue Bickings, the Sheltering Tree’s chairperson.
“Since Jan. 7, we’ve sheltered between 24 and 36 guests every night we’ve been open,” Bickings says. At one point, Bickings said, they ran out of cots and the Flagler County Emergency Operations Center gave them some more to use.
“This is a great place. The agencies work with one another,” Bickings says.
Bickings hugs bus driver Marie Smith.
“We don’t always have volunteers from (Flagler County) transportation,” Bickings says. “But Marie will do this seven days a week. She has made herself available to us.”
The Sheltering Tree has over 100 volunteers. There are feeding teams, monitoring teams and a laundry team.
“We want people to know they can go to a safe place,” Bickings says.
Flagler County Health and Human Services Director Joe Hegedus said based on the number of people seeking emergency assistance, the homeless population in the county seems to be rising. The Volusia-Flagler County Coalition for the Homeless conducted its annual “Point in Time Count” at the end of January, but the numbers are not in yet. Every county across the country does a head count on a single night of people experiencing homelessness.
“It’s a rubric, a rough count of people experiencing homelessness on any given day,” Hegedus said.
The Volusia-Flagler count in 2024 was 786 unsheltered (people living in cars, parks or sidewalks) and 378 in temporary shelters. In 2023, there were fewer people unsheltered at 583 and more people sheltered at 470. In total, the Point of Time Count went up 10% from 1,053 to 1,164. In 2022, the total was 865.
The 2024 Point of Time Count in Flagler was 32 unsheltered. Ormond Beach’s unsheltered count was also 32.
Flagler does not have a general shelter. Its main shelter is operated by the Family Life Center, a domestic violence shelter.
Jon Anderson says he’s been living on the streets for two years. “Life can get real hard,” he says.
Anderson says he was renting a house with his brother and mother in Seminole Woods.
“My brother got lung cancer and died two months later and the two of us couldn’t afford the house. The VA helped my mother get into a nursing home,” he says. “I’m trying to find a full-time job. I’m highly skilled. I can fix anything.”
Anderson says Flagler Cares has helped him with the SNAP food assistance program, Social Security and health care. Donny has been getting medical assistance at the Flagler Free Clinic.
The Sheltering Tree provides a weekly Tuesday outreach where it provides lunch, and if needed, clothing, toiletries, shoes, bicycles, sleeping bags and other assistance.
Flagler County Health and Human Services provides financial assistance for people who are about to be evicted or are behind in their rent.
“If somebody’s able to locate a home, we can provide them first, maybe even one or two months rent payments to help them move in and retain housing,” Hegedus said.
Hegedus said last year Health and Human Services spent the bulk of its budgets sooner than anticipated.
“That’s just because of those numbers of folks that increased paired with the higher rent in the community. It eats up that funding quicker,” he said.
CareerSource has helped Anderson find jobs, but transportation is difficult.
He sat at a table in an empty room at the Rock Transformation Center.
“I’m so happy they can help me not freeze, get a hot meal and wash up a little bit,” he said. “You get a little bit of your pride back.”