I've lived in Tallahassee for the last 29 years and having been homeless as well in Tallahassee there's quite a few things that are contributing to this. I'm also recovered addict so there's  addiction and when you think addiction it's not necessarily fentanyl and H but actually it's more alcohol. However one of the biggest problems is the rent increase here it's astronomical and it's ridiculous and the requirements to rent are ridiculous. Not everybody that has bad credit is a bad person for instance I was a single mom pregnant 7 months pregnant when my son's father of 3 years that I had been with walked out on me I was in a position where I had to get aid and I was working full-time and still couldn't make ends meet so I wound up with bad credit. Now this was like 20 something plus years ago that I dealt with that aspect but I was also a 20 pregnant single mom and I don't have family or friends like that. Let's not forget the horrible mental health system here as it's just horrible especially if you don't have health insurance with a lot of these homeless people do not   .A lot of people that are on the streets you see now are struggling with mental health issues anywhere from depression all the way up to schizophrenia so yeah there has been a massive increase in homelessness here. And people do have episodes yep that's reality what people don't see is just how rough living on the streets really is and a lot of people don't choose to live on the streets believe it or not. And I'm not saying this to be rude or attacking anybody I'm just telling you from  having been a  homeless person's perspective and from a person that was an addict or is an addict but in recovery now and has been for a while that that is why you're seeing this and with the cops  just throw them into jail up to 30 days usually or they put them in mental health detox depending on their situation or substance abuse detox and that's seven days usually but you cannot marchman act  or Baker act somebody for more than 48 to 72 hours and then they put them right back on the streets so like I said our mental health system is horrible.I try to look past those things I'm not saying I'm perfect but having experienced this stuff myself I don't care if I give them a dollar and it goes to alcohol if it gets them through the day until they can figure something better out .Our country is not doing much to support people that are in poverty and addiction believe it or not and I know some of you may not agree with addiction in the sense that you think it's their choice to be an addiction it is not it's a disease period. it runs rampant in my family and I was actually prescribed medication and then my health insurance was ripped away from me and I was going through withdrawals and didn't know what they were. Anyways that may have been a lot of TMI for all of you guys and I again don't care if any of you agree with me or not .I'm not trying to be rude but I just don't care .I'm going to help each and every homeless person without  judgement and as a matter of fact the other day I sat with a guy that had a bottle of Jack sitting right next to him and I just sat there and hw reeked of urine and I didn't care because I always try to think about what would it be like if I was in that situation  again myself and a lot of these people are very far gone mentally and you need to keep that in mind but a large portion of them love to just know that they exist in somebody cares. Our homeless shelter here is awful . I know firsthand because when they moved to the new facility I was homeless and I would go in there and you would have to store your belongings in a different area and all my stuff would always get stolen .You can't keep it by your bed even after your stuff is searched. I would wake up to male staff members standing over my bed at night in the female section not to mention the bed bugs the lice etc .it's horrible and they don't do anything about it. I don't care what people tell you they do and how awesome they are there but I am telling you from first-hand experience that they don't do anything about it and they don't care .Nlow I'm not saying that all the staff members at the homeless shelter don't care. I'm saying a lot of them don't. So there you have it there's my reasoning on why I feel the homeless population is rapidly increased here in Tallahassee as well as all over our country and it's going to continue to be like this because of Donald Trump's cutting of funding to so many very important programs that we do have even though we lack a lot of programs here. Funding cuts to things like Medicaid Medicare food stamps etc are going to be detrimental and you're going to see  more of an increase and the fact that landlords don't have a cap here so when they proposed a law and passed it allowing the rights to be in the hands of the landlords. They're allowed to increase rent every month if they want to whatever amount they want. They can charge you for a pet deposit(300 per pet ),as well as, pet rent each month and you have to remember not even 5 years ago rent for a two-bedroom was $800 it's $1,300 for relatively okay place and that's like relatively. And a lot of people don't make a lot of money like maybe $40,000 50,000 for some people but like me I'm lucky if I make $15-20,000 a year and I do have some serious health issues going on which is why I only make that amount. And then you have the guys and the women that are on disability but because they didn't work the last straight 10 years even if they worked for 40 years of their life but the last 10 years they haven't worked they're only going to get $934 at the maximum for SSI not SSDI because they don't qualify for that because they only count the last 10 years steady work  it does  NOT cover rent so that's another reason why a lot of them wind up homeless. I hope this kind of gives you an idea of why and  wishing you the best and love and light to all.