Opening Doors Northwest Florida is readying for the 2026 Point in Time Count (PIT) of homeless individuals in Escambia and Santa Rosa counties. This year’s survey, set for next week, will be conducted under the leadership of new Executive Director Bruce Cady.
Cady has been on the job for a little over a month, coming from St. Lucie and Martin counties along Florida’s Treasure Coast. He’s spent time assessing homelessness in the community and setting priorities for dealing with it.
He says this northwest region of the state has a different demographic from the Treasure Coast, with fewer retirees and a larger job base.
“So there are more working people here. There are more people raising their families, being part of the local economy,” he said. “And if you look at Santa Rosa County, that's quite a bit more rural than what I'm used to. It's a smaller county by population density. And the needs between a more urban environment, as we have in Escambia County, versus the rural environment of Santa Rosa, present different needs, different gaps of services for those experiencing homelessness.”
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Cady’s work includes collaborating with community partners to learn about service capacity and identify those gaps in services within the two counties. He said one of the first things that he wants to improve is the area’s delivery of street outreach.
“We have a couple of very strong street outreach providers that operate in both counties, but we only have a couple providers that are doing that very essential work,” said Cady, suggesting the need for more. “What street outreach performs is it helps the community of service providers identify those who are experiencing homelessness and ensuring that they get into the homeless service delivery system. Street outreach is and should be the way that the individuals get in the front door and ensure that there's not a closed door anywhere. So every door is open. That's why our name is Opening Doors is to ensure that the barriers to receiving services are removed.”
Second on Cady’s list of priorities is to address the shortage of available shelter beds in the two-county area.
“Because when street outreach does their wonderful work to identify individuals to bring in to the service delivery network, we need to have beds for them to go,” he said. “That's particularly apparent during this time of year here when we have these cold nights, when the temperatures drop below freezing. That is life and death, challenges for those that are on the street.”
In his early assessment, Cady acknowledges that the community has a good cold night shelter system, in coordination with Escambia Emergency Services and free local bus service to the cold night shelters. Cady applauds the efforts of the region’s largest cold weather shelters such as Waterfront Rescue Mission in Escambia and Ferris Hill Baptist Church in Santa Rosa, but, again, he points to the need for more capacity.
“Part of my goals going into this year is working very closely with the emergency management teams both here in Escambia and Santa Rosa counties so that when we do have extreme events, think cold night, think hurricanes, God forbid, another biological epidemic, that we have the infrastructure in place to be able to serve the homeless as best as possible to meet their needs.”
While local, state and federal governments are making resources available to address homelessness, leaders also have been passing ordinances and laws to restrict what homeless individuals can do in public places. A recent example is Florida's HB 1365 that went into effect in 2024. The law prohibits sleeping/camping on public property.
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Cady says, in his opinion, laws and ordinances that are punitive in nature harm their ability to serve the unhoused, but he understands the spirit behind them to preserve the rights and dignity of the unhoused while protecting them and all local residents.
“What I'm seeing here in this community in the two counties that I operate, I'm not seeing a meanness in spirit. I'm seeing law enforcement that truly cares about all the residents in the community and that informs the work that everyone within those organizations does. It's not punitive, it's supportive. It's truly safety, public safety.”
Since taking the job as executive director of Opening Doors about a month ago, Cady has had to hit the ground running to begin preparations for the 2026 Point in Time count required annually by HUD.
For context on his expectations, he references the results of the 2025 PIT count.
“Here in Escambia and Santa Rosa County, we identified 886, a total of 886. Two-hundred-eight-five were unsheltered, so that means they were on the street," he explained. "And 601 were in the shelter system. Homeless, but in shelter, that's a wonderful number. Six-hundred-one in shelter means that 601 individuals were not on the street that night. That being said, I believe that these numbers are low for this community. The service provider network believes that these numbers are low, and so that's why I'm really pushing hard to get as many boots on the ground to do this PIT count.”
As of the interview with Cady, he was short of the 100 volunteers needed for the PIT and indicated that Opening Doors will continue to provide training for those who sign up late.
For this year, PIT count surveyors will track where sheltered and unsheltered individuals slept the night of January 26. The count will begin on Tuesday, Jan. 27 and continue through Saturday, Jan. 31.
The information gathered through the PIT count is essential for identifying trends and changes in homelessness, advocating for additional resources and support, and improving local programs and services. The PIT count events to be held in Escambia (on the 29th) and Santa Rosa (on the 30th)
“We'll provide the documentation needed to attest to homelessness that the individuals can then take to the tax collector who will also have a table there. And individuals that are missing photo IDs can get their replacement state issued IDs,” said Cady, adding that there will be a focus on helping individuals that don’t yet have a federally compliant REAL ID, which requires a birth certificate. “There'll be another agency that's helping them order their birth certificate replacements so they then could take our letter of certification plus their birth certificate to the tax collector to get that ID.”
Because, Cady says, without that REAL ID, you can't get a job, you can't get into permanent housing, and you often can't get local, state or federal assistance.
Again, the 2026 PIT Count in Escambia and Santa Rosa counties will be conducted Jan. 27-31.
