FORT MYERS, FLA — Since April, we've been following homelessness in Lee county.
And we've learned that the pandemic is shining a light on gaps in services, that have existed for some time.
Monday afternoon, at a travel lodge in Fort Myers, we hear more of the same.
"I don't have any other shelter," said a woman named Octavia.
This woman says she was recently released from a state hospital and has been using her savings to stay here ever since, but today the money ran out.
She says she called local homeless services and they told her she didn't qualify for certain services, because she wasn't on the street yet.
Monday night, the Fort Myers city council addressed the issue again.
"We failed our homeless population, we failed them completely," said councilwoman Terolyn Watson.
The city manager, Saeed Kazemi, says he has a plan to right that wrong.
He says he wants to take a note from a program used in Tampa and Broward and Sarasota counties, it's called "Hot," Homeless outreach teams.
The teams will make contact with people in the streets, find and connect them with transitional housing and other services and ultimately get them into permanent housing.
"We need to get more partners to get involved," said Kazemi
He's looking to get local police, the homeless coalition, the county and the St. Matthews house non-profit on board. And in the meantime, he says the city needs to working to create a better way to shelter people during the pandemic.
"I wish we had an answer that tomorrow we are going to solve this, but we have to have a plan," said Kazemi.
The woman we spoke to says the group she initially called was Community Assisted and Supported Living or CASL. Fox 4 has reached out to them for comment.
