You're watching Southwest Florida in focus, coming up, hitting a hurdle while helping the homeless.

How a new Florida law is interfering with the efforts to provide resources to people who are living on the streets.

That's the way it's going to be.

That worked on the map.

That worked on our chart on the boat.

Never did.

What's in a name?

We head to our Gulf Shores to find out what locals think about the newly renamed Gulf of America.

Gosh, I wish I had a red on you and on your body.

And it's the battle of the Bee Flats.

Some of the world's top opera singers belt out their best for Broadway to commemorate one legendary singer.

Hello, I'm Sandra Victorova Thank you very much for joining us.

Well, on the move and out of sight.

That is the impact a new Florida law has had on the homeless in our state.

According to homeless advocacy groups.

The law limits where unhoused people can camp out.

Organizations trying to help those in need say it's been harder to deliver services which could get the homeless off the streets.

WGCUs Eileen Kelly reports.

You got to have a survival mind every day.

Keith Fuller is resting in a downtown Fort Myers bus station trying to keep warm.

With no place to call home.

He tries to find a place to sleep while avoiding the police that are located right across the street from the depot.

I've been, like dodging the.

Certain spots.

I just wake up early in the morning, you know.

Constitution officers, advocates for the homeless found Fuller and invited him to be part of a survey that provides a snapshot of the amount of people who are unhoused at any given time.

It's called a point in time count conducted for the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

The more people counted, the more money the federal government sends to the area's homeless coalition's.

Despite just taking five minutes, fewer people are willing to participate in the survey this year.

We're doing the point in time count for the homeless nationwide today.

Can we count you today?

Look for that.

Come on.

Rolling me help you?

Last year, legislators passed Florida House Bill 1365.

It prohibits local governments from allowing unauthorized camping or sleeping on public property.

This increases the likelihood of more arrests and citations so more people are afraid.

The first thing that we have been talking to our volunteers that are going home counting is please, first and foremost, tell them I'm not here from the government.

Critics of the new law say it doesn't address the root cause of homelessness, according to Michael Overbay, who leads both Lee and Call Your County's homeless coalition's.

The new law has been a deterrent in trying to assist those in need, but a lot of folks refused to survey because they felt that we were from the government and they were interviewing around the new wall.

That's what they kept referring to.

So it's been tough couple of weeks already for the homeless count.

That hasn't stopped outreach workers from searching bus stops, parking lots, and bridge culverts for the unhoused.

They provide bus passes, backpack checks and brochures regarding homeless services available in the area right now.

Neither Lee nor Collier counties offer homeless shelters, making life for those who are unhoused even more difficult.

They know the shift change.

They know where they have to be, what, what area they can be without getting harassed or in trouble.

And I think they're trying to stay as mobile as possible, but within the resource area that they know where they can get a hot meal, or they can talk to the people or feel safe, warm.

Think you.

More than 31,000 people experienced homelessness on any given night in Florida last year.

That, according to a report by Florida's Council on Homelessness.

Joining us now is Lance Aquino, the executive director of the Florida Coalition to End Homelessness.

Welcome, liane.

We appreciate your time.

Thank you very much.

So we spoke earlier and you told me that you had the chance to speak to the lawmaker who sponsored this legislation, HB 1365.

And you actually believe that the intention behind the law is in the right place?

How so?

Well, I don't think anybody wants to have people experiencing homelessness sleeping on the street.

We certainly don't either.

So, you know, getting them off the street is a priority or should be a priority.

And I think that that was the intention to get get people off the street as quickly as possible.

So Liam, when we spoke earlier, you said that this law was aimed at trying to resolve a concerning problem, an expensive problem for the state of Florida regarding a group called the Million Dollar Murrays.

What does that term mean?

Okay, so our chronically homeless individuals, now we're talking about when we and that term is often used derogatory.

So chronically homeless individuals are persons who are both disabled and have been homeless for over a year.

So we call them million dollar Murrays.

Million dollar Murrays are people who are high cost in and out of jail, in and out of the emergency room, have significant health and or mental health issues.

Right.

They're coming in and out of the hospital, and they're not able to get into housing because of that.

So we call them million dollar Murrays because they will cost the community a lot of money.

They will, we call them high cost, high cost, high need individuals.

And so those individuals really need to be off the street as quickly as possible.

Now, you told me, though, while we think that that is the most typical scenario for for folks on the street, that that's really not the case.

So what is you know, the more typical profile for somebody, someone who's unhoused.

So one of the largest groups of, people experiencing homelessness is the 55 end of the age group.

We have only 20% are actually that chronically homeless individual.

So 80% of them are not disabled, haven't been homeless for more than a year.

I think that there's a misconception that everybody who's sleeping on the street is mentally ill or have a substance abuse issue.

And the truth of the matter is that most people with mental illness or substance abuse are not homeless.

And the majority of people who are homeless don't have those problems.

So I think it's an important thing to realize that even though, this law was focused on the chronically homeless, you know, getting those individuals off the street, we're not talking about just that population that is actually homeless on the street.

Leanne.

Casino, we so appreciate your time.

Thank you.

Of course.

Thank you so much.

Und du wirst.

We have to give people a little bit of not a knock knock joke, but not something fake a laugh, but something to give them a little bit of humanity to hang on to.

After the break, coping with the news fatigue, Mary Louise Kelly, the host of All Things Considered, talks about how her NPR team is adjusting to listeners who are overwhelmed by bad news in these tumultuous times.

Typically, Presidents Day isn't a holiday that grabs many headlines.

But earlier this week in Fort Myers, people use the occasion, which is meant to honor the nation's top leaders, to protest President Donald Trump.

The rally was just one of many in the nationwide 5051 movement.

Excuse Elizabeth Energy reports.

This is part of a larger movement.

The 5051 movement, which has 50 protests in 50 states on one day.

So we did this, February 5th at state capitals around the country.

And this is, state capitals and city halls, so that more people can be a part of it.

And this is a great turnout.

That's Galia Pilliga.

She's among the dozens of demonstrators who showed up with signs, flags, chants and passionate speeches.

It's lovely being with other people of, like, minds and all the cars that are passing by and and honking.

Their support is wonderful.

But this point in time is very frightening and very terrible when we're facing, takeover of the government.

The diverse crowd shared common sentiments about democratic procedures.

Musk was not elected, and Trump is not king.

They have no right to do this stuff.

There's ways that things need to be done and they're not.

They're skipping everything.

So hopefully it can be overturned.

The energy suggests that people don't want to sit back and wait for change.

The people here are not just protesting.

They're demanding a different kind of leadership, one that shares more balance.

I know it's difficult, but you need to pay attention and you need to protest now while you still can.

You.

I know a lot of people are hiding their heads and not wanting to deal with it.

It's an avalanche of chaos.

But you got to deal with that and you got to deal with it right now before we lose our democracy.

I have Covering the second Trump administration is a daunting endeavor for journalists at a time when there is so much political polarization, when so many Americans seem to have news fatigue.

How are reporters navigating their coverage with these pressures?

We are thrilled to have that discussion with award winning journalist Mary Louise Kelly, co-host of All Things Considered, NPR's award winning afternoon magazine.

Mary Louise, thank you so much for joining us today.

It is my great pleasure to escape the weather in Washington to join you on set.

Well, we're thrilled to have you, and thank you for the hard work that you do every day for us.

Let me start with this.

You know, talking to friends, colleagues, even folks in my own family, there's so much, news fatigue, folks who say I just can't watch or listen to news coverage.

How has that impacted your team and how you decide how you'll cover stories and what you will and will not include in a newscast?

Well, first of all, it's real.

And as someone who works in news every day, I certainly feel it.

I often find I feel more stressed out in a strange way on my days off when I'm away from the newsroom, because I can't do anything about it other than pick up my phone and scroll like everyone else and think, oh my God, this and this and this and this and this.

When I'm in the newsroom, like you, I can at least tasks someone a question and try to advance my understanding of it.

And hopefully through doing that, advance other people's understanding of the situation that, is unfolding, whatever that may be.

The other piece, you know, we find ourselves being mindful.

So I think are all things considered two hours every weeknight.

Sounds like a long time.

And you can race by and realize we have done nothing but doom, gloom, war, stressful politics, natural disasters.

Where you think we have to give people a little bit of a not a knock knock joke, but not something fake a laugh, but something to give them a little bit of humanity to hang on to.

So when we sit in our morning meeting planning what do we want to put on the air tonight?

I often will look and say, like in every half hour, is there some opportunity where you will hear me or my co-anchor smile or laugh or some humanity show connection?

Because if there's not, let's rethink.

We continue to hear the word unprecedented as journalists cover, this new Trump administration.

I'm thinking specifically, you know, as, as journalists cover the gutting of federal agencies, you have traveled the world, you traveled the country, covered several administrations.

Have we seen anything like this before?

No, no, I think there are.

We are witnessing things that are unprecedented.

One of the stories I was covering this week was looking at the role that Elon Musk, the billionaire entrepreneur who owns X and SpaceX and Tesla.

What role?

He is a private citizen who no one voted for is playing in our federal government.

And I was struggling to think of a precedent for that.

So I think that's one example of many things that we're seeing play out that I have not seen precedent for, and coming up on a quarter century of covering Washington.

So since we were talking about this, this idea of folks just feeling exhausted watching, what is the solution?

I've talked to my well, she's not a teenager anymore.

My young adult daughter.

Who says she reading news?

Consuming news is just too much.

Do we have these discussions at home?

Do we encourage folks to, you know, watch to listen still despite hope.

So I mean, I work in the news business, so I'm biased, obviously.

But I find if I understand more about what's happening and also what we don't know, I know sometimes I'll pitch an interview in our morning meeting and an editor will rightly say, we don't know the answer to that.

And I'll say, that's okay.

Just asking the questions, acknowledging, here's what we do know, and here are the things we're hoping to fill in.

And here are the people we hope might be able to start leading us toward a path of understanding it.

I find that helpful.

I also find we obviously want to interview newsmakers on NPR.

We want to interview people at the center of events, but trying to find the people affected by what's happening in unprecedented times in Washington and hearing their stories and just sitting and listening and bearing witness, restores a little bit of the the faith that we're all in this together.

We're going to be okay.

We're in uncharted waters.

In many ways.

I think that is true.

But there is a common thread of humanity and storytelling that we can bring to the work.

I was recently watching in an interview that you did, when you were talking about your book and you were sharing your experiences of covering war.

An outstanding coverage.

Thank you for all your coverage in Ukraine.

And you talked about the importance of having women and parents be assigned to those types of stories and how it really makes a difference.

I was hoping you could just touch on that.

And how why do you think it's so important that we make sure that women and parents get assigned to those stories because the, the, the types of stories they capture or how they focus on them really is is a benefit to our viewers and listeners.

Well, thank you for that question.

I've always been so, so grateful to be a woman as a reporter out in the world, partly some of the places I've reported from, Afghanistan, Pakistan, my male co-host can't interview half the population in some places because women are not going to be able to interact with a foreign male who's not in their family.

So I can go places.

I can interview the Prime minister when we fly in, and I can interview the member of Parliament, and then I can also go into the kitchen of the house in the village that we were reporting in and say, what is your life look like?

What's for dinner tonight?

How much does that cost?

Can you afford it?

What are you feeding your family?

What is your hope and dream for your daughter?

And I think being a woman, partly there are questions like that.

There are also, as a parent, I find the way that I tell stories is just different.

My background is foreign policy, national security.

And I love, you know, sitting down with some senior NATO official and talking about wonky policy issues.

And that's important.

And that's part of the work we do.

But to then say, how do you go home and tell your kids about this?

How do you go home and explain it to them?

What does that look like?

I find I come away with stories that I would not have thought were important when I was a really young reporter and just starting out, and now I realize that's the whole game, the how this impacts people.

Do you feel safe in your home at night?

That's that's the point.

That's what we do.

Mary Louise Kelly, thank you for being so open and honest, sharing your family's story with us.

And thank you for all the reporting.

And it's been fun.

Thank you.

Thank you And be sure to head to GCS YouTube page for our complete interview with Mary Louise Kelly, along with other great stories from Southwest Florida.

InFocus.

A legal battle could be brewing over President Donald Trump's decision to rename the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.

Mexican President Claudie Sheinbaum said her country is waiting for Google to restore maps to reflect the Gulf's original name, or else it will file a lawsuit.

Mexico argues the mapping policy violates Mexican sovereignty, since it has 49% jurisdiction over the Gulf, more than the United States, which controls 46%, and Cuba with 5% jurisdiction.

We are joined now by WGCUs Julie Perez to learn more about how Southwest Floridians are reacting to this name change.

Welcome, Julie.

Thank you.

And I understand that there was no shortage of opinions out there.

Yeah, Sandra, I went out to Fort Myers Beach to talk with people, and just about everyone knew about the presidential order.

And while some welcomed it wholeheartedly, others say it has no legal bearing and borders on being frivolous.

Those who make their living out in the Gulf say they're sticking to what they know.

We spoke to a fisherman about the change, and he told me that whatever the map's land on, he will follow.

I don't care what Trump want to name.

That ain't what it is.

It's the Gulf of Mexico that worked up on the map.

That's what we go by.

But the map today, some beach goers are embracing the change, calling it patriotic and unifying.

It's got to be the Gulf of America 100% feel that way.

Well, I mean, it's America.

We're not Mexico, we're America.

It's just part of us, you know what I mean?

It's just part of what the country should be.

Others see it as unnecessary.

All the things that are being, taking place right now with, changing of names and taking down the statues.

I'm all for history.

I think I'll personally be calling it the Gulf of Mexico.

It's been the Gulf of Mexico for 65 years of my life.

So I think I'm going to keep it the same in my mind anyway.

Some people are throwing in their own suggestions.

I like change, but I want to change it to something else.

What do you want to change it to?

Gulf of pink shrimp.

There were a lot of people who were passionate about the topic, but there were also many that told me they were indifferent to the name change, and they just wanted to enjoy the Gulf waters.

Julie, we so appreciate your very first story for InFocus and we hope to have you back soon.

Thanks for having me.

Não sei se toda a. Dor?

Que.

A showdown on a southwest Florida stage.

Some of the top opera performers hit the high and low notes in a contest honoring legendary singer Luciano Pavarotti.

When you think of opera, you're more likely to consider Naples, Italy, as opposed to Florida.

However, as Tom Hall explains, one local contest remembering Luciano Pavarotti is keeping his legacy alive by bringing a new generation of singers into the spotlight.

Hey.

Hey.

Hey.

This past January, 19 aspiring opera singers competed in front of an enthusiastic audience at the Bauer School of Music on the Florida Gulf Coast University campus.

Heard during his life.

Maestro Pavarotti not only shared his incredible talent through extraordinary performances and, he sought to find and nurture future opera stars, particularly through an international voice competition, the Voice Competition.

However, Rodney's widow and president of the Luciano Pavarotti Foundation.

Nicoletta mantovani, said Naples Fort Myers was the logical place to revive the competition.

And because we are involved here in Florida.

Thanks, opera Naples said of the idea to have a new theater, a new museum dedicated to opera.

And because Luciano made his American debut here in Florida, we thought maybe we could do this.

That where it started from a Florida competition.

Judge Milnes voice Program founder Maria Zuber said the tradition of opera must be carried on by emerging talent.

Opera, in its essence, is giving to the next generation, and that's how we learn it.

We can't learn it from a book.

It is an art form.

It is a discipline, and it is something that changes us with every generation that comes first before it gets to sometimes.

Close to 500 aspiring opera singers applied to this year's competition.

Only 20 were invited to compete.

It's always very difficult to screen, you know, to filter talent even more.

Young talent.

This ages, the voices still have a lot of development ahead of them now.

So it's really difficult to to decide who, you know, should come to sing here.

Although it's called a voice competition, the judges weren't looking just for big voices or even good technique.

What you have to look for is that if they have the possibility to give an emotion to the audience, if they express something with their singing.

Because doesn't matter if there is a wrong note or something that this can be in a way fixed.

You know you cannot fix what you give to the others.

After three rounds of competitio Soprano Luna Park O mezzo soprano Simona Ganga.

And tenor Minghao Lin and bass Kam, her gorgon.

Now carry the torch of Luciano Pavarotti.

Legacy.

There's more to bah says that facing the competition and the Luciano Pavarotti Naples Academy in southwest Florida puts Naples on the opera map worldwide.

Many of those artists, when they perform in America, they usually go to the met, maybe San Francisco, Chicago, to the big opera houses, and that's it.

And now they're also coming in Naples because they see that in Naples something is happening.

The voice competition winners take to the stage opening night of the 2025 Opera Naples Festival Under the Stars.

Their performances start at 7 p.m. February 27th for Wjct news.

This is Tom Horne.

Coming up next week on Southwest Florida in focus getting housing costs under control.

That's one of the primary focuses for Florida lawmakers as they return to Tallahassee.

We get a preview of the upcoming legislative session and reaching for the stars as the space industry expands in their mission to reach new heights.

We look at how the unprecedented space boom is impacting Florida's economy.

Be sure to join us for that story and much more on WGCU.

Until then, have a great week.