Florida tent city offers hope to homeless

"Pinellas Hope was welcomed by St. Petersburg. Mayor Rick Baker said the city contributed $250,000 to the camp last year and city crews helped clear the land.

"Lopez said it costs $2.6 million a year to run the camp with about half coming from donations of food and other items."

"Florida, where unemployment has soared as the recession put out of work thousands of people employed on construction sites during the housing boom, has nearly 50,000 homeless, according to the alliance. Nearly 6,500 of those are in the Tampa area."