The happiest place on Earth? Disney World employees among workers left homeless because they can’t afford to rent in Orlando on $8-per-hour minimum wage



Tourists pay nearly $100 per person to get into Orlando's theme parks

Starting minimum pay at Walt Disney World is $8.03 an hour

Average earnings for workers in Osceola County are $24,128 a year

Average rent is $800 a month while motel rooms can go for $39 a night



A growing number of families are being forced to live in motels in the theme park playground of central Florida because they cannot afford to buy their own homes.

On any given day, tourists pay nearly $100 per person to get into Orlando's theme parks.

There, they may be waited on by homeless parents. From their hotels, they jog past bus stops where

homeless children wait to head to school.



Scroll down for video



Theresa Muller hands a box to her son Timothy, seven, with her daughter Mikenzie, four, as she moves out of her motel room she shares with her boyfriend, father and three children in Kissimmee, Florida

They buy coffee at Starbucks next to the motels that have become families' homes.



Starting minimum pay at Walt Disney World - the area's largest employer, just a few miles from the

motels - is $8.03 an hour, though that could increase to $10 under a contract being negotiated with

the resort's largest union group.

'Tourists that come here ... I don't think they have a clue,' said James Ortiz, 31, a fast-food worker

who recently moved out of a motel room and into an RV park with his parents and five-year-old son.

Homeless advocates blame the housing problem on the low-paying wages of the service economy and the rents in Osceola County, with 300,000 people.



Theresa Muller prepares to move out of her motel room she shares with her boyfriend, father and three children in Kissimmee, Florida

While inexpensive compared with larger cities, Osceola rents often exceed what a worker earning near minimum wage can afford, said Catherine Jackson, a consultant who recently wrote a report for the county about the homeless.

Median earnings for workers in Osceola County are $24,128 a year, according to U.S. Census figures, and median rent is $800 a month. Motel rooms can go for just $39 a night.

'The fact that we're the happiest place on Earth and No. 1 travel destination is good news, but this

service-based economy is actually creating a dynamic of homelessness,' Jackson said.

Many of the county's homeless moved here to find jobs in the tourism industry, so they lack the social networks of family or churches, Jackson said.

Anthony Johnson, left, his wife Candice with their children Zayden, one and Anthony Jr., four, wait at the Community Hope Centre to see if they qualify for aid to find an apartment of their own

Community Hope Centre caseworker Mia Brennon, left, helps in finding Anthony and Candice Johnson housing

'Paying weekly is all we can do to survive,' Ortiz, 31, said. 'I can't find a house that is suitable in a decent neighborhood for me and my child to be able to pay rent, pay the utilities, pay car insurance, pay gas and buy food.'

Anthony and Candice Johnson moved to central Florida four years ago from Georgia and found work at a barbecue restaurant and a 7-Eleven.

Their combined salaries fell short of what they needed to rent an apartment, so the couple and their two children have instead been hopping among cheap motel rooms along U.S. 192.

'What's hard for us isn't paying the bills,' Candice Johnson, 24, said. 'It's just trying to get our feet in the door' with the combined expense of application fees, security deposits and first month's

rent needed for a place of their own.

Hotel owner Dianna Chane at her extended stay hotel in Kissimmee, Florida, can't evict tenants

Dianna Chane says Muller's family is violating the hotel's policy of only four people per room

The Johnsons are among a growing number of families living in hotels in this Florida tourist corridor

because they can't afford anything else and because their county has no shelters for the estimated

1,216 homeless households with children.

For two years, Theresa Muller has lived in motel room after motel room with her three young children,

her father and her boyfriend.

The owner of HomeSuiteHome has wanted her out for months.

Dianna Chane says Muller's family is violating the hotel's policy of only four people per room, and

clothes, furniture, toys, garbage and boxes are piled chest-high.

Chane is among those suing Osceola County Sheriff Bob Hansell to force his deputies to evict such

guests.

Under Florida's lodging law, it's a second-degree misdemeanor to stay in a room after being asked to leave.

Yet each time Chane has asked the sheriff's office to intervene, she says deputies have refused even though they follow the law for brand-name hotels.



Catherine Jackson, left, a consultant who recently wrote a report on the homeless in Osceola County and Mary Downey, executive director of the Community Hope Centre in Kissimmee, Florida

Chane says the office calls the issue a landlord-tenant dispute that should be handled in civil court.

'I can't afford it,' said Chane, who figures she has swallowed more than $200,000 in unpaid rooms

since 2012.

A sheriff's spokeswoman and an attorney for the sheriff said they wouldn't comment on pending

litigation.

In court papers, an attorney for the sheriff said there is a presumption that occupants are not transient if they say the hotel room is their sole residence.

Where dreams come true: Starting minimum pay at Walt Disney World is $8.03 an hour

HomeSuiteHome extended stay hotel is shown in Kissimmee, Florida. Owner Dianna Chane said she is sympathetic to the homeless families but she can't get current inhabitants to leave

HomeSuiteHome extended stay hotel in Kissimmee, Florida which is currently home to a number of homeless families

'Hotel owners simply cannot engage long-term guests... then turn on a dime when they stop paying and pretend they are tourists,' the sheriff's attorney said in a court filing.

Muller said she's unemployed but hopeful about to get a dollar-store retail job. Until then, her father's disability payments help the family try to get by.

She said she found a house she can afford in a neighboring county and was in the process of moving out of Chane's motel.