ORLANDO, Fla. – Before the spread of the coronavirus and sudden shutdown of normal life, Diego Henry was already living paycheck to paycheck.

He shares an Orlando area one-bedroom apartment with his 15-year-old daughter, whose bedroom takes over the space often used as a dining room.

Henry has worked for more than five years at Disney’s Animal Kingdom Resort. He, like many in Central Florida’s vast tourism industry, supports his family on wages of less than $15 per hour, less than $30,000 per year.

He is among those living the real-life struggles partly created by the affordable housing crisis.

“They were already there, they just got heightened because of this situation,” Henry said. “It concerns me because when the little bit of money I have runs out, and I still don’t get an unemployment check, I am in my worst nightmare.”

Henry qualifies for unemployment, but he too sees the dramatic problems that are leaving many families stranded for weeks or more for benefits.

In February, Spectrum News again highlighted the vast challenges of the affordable housing crisis in Central Florida:

Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings said at the time, the county was making strides in addressing the challenge. He points to a 10-year comprehensive plan.

“We have plans in place to deal with the chronic rent stressed in our community,” Demings said. “In terms of housing, we will continue to be focused.”

Part of that plan, Demings said, are still on track, while others may be delayed because of attention on the coronavirus crisis.

One example is transportation. Demings was making a transportation sales tax amendment a marque effort of his administration, hoping if it won approval from voters in November 2020 that it would provide the funding need to greatly expand routes of Lynx bus, SunRail trains, and other options.

But that effort was recently placed on the backburner because of the increasing needs drawn by the coronavirus crisis.

“I really thought with the sales tax initiative, it would have relieved a lot of pressure on the current budget to reduce the cost of transportation for individuals, so we’re going to have to look at all of that, because now we have the increased burden of paying for (transportation operations),” Demings said.

The county is also hoping for a share of federal funding in light of COVID-19 to continue efforts, including those focused on affordable housing.

During the Orange County Commission meeting Tuesday, county leaders reviewed an outline of more than $6 million it’s likely to receive from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

“In terms of impact on housing, out of the $2 trillion allocated at this point, we have been notified from the federal government that we’re in line to get additional dollars through HUD that we can use to leverage some of the shovel-ready projects for low-income housing development projects that we had in our area,” Demings said.