WELCOME HOME
Our Impact
We work to provide stable housing to people experiencing homelessness and connect them to the support they need to remain housed. Our primary focus is on veterans, youth, people with disabilities, victims of domestic violence and human trafficking, and families with minor children.
In 2024, we helped 5,132 people who were homeless return to stable, safe housing.
But on any given night, there are still more than 1,000 people in Orange, Osceola and Seminole counties who have no choice but to sleep on our streets, in their cars, or in the woods. Our region's emergency shelters are routinely full, and the average two-bedroom apartment (at $2,206 a month) is beyond their reach, even though many of them are working. Over 40% of this unsheltered population is made up of children and people age 55 and older.
In fact, our region’s fastest-growing homeless population are seniors age 65 and older — particularly older women who have outlived their husbands.
With your support, we can help them find a safe, dignified alternative to sleeping on our streets.
Our Vision
The Homeless Services Network of Central Florida is committed to the belief that everyone needs a safe place to call home.
Our mission is to lead Central Florida’s community-wide effort to help make any experience of homelessness rare and brief. We work with dedicated frontline partners — including nonprofit outreach staff, the Department of Veterans Affairs, local shelters, case managers, housing advocates, health-care providers, domestic violence agencies and human trafficking recovery programs. We help raise critical funds for housing, we recruit private landlords and property owners, we provide rental assistance to qualifying households, we help educate policy-makers through research and data, and we staff the locations where people can meet with a caring intake worker to address their needs.
Become an advocate for affordable housing and shelter!
Despite an estimated shortage of 97,649* housing units for our lowest wage-earners, virtually every attempt to create more affordable housing or homeless shelters in Central Florida has been met with neighborhood protests. Yet small, innovative housing and shelter solutions — located throughout the region — are the only realistic way to address the dire need. Please join our growing campaign to show you support affordable housing and shelter located in your neighborhood — or that, at the least, you’re willing to learn more. Click below to join the conversation!
Youth homelessness
Brighter Days Central Florida, our community initiative to prevent and end homelessness among older teens and young adults, means connecting people ages 16-24 both to housing and the opportunities they need to change the trajectory of their lives. Help can include rental assistance, host homes, diversion support, navigation guides, case workers, and connection to health care, job training and educational programs. To learn more or get involved, click here.
Supreme Court ruling paved way for arrests of people without shelter
On June 28, 2024, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that cities can ban people from sleeping and otherwise surviving in public spaces, even when there is no alternative. This ruling has opened the door to arresting people experiencing homelessness who have nowhere else to go.
In Florida, that ruling gave the green light to the state’s “Unauthorized Public Camping and Public Sleeping” passed by the 2024 Legislature, which subjects cities and counties to lawsuits if they allow public sleeping rather than establishing state-sanctioned camps where everyone who is unsheltered must live.
While we agree people should not be living on our streets, we also believe there are better solutions than mass encampments and arrests. Other communities that have attempted to create such encampments have found them to be dangerous and wasteful of taxpayer money, and arrests only make it more difficult for people to regain housing and rebuild their lives. Read more about our approach.
Make an impact!
There’s no greater gift than helping someone have a safe place to call home.
Homelessness Facts
Between July 1, 2023, and June 30, 2024, nearly 14,600 people sought help from our network, either because they were worried about becoming homeless, or because they were already experiencing homelessness.
Of those:
3,438 were children
1,217 were survivors of domestic violence
1,972 were veterans
1,806 were people with disabilities who had already spent more than a year unhoused.
1,140 were age 62 or older
4,370 had no health insurance
Support for Landlords & Advocates
We need landlords and property managers to work with us in order to fulfill our mission. You are an essential part of the process -- and you can do good while still earning a return on your investment.
Thank you for an amazing celebration and your support of our mission!
On Nov. 1, 2024, nearly 300 supporters joined our 31st anniversary luncheon — a chance to share our successes, our challenges, and the stories that inspire us. We heard the poignant testimony of Dr. Jim O’Connell, the physician at the center of the New York Times bestseller “Rough Sleepers,” who brought us the stories of his patients and the healing power of stable housing.
We paid tribute to the 2024 winner of the Thomas C. Chatmon Jr. Community Champion Award — Dr. Todd Husty, who is providing critically needed outpatient clinical opioid treatment in underserved Central Florida communities.
And most stirring, we heard from Ellease Cabrera, a young mother of two who has overcome violence, isolation and extreme poverty to help reshape the way we address homelessness among young adults.
