HOMELESS SERVICES NETWORK OF CENTRAL FLORIDA INC

As the region's federally designated lead agency on homelessness, we believe in a humane, housing-first approach to homelessness, focusing on getting people off the streets and out of shelters and into stable, safe, long-term affordable housing.
We run a centralized intake system for our three-county region (Orange, Osceola and Seminole), and prioritize those who are most vulnerable, including people with disabilities, veterans, youth, victims of domestic violence and human trafficking, and families with minor children.
Since our region has one of the worst shortages of affordable housing in the nation -- and THE worst in the state of Florida -- we have to focus our limited resources to people who would not be able to resolve their homelessness without our help. We work with fellow nonprofits that provide temporary shelter, food, legal services, identification and healthcare to address immediate needs.
One of our goals is to unite our network of service providers and local and state policy-makers so that we work together with greater efficiency and jointly support increased access to affordable housing.
With very limited public housing in our area, our charity also recruits private landlords to provide units for our participants. We have a licensed Realtor on our staff who does outreach, and we have a housing inspector who ensures the units meet code and safety standards. Further, we also have staff members who trouble-shoot landlord-tenant issues involving our participants to ensure that, once people get into housing, they are able to remain there.