{"id":156671,"date":"2026-02-15T23:14:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-15T23:14:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/156671\/"},"modified":"2026-02-15T23:14:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-15T23:14:08","slug":"central-florida-groups-with-shelters-for-freeze-burn-up-cash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/156671\/","title":{"rendered":"Central Florida groups with shelters for freeze burn up cash"},"content":{"rendered":"

COCOA, Fla. \u2014\u00a0Leaders with Matthew\u2019s Hope<\/a> say they spent an additional $70,000 since opening as a warming shelter this year.<\/p>\n

Since January, the nonprofit has opened five times for several days to allow the homeless to come in during cold weather. It has opened seven times since November, founder Scott Billue said.<\/p>\n

What You Need To Know<\/p>\n

Matthew’s Hope leaders say they spent an additional $70,000 this year while opening as a warming shelter
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In addition to a cot and blanket, the nonprofit also provided food, showers, and medical services to their clients
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Leaders say more than 1,300 people visited weekly across their Brevard and Orange county locations, plus mobile outreach<\/p>\n

In Brevard County, leaders say they saw an average of 175 people each time they opened. At the Orange County location, 135 to 150 people would come in. Including their mobile outreach teams, Matthew\u2019s Hope surpassed 1,300 visits every week, organization officials said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe end up having staff here 24\/7. We\u2019re running our buses to pick people up throughout the day, every day,” Billue said. “We\u2019re having our medical team on site. We had to buy cots.\u201d<\/p>\n

To accommodate those visiting, Matthew’s Hope filled its outreach center with cots. The group provided food, showers and medical services to those visiting.<\/p>\n

The $70,000 doesn\u2019t represent what it costs the organization, but rather an additional cost to provide its services, Billue said. The money came out of its operating budget, which pays for expenses like insurance, salaries and utilities.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnytime this happens for any nonprofit \u2014 some kind of crisis of one kind or another \u2014 can be a setback, and this particular type of setback, you can\u2019t plan for,\u201d Billue said. \u201cIt hadn\u2019t happened to us in 15 years. The last time it happened to us was 2010, when we first started.\u201d<\/p>\n

The community was helpful, bringing in donations when the shelters opened as a shelter. The nonprofit is asking for help once again to make up those funds.<\/p>\n

Leaders of other organizations said they felt similar impacts.<\/p>\n

Chris Ham, president of Rescue Outreach Mission<\/a> in Seminole County, said approximately 30 to 40 people visited each night that the center opened as a warming shelter.<\/p>\n

The mission opened for nine days, expanding its capacity and receiving cots and blankets from the county.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe converted our dining room, offices and other areas to open up as much capacity as possible to help those in need,\u201d Ham said in an email to Spectrum News. \u201cWhile at the shelter, we provided additional meals and resources to all.\u201d<\/p>\n

The outreach mission is still evaluating its bills, but officials estimate close to $10,000 in unbudgeted costs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"COCOA, Fla. \u2014\u00a0Leaders with Matthew\u2019s Hope say they spent an additional $70,000 since opening as a warming shelter…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":156672,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[767,12204,17174,5087,770,1015,115,768,139,141,140,3883,17175],"class_list":{"0":"post-156671","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-orlando","8":"tag-app-community","9":"tag-app-in-the-community","10":"tag-app-weather-stories","11":"tag-brevard","12":"tag-community-news","13":"tag-emma-delamo","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-orange-county-fl","16":"tag-orlando","17":"tag-orlando-headlines","18":"tag-orlando-news","19":"tag-seminole","20":"tag-weather-stories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156671","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=156671"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156671\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/156672"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=156671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=156671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=156671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}