{"id":405433,"date":"2026-09-20T14:50:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-20T14:50:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/405433\/"},"modified":"2026-09-20T14:50:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-20T14:50:11","slug":"orange-county-provides-1-46m-for-homelessness-outreach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/405433\/","title":{"rendered":"Orange County provides $1.46M for homelessness outreach"},"content":{"rendered":"

ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. \u2014 Orange County is providing the Coalition for the Homeless of Central Florida<\/a> with $1.46 million to continue homelessness outreach and crisis-intervention services.<\/p>\n

The organization\u2019s outreach workers travel throughout its three-county service area looking for people who are living without shelter. Mimi Coenan, chief operations officer for the Coalition, said many people do not find the organization on their own.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo we have staff that actually goes out into our three county areas and are looking for people who are unhoused and trying to help them and entice them to come on in and get some help and really understand their story,\u201d Coenan said. \u201cAnd a lot of times people don\u2019t find us. We really have to find them. And it\u2019s getting harder.\u201d<\/p>\n

The outreach team helped more than 1,800 people last year, according to Coenan. The crisis-intervention program also works to address problems before someone needs to enter a shelter.<\/p>\n

That assistance can include reconnecting a person with family, providing transportation or helping with food and other basic needs. Coenan said the funding can also pay for ready-made meals and backpacks for children staying at the shelter.<\/p>\n

\u201cI honestly think that\u2019s economic,\u201d Coenan said. \u201cThere just isn\u2019t the affordable housing in the supply that we need and rents are going up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Coenan said changes in family, spousal or roommate situations can leave people unable to afford their homes. The Coalition is also seeing more older adults become homeless for the first time, including people struggling to choose between paying medical bills and paying rent.<\/p>\n

For people who enter the shelter, the average stay is about 118 days. Coenan said the amount of time varies depending on the person and their housing needs. The Coalition does not set one deadline for everyone to leave, but residents are expected to continue taking steps toward independent housing.<\/p>\n

The Orange County contract covers one year and can be renewed for four additional years. Coenan said the funding will also allow the Coalition to retain the staff members who build relationships with people experiencing homelessness and connect them with assistance.<\/p>\n

People seeking help can visit the Coalition\u2019s intake center near Central Boulevard and Parramore Avenue early in the morning. Staff members will speak with them about their situation and help determine what services they need.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. \u2014 Orange County is providing the Coalition for the Homeless of Central Florida with $1.46…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":405434,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[767,1188,274,3949,770,1192,115,1335,139,141,140,278,835],"class_list":["post-405433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-app-community","tag-app-homelessness","tag-app-top-stories","tag-bryanna-howard","tag-community-news","tag-homelessness","tag-news","tag-orange-county","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-top-stories","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405433","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=405433"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405433\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/405434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=405433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=405433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=405433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}