{"id":413070,"date":"2026-09-28T19:50:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-28T19:50:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/413070\/"},"modified":"2026-09-28T19:50:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-28T19:50:09","slug":"matthews-hope-cuts-services-as-costs-demand-rise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/413070\/","title":{"rendered":"Matthew\u2019s Hope cuts services as costs, demand rise"},"content":{"rendered":"

Matthew\u2019s Hope cuts services as rising costs, demand strain budget<\/p>\n

\"Adriana<\/a>ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. \u2014<\/p>\n

Matthew\u2019s Hope is cutting services and asking the community for help after rising costs, declining donations and increased demand pushed the nonprofit beyond its budget.<\/p>\n

The organization, which serves people experiencing homelessness in Orange and Brevard counties, has spent about $468,000<\/a> more than budgeted during the past year, founder and CEO Scott Billue said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we didn\u2019t plan for, and don\u2019t know how to plan for, is just this huge influx of new people that we have never seen before,\u201d Billue said.<\/p>\n

Matthew\u2019s Hope<\/a> provides medical and mental health care, transportation, food and other services. Billue said the nonprofit serves about 1,300 people each week and registers roughly 100 new clients weekly, that is up from about 15 a week in years past.<\/p>\n

At the same time, food and fuel costs have increased while donations have declined. The strain is visible in the nonprofit\u2019s food pantry, where shelves that were once full now have sit empty with less variety.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe cannot give what we don\u2019t have,\u201d Billue said. \u201cWe tried to do that as long as we could, and I finally had to make the decision that if this nonprofit was going to continue, we just had to pull back.\u201d<\/p>\n

Billue said the organization has reduced some daily services, primarily through its donation-supported food pantry. More cuts could come before the end of the year if conditions do not improve.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis isn\u2019t just, \u2018Quick, put a Band-Aid on it,\u2019 and it\u2019s going to stop. It\u2019s not,\u201d Billue said. \u201cI suspect that, at least through the year, unless we see some quick changes, we are probably going to be doing more cuts.\u201d<\/p>\n

To donate to the organization, click here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Matthew\u2019s Hope cuts services as rising costs, demand strain budget ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. \u2014 Matthew\u2019s Hope is cutting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":413071,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[163638,6025,163639,14059,575,12440,163640,52868,1718,1536,139,141,140,163641,34329,992,1798,1456],"class_list":["post-413070","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-billue","tag-cost","tag-demand-rise","tag-donation","tag-food","tag-food-pantry","tag-hope-cut-service","tag-matthew","tag-nonprofit","tag-organization","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-other-service","tag-past-year","tag-people","tag-transportation","tag-week"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413070","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=413070"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413070\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/413071"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=413070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=413070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=413070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}