The Impact Families program,
Central Florida effort works to help homeless families
led by the Central Florida Commission on Homelessness and fueled by a grant from the Walt Disney Company, will pair housing for homeless families with help in developing career paths that create financial independence.
A new Central Florida initiative will pair housing for homeless families with help in developing career paths that lead to financial independence, community leaders announced Friday.
Fueled in part by a grant from the Walt Disney Company, the program — Impact Families — will be open to parents with children under age 18 in Orange and Osceola, including those now living in rent-by-the-week hotel rooms or doubled up with relatives.
The effort is expected to expand to Seminole next year.
“Part of the cure to homelessness is the opportunity to have a job,” said Orange County Mayor Teresa Jacobs. “And the job matters not just because you need income. … Supporting your family is a huge part of what children need to see in their parents.”
Led by the Central Florida Commission on Homelessness, the program is a collaboration of nonprofit, government, business and faith organizations. In the targeted counties, nearly 10,000 public school students are homeless.
The first year, just 45 families will be enrolled for the pilot as leaders make adjustments to the program based on its successes and failures, officials said. But they plan to expand it as rapidly as possible, and Jacobs said she expects it to be a model for the state, if not the nation.
Families from Orange and Osceola counties can enter the program through any of the region’s major homeless service agencies or by contacting Goodwill Industries of Central Florida’s Job Connection Centers at goodwillcfl.org or 407-857-0659. The goal is to get the families into apartments or rental homes quickly and, once they have roofs over their heads, address their employment issues.
“Some people may not have the skills necessary to get a job. They may need training. They may need a certification,” said Mark Brewer, president and CEO of the Central Florida Foundation, which oversees the investment fund that is covering the initial costs. Disney donated $500,000 to that fund in late 2015 with the aim
of helping homeless families.
Other parents may already have job skills but need help returning to the workforce or advancing their career to earn a beefier paycheck.
Bill Oakley, Goodwill’s president and CEO, said his agency will work one-on-one with parents to connect them with education and training and with local employers to move graduates into decent jobs.
“No two families are alike,” he said. “But to really have a careeroriented job today in America, you need a high school diploma and some post-secondary certification.”
A study of homeless families living in motels along Osceola County’s tourism corridor, for example, found that 64 percent of the parents were working, mainly at minimum-wage jobs in the hospitality industry.
Some were working two jobs — but never earning enough to afford the rental and utility deposits they needed to move to apartments.
Working with volunteers from local churches, Impact Families will also offer spiritual support, said homeless commission CEO Shelley Lauten. Early this year, Longwood’s Northland, A Church Distributed, led the recruitment of volunteers to serve as one-on-one support systems for the homeless.
“Part of the challenges for families is the sense of isolation,” said Northland’s Senior Pastor Joel Hunter, who now chairs the homeless commission. “Poverty isolates. And homelessness isolates. Part of the whole response to the need is what faith communities have in abundance — and that’s people who will walk alongside you in times of trouble.”
Brewer said participants will be monitored long-term.
“We’ll be measuring this in ways we’ve never measured before — not just who gets a house, who gets a job, who gets security, who gets off the street, but how long they stay housed,” he said. “We’re interested to know how successful they are down the line.”