Florida’s Continuums of Care

Continuums of Care

The mission of the Florida Coalition for the Homeless (FCH) is to work collaboratively toward the prevention of homelessness and the creation of lasting solutions for homeless and at risk families, children, youths, and individuals throughout Florida. Our agency’s goal is to bring Florida to a state of “functional zero,” which means that individuals and families who are currently homeless are provided with housing and services while the system maintains the capacity to assure that there will still be adequate and comprehensive capacity to address the needs of those who may become homeless in the future.

The Florida Coalition for the Homeless represents 27 Continuums of Care across the state. Continuums of Care are designed to:

  • Promote community wide commitment to the goal of ending homelessness

  • Provide funding for efforts by nonprofit providers and state and local governments to quickly rehouse homeless individuals and families while minimizing the trauma and dislocation caused to homeless individuals, families, and communities by homelessness

  • Promote access to and effect utilization of mainstream programs by homeless individuals and families

  • Optimize self-sufficiency among individuals and families

Lead Agencies

CoC Lead Agency for the Florida Coalition for the Homeless providing fodEach Continuum has a designated “lead agency” that harnesses the local resources required to work toward functional zero by  the US Department of Housing and Urban Development.

There may be 30 to 200 member agencies in a Continuum of Care representing social service providers, health care system, sheriff’s departments and jails, faith-based providers, researchers at local universities, county representatives, United Ways, local businesses, and advocates working to end homelessness.

Our Continuums of Care lead agencies generated $84,255,000 in federal funds in the 2014 Continuum of Care competitive grant award process through the applications submitted to HUD. These applications included more than 385 individual grants to local nonprofit Continuum social services agencies and produced an additional $21 million in local matching funds to operate the programs funded through this process.

Our Continuum of Care system includes the operation of a Homeless Management Information System (HMIS) by each CoC lead agency that creates a coordinated intake and assessment system within the Continuum. This allows the hundreds of agencies who participate in HMIS to share real-time information and coordinate existing resources to efficiently address individual client needs.

See Our Lead Agencies