The Hope Partnership, a coalition of service providers that works endlessly and tirelessly to eradicate homelessness and poverty in Osceola County, will celebrate its 10th anniversary this month.
The agency has served 100,000 residents in that time — in a county where the population just reached 400,000. So, walk into a room of people, and the Hope Partnership has likely worked to do something to ensure someone in that room “has a safe place to call home” — its mantra.
The Partnership will officially celebrate the anniversary on Tuesday, April 11 at its downtown Kissimmee headquarters. The last year has been exciting for the Partnership crew, moving into that two-story space last summer.
People like Rev. Mary Downey (Hope Partnership’s Executive Director/CEO), Will Cooper (Chief Operation Officer) and Angie Rench (Chief Development Officer) recently reflected on the work done in the decade that swept by, and spoke of the excitement of what’s to come in the next decade.
Downey and Rench said they envisioned, at the start, a small operation that would assist about 200 people per year. In the first year, 2013, what was then called the Community Hope Center served 1,500 individuals — who Downey calls “heartbeats.”
The agency has blown away even its own expectations, in this moment Downey recalled from 2013.
“I told our board, ‘We’ll never do housing.’ We’re on the verge of closing on a hotel (to convert to housing),” she said. “I’ve learned to avoid saying ‘Never.’” What became a mission to address individual barriers and provide direct assistance has become one of trying to solve the barriers of “why” and “how” homelessness and poverty perpetuate themselves.
“The world is very different than it was 10 years ago, thanks to two and three years ago (due to the pandemic),” Downey said. “Nimble is a good word to describe how we’ve changed with it. We learned we cannot meet every need of the community. We have things we know we can do well, and we’ll do them well to make sure everyone has as safe place to call home.” The staff pointed out two responses that stood out when the need to house people under duress arose. In 2017, a federal program moved Hurricane Maria-victimized families in Puerto Rico into local hotels — the same hotels Hope Partnership works to move families out of. Almost 700 families fleeing the island from the storm found housing thanks to Hope Partnership. The partnership was also put to the test during the storms that hit our area in 2022.
“We’ve learned after each disaster new ways to respond, and partner with community. It’s truly improvise, compromise and reach out,” Cooper said. “So, for the next time, we have this new angle to call on. Every day is a learning experience.”
Another was the response to the Star Motel, a West U.S. 192 facility that went into a 2020 foreclosure, with power, water and sewer systems shut off — yet residents tried to stay for lack of another option, until groups like Hope Coalition intervened.
Rench said the sheer amount of family homelessness has been what’s opened her eyes widest over 10 years.
“It’s hard to see how difficult it is for them,” she said. “(The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development) changed rules on who qualifies for its help, so there’s those who fall into gap who don’t qualify for federal assistance.”
From that crisis came Hotel to Home, a Hope Partnership-centric program to provide help to the many people who can afford monthly rent, but not the up-front costs of first month, last month and utility deposits.
From the pandemic came Cares Day, an event each Monday at the agency’s Old Vineland Road campus that provides a shower trailer, haircuts through the barber program at Florida Technical College, health services, job referral opportunities and the iDignity program to provide help getting identification so people can secure a job.
“We’re all rowing the same boat the same direction,” Downey said. “I don’t believe in duplication of services. Obviously our goal is to see fewer people experiencing poverty and homelessness, but as we see more and more people to the area, more of those people are in need.”
“One of my favorite things,” Downey said, is Hope’s family unification, which helps with costs of traveling to a housed family in an active support system.
Put that all together, and Hope Partnership is now doing something to help house roughly one family or individual per week — during a time when its clients qualify for about 12 out of every 100 low-income housing units available.
And, during this time, it’s become trauma certified for both clients and staff, who hear heartbreaking stories on a near-daily basis.
So, what about the next ten years?
“I want to make sure we are sustaining the programs we have, keeping them relevant and important to the community,” Downey said. “I hope to keep doing creative problem-solving around direct services and responding to the community.”
Rench said she sees it moving into a place as a non-profit housing developer in the community.
“We hope to have more projects that meet the need of low-income clients,” she said. “The only way to end homelessness is with housing. We can create a solution with access to resources.”
“Every single person who works here wants to end homelessness and poverty in our community. We’re committed to doing all we can to make sure everyone has s safe place to call home. There is no other dream we have.”
Those who want to celebrate with Hope Partnership in its anniversary by making a donation to help provide that can do so by logging in to: https://bit.ly/10Y10D10K
