The Florida Coalition to End Homelessness (FCEH) members stand as one voice to improve policy and increase funding to prevent and end homelessness in the State of Florida.
Legislative Advocacy begins with you! FCEH welcomes you to join our team to advocate for our legislative priorities with your Florida State Representatives and Senators and to provide examples of great practices for your local community.
FCEH Members provided input and suggestions for each year’s State Legislative Priorities. Our official 2025 Legislative Agenda is listed below. Nationwide, more and more communities are deciding to fine, arrest and/our involuntarily institutionalize individuals only because they are unable to sustain housing. FCEH has provided the following responses to legislation, that instead of solving homelessness, stands to punish those that need our help most.
We invite you to join FCEH today to be part of the solution and to support our work to make homelessness rare, brief and non-recurring in the State of Florida.
Housing first is an evidence based and cost effective strategy for ending homelessness.
Housing first provides stable, affordable, and accessible housing to people experiencing homelessness quickly and without prerequisites, and client specific services are offered to assist with housing stability and well-being. Housing first can be adapted to address the unique needs in local communities and tailored to the challenges facing individuals. Housing first is not housing only, which is often cited as proof that it is not effective. 96% of all individuals enrolled in PSH remain in or move to other permanent housing.
Housing First Evidence (Handout)
Florida High Cost High Needs Pilot
NAEH Housing First Fact Sheet (Handout)
Graphic with Links (NAEH) (See sample below)
Sample text. Click to select the Text Element.
For the past few years
, the Nation has seen an increase in laws that criminalize homelessness. These laws punish our neighbors who have no other choice but to sleep on the streets. We are now seeing a well-funded, coordinated push for those laws in States across the Nation. Florida Coalition to End Homelessness supports the work of Housing Not Handcuffs, a national campaign created by the National Homelessness Law Center and the National Coalition for the Homeless to end the criminalization of homelessness and to advocate for housing as a human right.
On April 22nd 2024, the U.S. Supreme Court heard the case of Johnson v. Grants Pass. Johnson v. Grants Pass is a court case originally filed in 2018 that determined it is cruel and unusual punishment to arrest or ticket people for sleeping outside when they have no other safe place to go. The Supreme Court decision overturning this ruling is more than disappointing. Instead of requiring local Governments to provide for their residents, they allow them to punish those who need their help the most. We call on Leaders (local Government and law enforcement) to, instead, engage with your local Continuums of Care through creating Homeless Outreach Teams (HOT) teams and/or work through existing outreach teams to find solutions, rather than making the situations worse. Fining and jailing individuals just because they are homelessness does not solve homelessness, instead - it makes it harder to solve the problem.
The solution to homelessness is safe, decent, and affordable housing for everybody.