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One of Central Florida’s largest homeless services programs is weighing the difficult decision to cut services after one of its largest donors was forced to reduce its funding.
Matthew’s Hope provides a wide array of services for homeless people in West Orange County and in Brevard County.
Those services include things like transitional housing, medical services, a preschool program, a food pantry, mobile services for homeless people on the street and more, with the goal of trying to help people get back on their feet.
Billue says right now, Matthew’s Hope is averaging about 1,000 contacts with homeless people a week, including many people who are newly homeless.
“We’re seeing much more women right now, much more children, but we’re seeing much more seniors than we’ve ever seen before,” Billue said. “And this is all, we’ve really started seeing this really in just the last 90 to 120 days or so, it’s been very recent. It’s been growing over the last couple of years and that was one thing, but I mean, this is so dramatic."
Billue’s statement matches what other Central Florida homeless services groups have seen. According to the 2025 Point-In-Time Count, a census of homeless people in shelters or on the street, seniors and children make up more than 40% of the homeless population.
The group is funded largely through private donations. Founder Scott Billue says those donations have been down over the last few months because of economic uncertainty.
“A lot of my big donors — think of it as they’ve got a bucket that’s worth $10 million. What we benefit off is not the $10,000,000. We benefit off what that $10 million makes," Billue said, referring to things like dividends and interest on investments.“They do well in the market and the markets are doing terrible right now.”
Billue said one of his largest donors just notified him that they will have to cut back on what they give.
It means Matthew’s Hope is now scrambling to cover a shortfall of $50,000 a month.
“They still give us significantly much more than the $50,000, but that $50,000 is what has helped sustain us through these difficult times," Billue said.
Billue said he and his staff are now meeting to figure out what programs are going to be cut, and he says the decision is proving difficult.
“There’s no meat left on the bone,” he said.
Billue is hoping that telling his story will lead to new donors to help fill the gap, because he is not sure what else to do.
“I’m sitting here just trying to keep, as my grandfather used to say, a stiff upper lip,” Billue said. “I’m trying to sit there and go, oh, OK, and trying to absorb what’s going on and then realizing that I’ve got a very short time to figure out how to stay afloat here over the next few weeks.”
If you would like to donate to the group, go to the Matthew’s Hope website. You can choose whether to provide donations for Orange County operations or Brevard County operations.
