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An Osceola County non-profit that helps provide housing is getting a 600,000 dollar cash infusion. 

AdventHealth announced it is making a donation to The Community Hope Center in Osceola County to set up a Good Neighbors Program. 

Boarded up rooms at Lake Cecile. Photo: Mike Beaver 

The charity led by Rev. Mary Downey has helped rehouse low-wage Disney workers who live in hotels and motels in the county during the pandemic. 

Downey says the Good Neighbors program will provide more short-term housing and other wrap around services for these workers and their families 

“And so it’s a program that will provide opportunities first for people to seek immediate employment. Then it will provide opportunities for them to seek vocational training to have a career and also while that’s happening have support around case management and a housing opportunity.”

Downey says this holistic approach is evidence-based. 

“That when we address all of those things together and we don’t try to just separate out food insecurity or housing insecurity, that we look at everything holistically that again we are addressing the whole person and then they are able to then succeed.”

The Community Hope Center has worked with Poinciana Homeless Outreach and Osceola County to rehouse some 40 families living without utilities in the Star Motel.

Fence around Lake Cecile and the Star Motel. Photo: Mike Beaver

The county built a fence around the motel and nearby Lake Cecile and has started boarding up unused rooms at both properties. 

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