The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs is investing over $83 million to tackle Veteran homelessness across Florida— and one of the largest portions is going to a Jacksonville-based nonprofit.
Changing Homelessness, which serves more than 1,200 Veteran households every month, has received a $15.6 million grant from the VA to expand its services throughout the region.
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“And these are families that were either homeless and we rapidly rehousing, which means we get them back into a home of their own,” said Dawn Gilman, CEO of Changing Homelessness.
The funds will support the organization’s Supportive Services for Veteran Families program, helping provide critical resources such as housing assistance, counseling, transportation, legal aid, and childcare—especially for Veterans transitioning out of homelessness.
While homelessness overall in Northeast Florida is on the decline, Veteran homelessness has seen a slight uptick, according to the latest 2025 Point-in-Time report.
“We did see a slight uptick in that, but again we’re moving it back down,” said Gilman.
The report also highlights an 8% decrease in the number of people staying in shelters and a 49% drop in unsheltered homelessness.
“That showed a pretty significant decrease in folks experiencing especially unsheltered or street homelessness,” she added.
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Gilman attributes much of that success to proactive, on-the-ground outreach in both urban and rural areas.
“Our strategy is to ensure that we have coverage even in our really rural areas, going out on a regular basis at noon and likely locations to see who’s out there to make sure we don’t miss anybody.”
With this new federal funding, Changing Homelessness is expanding its efforts across 64 counties in Northeast Florida and Southeast Georgia, including Duval, Clay, St. Johns, Nassau, and Baker counties in Florida.
The organization has already reached a major milestone.
“And we have just broken through the number where we are continuously serving at least 1200 households every month, and we anticipate it will stay at that or increase for the rest of this year,” Gilman said.
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