The Florida Housing Coalition is a statewide 501(c)(3) organization providing affordable housing training and technical assistance since 1982. We have offices throughout the state, with our headquarters in Tallahassee. Our team of professionals is comprised of Florida’s foremost experts in affordable housing on staff and on our 25-member board, with unparalleled breadth and depth of experience with nonprofit operating best practices, real estate, land use, finance, and development of affordable housing in Florida.

The history of our programs began almost forty years ago with two women working out of a church basement to provide help to rural communities with the CDBG program. A decade later, we expanded to all parts of the state as a contractor for the State’s Catalyst Program, providing training and technical assistance on SHIP to every county and entitlement city and serving as a long-standing demonstration of the Legislature’s commitment to advancing affordable housing through public-private partnerships as stated in the State Housing Strategy. In the following decade, we founded the Florida Community Land Trust Institute and added a great deal of policy work around permanent affordability and preservation of affordable housing to our core work of providing training and technical assistance on housing financing tools as well as land use planning for affordable housing. We also became the technical assistance provider for the Florida Housing Finance Corporation’s Predevelopment Loan Program, a resource for nonprofits to cover predevelopment costs and strengthen the viability of developments.

Throughout our work, we have held an annual statewide affordable housing conference. In the early years, we chose a different community each year with the help of our members throughout the state. However, as the conference grew to several hundred attendees, we moved the conference to Orlando provide a central location. This conference now brings together over 1,200 practitioners, funders, and advocates from the entire state to network while sharing best practices, challenges, and success stories.

Our programs further expanded within the last decade to include ending homelessness, resilience and disaster recovery, and comprehensive advisory services for implementing strategies and best practices in affordable housing. This expansion has happened, and we have stayed true to our roots and mission to engage advocates, empower communities through training and technical assistance, and expand resources so that all Floridians have an affordable place to call home.