About the Pinellas CoC
The Pinellas CoC is a dedicated group of community members with a shared vision of making homelessness rare, brief, and a one-time experience. The mission of the Pinellas CoC is to coordinate all community partners, systems, and resources available to prevent, divert, and end homelessness in Pinellas County.
The Pinellas CoC
The Pinellas Continuum of Care (CoC) is a collaborative network dedicated to the mission of ending homelessness in Pinellas County. By fostering community-wide engagement, the CoC works to secure resources and funding that support the swift re-housing of individuals and families experiencing homelessness, aiming to minimize trauma and dislocation. A key focus of the CoC is to ensure access to essential programs and services, helping those in need achieve and maintain self-sufficiency.
The Pinellas CoC is made up of a diverse and committed group of members, all united by the shared goal of ending homelessness together. This includes individuals with lived experience, service providers, healthcare professionals, housing providers, government agencies, elected officials, nonprofit and for-profit organizations, local residents, students, and grassroots organizations. By leveraging the collective expertise and resources of these members, the CoC creates meaningful and lasting change.
Guiding the Pinellas CoC is a Board of Directors composed of community leaders, including individuals with lived experience, service providers, and elected officials. The CoC's work is further supported by various specialized councils and committees, each playing a vital role in advancing our mission.
The Homeless Leadership Alliance of Pinellas (HLA) serves as the Lead Agency, Collaborative Applicant, and Homeless Management Information System (HMIS) Lead Agency for the FL-502 Pinellas County Continuum of Care.
What It Means to End Homelessness
An end to homelessness does not mean that no one will ever experience a housing crisis again. Changing economic realities, the unpredictability of life and unsafe or unwelcoming family environments may create situations where individuals, families, or youth could experience or be at-risk of homelessness.
An end to homelessness means that every community will have a systematic response in place that ensures homelessness is prevented whenever possible or is otherwise a rare, brief, and non-recurring experience.
Specifically, every community will have the capacity to:
Quickly identify and engage people at-risk of and experiencing homelessness.
Intervene to prevent the loss of housing and divert people from entering the homelessness services system.
Provide immediate access to shelter and crisis services, without barriers to entry, while permanent stable housing and appropriate supports are being secured.
When homelessness does occur, quickly connect people to housing assistance and services—tailored to their unique needs and strengths—to help them achieve and maintain stable housing.
The History of the Pinellas CoC
For many years Pinellas County benefited from two homeless initiative leadership organizations, the Pinellas County Coalition for the Homeless (PCCH) and the Homeless Leadership Network (HLN).
What began as a small group of advocates in Pinellas County in 1984 grew into the widely-known PCCH which incorporated as a 501(c)(3) in 1988. PCCH had a mission to provide community education, advocacy, program support, capacity building, and technical assistance for the communities, agencies, and organizations concerned with homelessness and to secure funds for needed homeless services.
In 2006, Pinellas County developed an additional entity to focus on local homelessness issues from a policy perspective, the Homeless Leadership Network (HLN). HLN differed from PCCH in that it was a planning body charged with addressing the problem of local homelessness, comprised of 35 elected officials, community leaders, and institutional representatives.
In February of 2012, PCCH and HLN merged and became the Homeless Leadership Board (HLB).
The merger streamlined leadership and made the Board more accountable, with a focus on making the homeless services system more effective and performance–driven in moving individuals and families from homelessness to permanent housing. The structure of the Board was a nonprofit 501 (c)(3) which focused on homeless families, individuals, and unaccompanied youth.
In January 2020, the HLB changed its name to the Homeless Leadership Alliance of Pinellas, a nonprofit 501(c)(3). The Homeless Leadership Alliance of Pinellas (HLA) is an independent agency that serves as Lead Agency, Collaborative Applicant, HMIS Lead Agency, and Coordinated Entry System Manager for the Pinellas Continuum of Care.
The Pinellas Continuum of Care Board is comprised of 19-31 members. The Board includes elected officials and community leaders, including service experts; Housing Authority, Veteran, healthcare, and transportation representatives; and individuals with lived expertise. The Board does much of its work through two major councils and their committees, which provide comprehensive information and recommendations for action and approval to the Board. The Providers Council and the Funders Council each have sitting representatives on the Pinellas Continuum of Care Board of Directors.