Talahassee – Governor Ron DeSantis and the First Lady branded Hope Florida as an innovative program to help people help government aid.
But almost four years later, the goals and effectiveness of the initiative remain a mystery. State officials have not released relevant data on its performance or its costs. Lawmakers and others familiar with the program say they are replicating existing services.
This week, state officials said Florida’s key features are “graduating” Medicaid people.
As DeSantis hopes lawmakers will create a Florida Hope Office under the governor of state law, Hope Florida’s charity arm is surrounded by more than $10 million scandal poured into two dark money groups through financial resources.
Now the future of the program, and the legacy of Desantise, is questionable.
“Why do we need Florida?” House Speaker Daniel Perez, a Miami Republican, said last week. “We have an institution that is supposed to do that job. Are they not doing their job properly? Should we look at it?”
30,000 from welfare
Casey Desantis launched Hope Florida as her signature initiative and promoted the program as an answer to the state welfare program.
The program operates a call line for Floridians in need. At least 100 state workers have turned them into “hope navigators,” which are supposed to help Floridians find local non-government resources.
Callers to the hotline can be placed in online contrast media. Churches and nonprofits have access to the portal, where you can see what they want and choose whether to help them or not.
“Using this model, ‘Hey, we need all the help. Help is not government. Help is the appearance,” Casey DeSantis told a Washington panel last month. “Now we’re going to support them — we’ll prevent them, get government assistance, help them to respond to their God-given possibilities.”
The governor said the program was extremely successful. He said he and Casey described it about President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk, and other states made a “pilgrimage” to Florida to try to replicate it.
“Since this was implemented, we’ve acquired 30,000 people from welfare and saved Florida $100 million,” Ron DeSantis said Monday. “And that’s a great success story.”
His administration has cited several variations of the 30,000 figure for at least 10 months. The Hope Florida website states that the number includes Floridians.
It is unclear how the state reached those figures. The administration has yet to say who those people are, where they live, or the role they expect to see the navigator play in order to drive them out of their aid.
Taylor Hatch’s Children and Family Director, told House Committee Tuesday that most of the program’s savings came from families not receiving food assistance. Florida monthly groceries are fully federally funded by the 3 million recipients who purchase through the program.
Cindy Huddleston, a food and cash assistance expert at the left-leaning Florida Institute of Policy Research, said these benefits already have job requirements as they are part of a program that “puts families on the path to self-sufficiency” like Hope Florida.
For more information from the department, it is difficult to know whether benefits stem from Florida’s wishes or traditional programs, Huddleston said. People also tend to come back after they get off benefits.
When a Dasantis administration official said and asked last week when lawmakers released more detailed data on who Florida is helping, how and how they hope.
The Florida foundation also pays for nonprofits it works for, but it is unclear how compensation decisions will be made. Minutes of the board of directors in October pointed out that they were handing out money on an “ad hoc basis.” The church is gaining an increase of between $10,000 and $40,000, the news release shows.
Last week, The Times/Herald reported that the foundation had won $10 million through a state settlement with Centene, Florida’s largest Medicaid contractor. It sent money to two dark money groups, then millions of people to political committees fighting last year’s recreational marijuana voting initiative.
Desantis previously said that a settlement with Centene, including money sent to Florida Foundation’s Hope, was “100% appropriate.”
“Graduation” from Medicaid?
Despite questions about Hope Florida’s performance, the state healthcare administration incorporates the program into all its contracts with the state’s Medicaid providers, worth $28 billion.
Medicaid is a state and federal program that provides healthcare services to 4.2 million poor Floridians, primarily children, disabled people, pregnant women, parents and caretakers. Due to strict requirements in Florida, single-working, low-income adults are not eligible.
For the next five years, Medicaid providers will receive priority treatment from the program to “graduate” Floridians. The contract is valid, but the state does not define the meaning of graduation.
The navigator is supposed to work with Medicaid contractors to significantly improve the financial situation for Floridians. Experts question whether these improvements are possible.
Parents cannot earn more than $598 a month to qualify for Medicaid in a family of three. This is a salary of $7,176 per year.
“They’re in a very difficult situation,” said Katie DeBrière, Medicaid attorney for the Florida Health Justice Project, advocating access to healthcare through courts.
Florida is one of 10 states that have not expanded its federal program, so they will lose Medicaid completely beyond that amount.
That probably means they fall into coverage and lose their health insurance completely. To qualify for the Affordable Care Act Subsidy, recipients must have an annual income of nearly quadruple layers. These grants will not apply until the family reaches the $26,650 federal poverty line.
To graduate a meaningful number of people from Medicaid without losing health insurance because “we have to fundamentally change the economy,” Debriere said.
Program questions
Acacia Davidson, 50, said she called Hope Florida earlier this month when shelter from Hurricane Milton expired and left her homeless husband and adult daughter.
Her hopeful navigators featured her in a church and a local shelter, documenting the show Davidson provided. Neither could provide her family with a place to stay, Davidson said.
The navigator also asked if she had called the U.S. Housing and Urban Development Agency.
“I said, ‘Everyone,” Davidson said. She said it appears that nothing has been connected to the organization the navigator introduced her.
Davidson said what she really wanted was to help her navigator enter the apartment, not introduce her to “dead end resources.” She has lived in Orlando’s cars and motels since Thursday, she said.
Davidson said it’s no different from the other services Florida has tried. Other services, including 211, are free call lines supported by United, which connects Floridians with a variety of programs and aid.
According to its website, 211 people received nearly 1 million calls last year. Since Florida launched four years ago, its website has shown 115,000 people.
Rep. Anna Escamani, an Orlando Democrat, said the office emphasized component services, but she said she had not introduced the caller to Hope Florida.
“I don’t believe there will be any outcomes,” Eskamani said. She said the point of hope in Florida is to “drove people out of social services. And some people aren’t ready for that. They’re in crisis.”
She called the program “an example of public money being used to raise someone’s political status.”
Rep. Debra Tendrich, a Lakeworth Democrat who runs his own Palm Beach County nonprofit, said it’s not easy to improve someone’s life to a state that makes them economically self-sufficient.
“It’s not just that someone gets the job and they’re financially free,” Tendrich said. “We have to change people’s habits.”
It can talk to them about spending patterns, changes in their living situations, navigating veteran benefits, or gaining healthcare. Her nonprofits usually spend 2-10 hours on someone’s case, she said.
“I don’t know how 30,000 people were served,” she said.
Tindrich said he views Hope Florida as a “referral service” similar to 211 and other nonprofits. She said it is churches and nonprofits that actually take part in programs that help people.
“They take all their trust,” Tendrich said of Hope Florida. “They say they have partners in this, but their partners do most of their jobs.”
