A small Tampa nonprofit is getting a share of a record federal housing grant. The money lets it do more of what it already does: get homeless veterans off the street and into stable homes.
P&P Helping Hand Foundation is set to receive up to $350,000 from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. The amount depends on how many veterans it serves. The award is part of $113 million going to Florida organizations out of a record $1.2 billion in taxpayer-funded grants to 680 groups nationwide.
The foundation runs a 12-bed program that moves homeless veterans toward permanent housing. It has operated for a year.
Program Manager Audrey Clark said the grant is paid as a reimbursement, meaning the foundation covers costs first and is repaid afterward. She said the funding will let the program reach veterans it could not otherwise help.
“The money coming in actually allows us to provide excellent service, to extend our services, to extend our reach to individuals that we normally wouldn’t be able to assist because the funds wouldn’t be there,” Clark said.
She said the approach rests on a simple idea. “We believe that when you stabilize that housing, then it actually stabilizes their entire life,” Clark said.
William Judge, a Coast Guard veteran and house manager who was once homeless himself, handles much of the program’s day-to-day work. He has held the job for about six months and said he sets the tone by keeping the house clean for new arrivals.
“The streets are not kind to you. They’re not,” Judge said. “But now they have a place to go. Have a place to sit down.”
Judge said the work has given him a renewed sense of purpose. “The program gave me the sense of being the person I knew that I could be,” he said.
He advises veterans still on the street to ask for help. “There are people out here to help you,” he said. “Miss Audrey and her group are just one of them. But they are here for us.”
The grants arrive as the VA reports progress. In fiscal year 2025, the department housed nearly 52,000 homeless veterans, the most in seven years.
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