Washington, DC runs 80 welfare programs and still cannot find 711,000 poor children living in Florida.
Now Casey DeSantis just launched a program that can.
And what she unveiled in Orlando on Monday is going to make every bureaucrat drawing a federal paycheck look like a fraud.
What a Neighbor Does That Washington Never Could
The Congressional Research Service counted it up and found 15 different federal agencies currently providing food aid to poor Americans.
Fifteen agencies.
Trillions of dollars spent.
And the Florida Chamber Foundation's Mark Wilson stood at Monday's announcement and said plainly that Florida businesses still have no idea where the state's 711,000 children in poverty actually are.
https://twitter.com/GovRonDeSantis/status/2061538273521000834?s=20
That is the entire case against the federal welfare state in one sentence – after six decades and $1 trillion a year, Washington's poverty machine cannot locate the people it is supposed to help.
Hope Florida can.
The new partnership announced Monday links CarePortal – a technology platform that routes families to local support networks in real time – directly to Florida's business community through the chamber of commerce system.
A church in Orlando sees a child needs a bed.
A business across town funds it.
The need gets met that day – not after a six-week caseworker review across three agencies that still cannot agree on who is responsible.
Monday's announcement also opened the CarePortal submission system to a broader set of organizations – churches, fatherhood groups, and nursing homes now have direct access to flag needs as they see them.
That means a grandmother aging out of government visibility, a father trying to stay in his kid's life, and a family one broken appliance away from losing everything – all of them just got a direct line to people who actually want to help.
Florida's Numbers Make the Federal Model Look Criminal
More than 35,000 Floridians have walked away from public assistance dependency through Hope Florida.
The program is saving $128 million in taxpayer money every single year.
Children placed in out-of-home care have dropped 47% since 2019.
Those are results – from a program the left spent the last year trying to bury under bookkeeping complaints while actual families kept getting helped.
https://twitter.com/GovRonDeSantis/status/2061512303359541434?s=20
This is the same model Sarah Huckabee Sanders is now building in Arkansas with the 10:33 Initiative.
Conservative governors across America are watching Florida and drawing the same conclusion – the federal government spent decades crowding churches out of poverty work, and states that invite churches back in are the ones actually solving the problem.
Florida reversed that equation five years ago.
Now 2,400 churches are active in the Hope Florida network.
Casey DeSantis stood in Orlando Monday and said Florida should have 10,000 on board.
She is right.
This Is the Blueprint That Terrifies the Poverty Lobby
The left cannot attack this.
They cannot say families shouldn't get beds and groceries.
They cannot say churches shouldn't help neighbors.
https://twitter.com/FLVoiceNews/status/2061520722929848587?s=20
So instead they manufacture scandals about the paperwork and hope nobody notices the families keep getting helped.
Governor DeSantis has long held that the government should incentivize charity, not supplant it.
That position is playing out in real time in Florida while Washington, DC burns through a trillion dollars a year producing nothing but dependency.
CarePortal CEO Joe Knittig said what no politician is allowed to say out loud: children and families in desperate situations are going to have their lives changed "not by government, but by their neighbor."
When your neighbor shows up with groceries, it means something.
When a check arrives from one of fifteen federal food agencies, it means the problem is expected to continue indefinitely.
Florida just proved the neighbor wins every time.
The rest of America is watching.
Sources:
- Kennedy Owens, "DeSantis and first lady announce Hope Florida expansion through church-business partnership," Florida News, June 1, 2026.
- Florida Governor's Office, "Governor Ron DeSantis and First Lady Casey DeSantis Make Awards to Top 13 Hope Florida CarePortal Churches," Executive Office of the Governor, 2024.
- Florida DCF, "Florida DCF Touts Historic Turnaround As Homelessness Plummets, Fewer Kids In Foster Care," 2025.
- Sarah Huckabee Sanders, "Here's how we can deliver conservative welfare reform," Arkansas Governor's Office, October 2025.
- House Oversight Committee, "Hearing Wrap Up: America's Welfare State Needs Immediate Reform," February 2025.
