Hope Florida

Common card · No. 444306

Hope Florida is a community-based welfare assistance program initiative founded on September 9, 2021 by Casey DeSantis, wife of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. It is a state agency under the Florida Department of Children and Families (DCF). The organization is supported by its state-created charity arm, the Hope Florida Foundation, created in August 2023, which is a Direct Support Organization (DSO). DSOs are authorized under Florida statute for the "sole purpose" of "support[ing] the department in carrying out its purposes and responsibilities." In 2025 Ron DeSantis was pushing for Hope Florida to be codified into state law, which led to an investigation of the program by a State House committee. That April, news of a scandal involving the Hope Florida Foundation broke; it was reported that in 2024 a state grand jury had found that the Foundation had misappropriated $10 million from a Medicaid legal settlement, and diverted the money to Republican political entities. This news followed...

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