Direct Cash.
Direct Impact.
A Stronger Florida.
The Florida Income Network is a network of organizations working to normalize and expand the use of unrestricted cash assistance as a just and effective solution to economic insecurity in Florida.
What We See
Across Florida
Across Florida, our neighbors are working hard to build brighter futures, yet the path forward is increasingly blocked. The cost of living has climbed while wages have not kept up. When people look for help, many find a maze of restrictions and conditions that hinder more than heal.
These barriers often overlook the inherent potential of our most marginalized neighbors. When we remove these hurdles, our neighbors gain ground, and all of Florida moves forward together.
Rising Costs
Rising costs in Florida are affecting families across the state, squeezing budgets and forcing hard choices about how to allocate limited resources.
Families face skyrocketing prices for everyday essentials:
Housing & Utilities: Skyrocketing rents and utility bills are forcing families out of long-term homes.
Groceries: Rising food costs are stretching weekly grocery budgets to the breaking point.
Childcare: High care costs make it increasingly difficult for parents to maintain full-time employment.
Stagnant Wages
Wages in Florida have shown limited growth for many workers over the past decade, failing to keep pace with the cost of living.
While the state's job market has expanded, much of the new growth consists of lower-paying service and gig roles. This leaves median incomes relatively flat when adjusted for inflation, forcing many households to work multiple jobs just to get by.
Restrictions on Support
In Florida, rigid legal and policy restrictions drastically limit access to critical support services for low-income residents, people of color, immigrants, LGBTQ+ individuals, and people with disabilities.
Key structural barriers include:
Strict Eligibility Rules: Complicated public benefit applications and strict income caps exclude families in deep need.
Documentation Hurdles: Residency requirements disproportionately shut out immigrants and people experiencing homelessness.
Systemic Debt Traps: Court costs, fines, and fees create massive obstacles to successful reentry for justice-impacted individuals.
Local Spotlight: Alachua County
In Alachua County, we see how these dynamics play out for people impacted by incarceration. Just Income's 2026 applicants reported devastating poverty: 31% had zero income, and 87% had less than $50 in savings. Most are desperately seeking work. People are released from incarceration with nothing and expected to immediately meet basic needs, pay court costs and probation fees, find housing in an expensive market, and secure employment despite criminal records.
Carceral debt traps people in the system, with thousands owed in court costs, fines, and fees, and threats of reincarceration for non-payment. Housing is unstable or nonexistent: evictions, shelters, couch-surfing, sleeping in parks or cars. Without reliable transportation, people can't get to work or meet probation requirements. Parents struggle to provide for their kids or regain custody.
When people leave incarceration, they are dropped at the edge of a cliff, precarious from the first moment. Nearly everything works to push them over. What people want is simple. As one applicant wrote: "I hope next year that things will just be normal."
Local Spotlight: Miami-Dade County
Miami-Dade County is one of the least affordable metropolitan areas in the United States. Median rents have more than doubled over the last decade, and as a result, the majority of households are now cost-burdened, paying over 30 percent of their income on housing. While inflation and housing instability affect the county broadly, working-class communities, renters, immigrants, and Black and Latine residents experience these pressures most acutely. Long-time residents are being pushed out of the neighborhoods they helped build, and economic insecurity has become a defining condition of life for hundreds of thousands of people.
Housing insecurity does not exist in isolation. Rising costs of food, transportation, childcare, utilities, and healthcare compound financial strain and leave many residents one missed paycheck away from crisis. These pressures are highest in neighborhoods such as Liberty City, Little Haiti, Little Havana, Overtown, Wynwood, Hialeah, Florida City, and Opa-Locka: communities with deep cultural roots now facing intense development pressure and displacement.
Guaranteed income is a necessary response to these conditions. Direct, unconditional cash support provides immediate relief while addressing a deeper truth: economic insecurity is structural, not individual.
Why Cash Works
Struggling to get by isn't a flaw in our neighbors. It is a flaw in our system.
Unrestricted, unconditional cash is our solution because it treats every Floridian with the dignity and trust they deserve, and cuts through red tape to meet real needs.
Direct cash provides the stability people need to transition from just surviving to truly thriving. It acts as a bridge to opportunity, allowing individuals to:
Maintain Momentum: Keep up with bills during life's unpredictable moments, ensuring a temporary setback doesn't become a crisis.
Stay Mobile: Repair vehicles to remain reliable employees and active in their community.
Achieve Freedom: Pay off court costs and fees, allowing people to turn the page and contribute to our economy fully.
Secure a Home: Bridge the gap on housing costs to keep families rooted in the neighborhoods they love.
Nurture the Next Generation: Provide essentials like fresh groceries and school supplies that help children succeed.
Build a Legacy: Invest in personal health or start businesses that drive local innovation.
Cash honors that each individual and family's needs are unique. A parent in Miami facing a doubling of rent has different immediate needs than a person in Gainesville returning home from incarceration, and that's okay.
By leading with flexibility, direct cash enables Floridians to be the true architects of their own success. When our neighbors are stable, Florida is unstoppable.
Participating Organizations
