Every day, hundreds of families in Orange County face an impossible choice: pay rent or put food on the table. As Executive Director of SPIN, I’ve seen that homelessness here doesn’t always look the way people expect. Many families we serve are working, determined, and doing everything they can to stay afloat, yet they still struggle to maintain housing.
Our mission is simple but urgent: to help families experiencing homelessness secure stable, lasting housing. We focus on those too often overlooked; families with children not prioritized for HUD funding, with few pathways to help.
This year, our New Start Family Housing Program is creating a new path forward for these families, helping them rebuild with dignity, stability, and hope. With a success rate of over 90% we are confident we can help families achieve lasting stability. But we can’t do it without you. The Help Them Home campaign will raise critical funds to move families with children into safe housing, and keep them there. Together, we can turn moments of crisis into a new beginning.
For almost 40 years, Serving People in Need (SPIN) has continued the legacy of founder Sam Boyce's mission to help Orange County families in need. With over 80,000 families and individuals served since its inception in 1987, SPIN's outstanding case management and family navigation services have helped the organization maintain a 90% or better success rate of client families remaining sustainably housed.
With hundreds of unhoused families apparent in the county at any given time, and precarious and unreliable federal funding for housing programs, we need your help more than ever. In 2025, we successfully housed 61 families (208 parents and children), and guided over 2400 families and individuals to essential services with access to our network of supportive services, food, clothing, hygiene and household necessities. Our goal for 2026 is to increase that impact by 25% - a lofty endeavor, but one we feel confident in reaching with the assistance of over three million giving Orange County hearts like yours!