Look Who's Home for the Holidays: Meet the Collins Family

Every day at the Christian Service Center, we work toward a simple but powerful vision: making this the last night anyone sleeps outside in Central Florida. This holiday season, we are celebrating neighbors who are experiencing that promise firsthand as they move into safe and stable housing before the year’s end. One of those families is Willie and Jean Collins.

For more than seven years, the Collins family lived in motels, spending nearly all of their monthly income on room fees. With only a small amount left for food, medicine, or daily essentials, saving the two or three months’ rent required to move into an apartment felt impossible. As Willie put it, they were “stuck in a rut, which turned into a vicious cycle of barely enough, and not quite enough.”

Everything changed when they connected with the Christian Service Center and learned about the 407 Connect shelter bus. They joined the program on September 24 and spent the next 40 days working toward housing. For them, those 40 days were life-changing.

Jean remembers that first night on the bus as the first time in years she could truly rest. “In almost thirty years of marriage, we never sleep apart unless I am in the hospital,” she said. “But that night, I told him goodnight and that I loved him, and we settled down with no worry of mold. It was the first time in a long time that we felt safe.”

Throughout their time on the bus, Willie and Jean worked closely with their case manager, Caleb, who helped them navigate each step of the process. Jean recalled being nervous at first, but soon realized they had found an advocate who believed in them. “He talked with us about our situation and what we wanted for our future. Every lead he gave us, we tackled. One by one, we started seeing the results. We were crushing it.”

After 40 days of steady effort, the Collins family received the keys to a newly refurbished one-bedroom apartment.

“In a total of 40 days, we have gone from rags to riches,” Willie said. “We have moved from the land of barely enough and not quite enough to our own newly refurbished apartment. Everything is brand new. We are off the streets at last, out of the heat, cold, and rain.”

Their momentum continues. The program helped replace Jean’s worn-out wheelchair with a properly fitted model. Willie is preparing to return for his truck-driving license. And both plan to enroll in college in January. “It not only gave us our home,” they said, “but also brought us back to school and provided some other blessings in between. If we can do it, anybody can do it.”

This is what hope looks like when barriers fall and opportunity meets determination. Thank you for helping make this someone’s last night without a place to call home.

Willie and Jean Collins celebrate their new home with their Case Manager, Caleb.