Florida Legal Services, Inc.

Florida Legal Services, Inc., a tax-exempt nonprofit legal services organization headquartered in Newberry, Florida, operates as both a federal grant recipient and a subcontractor to larger primes, delivering civil legal assistance to vulnerable populations across Florida with a focus on crime victims, housing-insecure individuals, and underserved communities. The organization acts as a prime recipient on 59% of its federal awards (primarily federal grants) and as a sub-recipient or subcontractor on 41%, competing in open federal grant competitions rather than set-asides.

The organization's federal footprint centers on civil legal services grants from the Department of Justice and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. The top three funding agencies account for 85% of recent awards: the HUD Assistant Secretary for Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity (8 awards), the Department of Justice Office on Violence Against Women (6 awards), and the Department of Justice Office of Victims of Crime (6 awards), with the Department of Health and Human Services Administration for Children and Families and the Executive Office for Immigration Review providing additional volume. Recent prime grant awards include a $500,000 three-year Crime Victim Assistance/Discretionary Grants award from DOJ-OVC (CFDA 16.582) effective October 2025 through September 2028 to expand civil legal services to crime victims statewide, a $500,000 three-year Legal Services for Homeless Veterans and Veterans At-Risk for Homelessness Grant (CFDA 64.056) from the Department of Veterans Affairs effective October 2025 through September 2027 providing direct representation in housing law, family law, income support, criminal defense, healthcare access, and employment law, and a $900,000 three-year Legal Assistance for Victims grant (CFDA 16.524) from the Office on Violence Against Women effective October 2024 through September 2027 to provide civil legal assistance to people sexually assaulted while incarcerated in Florida jails and prisons. Florida Legal Services also holds recurring fair housing education and enforcement grants from HUD's Fair Housing Organization Initiatives program (CFDA 14.417), including a $125,000 award effective March 2026 through February 2027 focused on public outreach and education targeting both aggrieved individuals and housing industry professionals.

Subcontract work routes through Acacia Center for Justice on legal services for unaccompanied alien children under the Department of Health and Human Services Administration for Children and Families Office of Refugee Resettlement, with four sub-awards from October 2024 through October 2025 supporting the Unaccompanied Children program. Florida Legal Services also receives sub-grants from the Florida Department of Legal Affairs on victim services work and from the Florida Department of Children and Families on domestic violence legal hotline services. Service Contract Inventory captures one subcontractor record in FY2024 reflecting approximately 17 FTEs delivered on a federal services contract, though this represents a narrow slice of the organization's actual federal legal services delivery, which flows primarily through grants rather than federal service contracts above the $150,000 SCI reporting threshold.

Award activity has been uneven: four awards in 2022, seven in 2023, six in 2024, five in 2025, and one to date in 2026. Combined obligated dollars across all 27 awards total $15.6 million. Two awards face ultimate completion within the next twenty-four months, presenting recompete opportunity. The organization's grant portfolio reflects specialized capacity in trauma-informed civil legal assistance for crime victims, fair housing enforcement and education, legal services to homeless and at-risk veterans, and civil legal support for limited-English-proficient populations, particularly Haitian Creole-speaking crime victims and Haitian farmworker communities in Central Florida, where the organization has dedicated bilingual attorney staff with deep community roots.