Big 3 of Hope Place: Volusia County Manager Jim Dinneen | Headline Surfer / Award-Winning 24/7 Internet News Site Serving Daytona Beach/Sanford/Orlando, FL

Daytona homeless family shelter / Jim Dinneen, Forough Hosseini, Mark Geallis / Headline Surfer®

Third of three sidebars included in second of 10-part investigative reporting series that takes the public into the plight of homeless families with children and of teens living on their own (ages 18-21 & in school living either apart from parents or with none at all) in greater Daytona Beach and throughout Volusia County); and the big three leaders who did something about it by Pushing for Hope Place -- Mark Geallis, executive director of Halifax Urban Ministries; Forough Hosseini, vice president of ICI Homes & a community entrepreneur; and Jim Dinneen, Volusia County manager. These are their stories...

Headline Surfer® photos /

James T. Dinneen now in his 10th year as Volusia County manager and shown here at left, is among the 'Big 3' players, along with Mark Geallis of Halifax Urban Ministries and Forough Hosseini, who have worked together for more than a year now to make the first significant large-scale facility for homeless families and older teens attending school, but not living with parents for one reason or another, a true reality. A final vote of the County Council is Thursday.

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- Perhaps it was destined that a municipal city manager in Ohio would have an impact on a Central Florida metro area whose key city has one more letter at the end of its name than the one he left in Ohio a decade ago.

The key city in Volusia County is Daytona Beach, home of the World's Most Famous Beach® and Daytona International Speedway, featuring the Daytona 500, NASCAR's premier race.

The city in Ohio where Dinneen last worked? That would be Dayton where he was employed as the city manager.

And it is in greater Daytona Beach that Dinneen, whose county manager office is in DeLand, will play a pivotal role in driving home the biggest and most comprehensive facility for homeless families and older teens who don't have a home to go to -- and of all places, a former elementary school: In this case, it's the Hurst School, 1340 Wright St, Daytona Beach.

Dinneen, along with Forough Hosseini, vice president of ICI Homes in Daytona Beach; and Mark Geallis, executive director of Halifax Urban Ministries , also in Daytona Beach, are the big three players in seeing to it that Hope Place becomes a reality with a final vote by the seven elected members on the dais of the Drank T. Bruno County Council chambers on Thursday.

Hope Place received an initial approval in March, but this is the second and final vote, with the transfer of title of the former Hurst Elementary School property to Halifax Urban Ministries, with the property purchased from the Volusia County School District by the county following the initial county vote back in March.

Dinneen's role, besides already convincing the council in the previous vote in providing taxpayer funding and other revenue streams, will be to explain the benefits of Project Hope, knowing full well there will be opposition from some neighbors of the Hurst School, primarily along the lines of NIMBY -- the acronym for "not in my back yard," which Headline Surfer® will go into in greater detail in an upcoming segment of this series.

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