FCARE Chair David Peery, JD's most important credential is overcoming personal homelessness in Miami. Though triggered by a job layoff, a false arrest, and an unlawful eviction, his experience revealed the three conditions shared by all who face homelessness: extreme poverty, absence of family and community support, and a trauma that ejects one from housing. Recognizing that public misperceptions — blaming homelessness on irresponsibility, drug abuse, or mental illness — shield the true culprits of America's inequitable housing and healthcare systems, Peery became a plaintiff in a landmark federal lawsuit and consent decree protecting the civil rights of Miami's homeless population, serving as a peer support specialist, volunteering with the Florida ACLU, and assisting with criminal mental health jail diversion outreach. When that consent decree was terminated in 2019, he founded the Miami Coalition to Advance Racial Equity (MCARE) — Miami's only advocacy organization representing unsheltered persons. FCARE is MCARE's statewide successor: a multiracial alliance of more than 600 advocates committed to dismantling every form of structural racism that results in homelessness, unaffordable housing, lack of healthcare access, and suppression of voting rights — leveraging impact litigation, legislative advocacy, and direct action to oppose the criminalization of poverty and promote lasting solutions.

"Houselessness is the result of a gov't failing its people" — Miami housing justice rally