Housing near HCA Florida Healthcare

04The HCA campuses

HCA Florida Healthcare runs three hospitals across the metro, and each one sits in a different direction from the city center: HCA Florida Osceola Hospital is south in Kissimmee, HCA Florida Lake Monroe Hospital is north in Sanford, and UCF Lake Nona Hospital is southeast at Lake Nona, run as a joint venture between HCA Florida Healthcare and the University of Central Florida. It is the third hospital system we track in the metro, and a contract with it can land you at any one of the three campuses, which is why the honest answer on distance depends on which one your assignment names.

UCF Lake Nona Hospital is not a stand-alone building. It sits inside Lake Nona's Medical City on Orlando's southeast side, the same cluster that holds Nemours Children's Hospital, the Orlando VA Medical Center and UCF's own academic health sciences campus. If your assignment is at UCF Lake Nona Hospital, you are working inside that same medical district, with the university's health programs training alongside you.

Dr. Phillips Nursing Pavilion · UCF College of Nursing · CC BY-SA 4.0 · resized from 6884x4589

We do not have more detail on the Osceola or Lake Monroe campuses beyond the cities they sit in, and we are careful not to guess at what we cannot confirm. What we can tell you plainly, the way we would tell a guest calling the office, is the drive: it is a real commute from any of our thirteen homes, not a short hop, and the next two sections lay out exactly what that looks like.

05The drive from our closest homes

Across all thirteen homes, the drive to HCA Florida Osceola Hospital in Kissimmee runs from 28 to 40 minutes by road, the drive to HCA Florida Lake Monroe Hospital in Sanford runs from 28 to 41 minutes, and the drive to UCF Lake Nona Hospital runs from 30 to 42 minutes. Those are wide ranges for one employer, and the reason is geography: the three HCA campuses sit in three different directions from the city center, and no single home in our portfolio sits close to all of them at once.

The three homes we set up most often for HCA travelers are the 25th Street House in Holden Heights, the Amelia House in Parramore, and the Piedmont House in Washington Shores. Fruit Tree Home runs 30 minutes to UCF Lake Nona Hospital, 28 to Osceola and 35 to Lake Monroe. Amelia’s Arena Retreat runs 33, 29 and 36 minutes to the same three campuses, and Piedmont runs 33, 29 and 41. None of those numbers is short, and we would rather you know it before you book than find it out on the first drive in.

One home outside that trio is worth naming if your contract is specifically at Lake Monroe: the Katherine House in Lockhart runs 28 minutes to HCA Florida Lake Monroe Hospital, a shorter drive to that one campus than the three homes above. If Sanford is where your assignment sends you, ask us about it directly.

06Where the campuses sit around Orlando

The map below places HCA Florida Osceola Hospital in Kissimmee at the center and shows each of our thirteen homes by true compass bearing and drive time. Osceola sits south of the city where our homes are based, so the homes closest to downtown, the ones we point most guests toward first, land toward the outer edge of this particular circle rather than the middle, exactly as the honesty note on this page says.

HCA Florida Lake Monroe Hospital in Sanford sits north of that same city center, and UCF Lake Nona Hospital sits southeast of it, inside the Lake Nona Medical City described above. A guest working at Lake Monroe is effectively commuting in close to the opposite direction from a guest working at Osceola, which is part of why the wide range of numbers on this page shows up across the board rather than a tight cluster.

Our own cluster of homes sits roughly in the middle of the three campuses rather than next to any one of them. Amelia’s Arena Retreat sits in Downtown Orlando, Fruit Tree Home sits just south of downtown, and Piedmont sits in West Orlando, all different from the south, north and southeast directions where the three HCA campuses themselves sit. That middle position explains why the numbers above cluster in the high twenties to low forties instead of spreading further apart.

None of the three campuses is reachable in a short hop from any of our homes, so plan the drive as a genuine commute rather than a quick trip: check the route before your first shift, and build in extra time on the Sanford or Kissimmee legs, since both run well past the times we quote for downtown Orlando or Universal.

07A month on an HCA contract

A 13-week HCA contract puts you on the road longer than our other hospital assignments, so the practical questions change: is there full-size laundry so scrubs go straight into the machine after a shift, is there a bedroom where a night-shift schedule can stay dark and quiet during the day, and is there parking for a car doing an hour or more round trip most days. We answer those home by home rather than in general terms, because the three HCA campuses pull in different directions and the right house depends on which one your contract names.

Because these drives run from 28 minutes up to 42 each way without traffic depending on the home and the campus, Orlando's rush hours matter more here than on our shorter hospital commutes. A day shift starting early misses the worst of the morning build-up, and an evening return after a day shift often meets it head-on; a night shift flips that pattern, with the drive in against traffic and the drive home before the morning rush picks up. None of that changes the minutes we quote above, which are typical road-routing times without traffic, but it is worth building into how early you leave.

Residents and new-graduate nurses relocating into one of the three hospitals often want the same thing for a different reason: a real house to land in before they know the city, rather than a short-term lease signed sight unseen from out of state. Clinical project staff on a system rollout tend to move between more than one HCA site across a week, which makes a central, downtown-adjacent house easier to work from than one set far out on a single side of the metro.

The three homes above sit inside two of our own area guides: Fruit Tree Home and Amelia House are covered in our downtown and close-in guide, and Piedmont is covered in our Washington Shores and west Orlando guide. Between them you have the Publix at The Paramount on Lake Eola, a Publix on South Orange Avenue near Holden Heights, and Nikki's Place on South Orange Blossom Trail for soul food a few minutes from Piedmont. None of that is close to Kissimmee or Sanford, but it is what your evenings look like most of the month, between the two long drives to and from the campus.

Whichever role brought you here, the house itself works the same way every month: furnished from the first night, a full kitchen, Wi-Fi on from day one, and a written agreement that spells out the rate, the dates and the deposit before you commit. The commute is the one detail unique to this employer; everything else about the stay matches any other month-long booking with us.

08The homes that fit an HCA contract

The three homes we set up most often for HCA travelers are the ones introduced above with their exact drive times: Fruit Tree Home, Amelia’s Arena Retreat and Piedmont. Here is what each one offers beyond the commute.

South of Downtown

Holden Heights

Fruit Tree Home

3 bd 2 ba Sleeps 10

6 min downtown · 5 min ORMC · 13 min Universal

Travel Nurse & MedicalInsurance & Displacement

Downtown Orlando

Parramore / Downtown Edge

Amelia’s Arena Retreat

4 bd 2 ba Sleeps 8

7 min downtown · 9 min ORMC · 16 min Universal

Travel Nurse & MedicalInsurance & Displacement

West Orlando

Washington Shores

Piedmont

4 bd 3 ba Sleeps 14

11 min downtown · 11 min ORMC · 13 min Universal

Travel Nurse & MedicalInsurance & Displacement

The 25th Street House in Holden Heights is a three-bedroom, two-bathroom bungalow with full-size laundry on site and keyless entry. It carries 142 Airbnb reviews at a 4.83 rating, more than either of the other two homes here, and it sleeps up to 10, which suits one clinician alone, two sharing, or a family of four comfortably.

The Amelia House in Parramore is a four-bedroom, two-bathroom house that sleeps 8, and one of its bedrooms has its own attached bathroom, useful if two travelers on the same contract keep different shifts. The Piedmont House in Washington Shores is bigger, with four bedrooms, three bathrooms and room for 14, plus a concrete parking pad that fits several vehicles, a practical detail for a family relocating with more than one car.

All three are still a genuine drive from any of the three HCA campuses. We put them first because they sit on the downtown side of Orlando, in Holden Heights, Parramore and Washington Shores, not because any one of them is around the corner from Kissimmee, Sanford or Lake Nona.

09Billing for an HCA contract

For a stipend-funded HCA assignment, we write a monthly agreement that names the home, the dates, the rate and the deposit, plus itemized receipts each month that your agency can process for a housing stipend or reimbursement. If your agency prefers to be the named party on the agreement instead of you personally, we write it that way from the start, and we answer inquiries the same day regardless of which of the three campuses your contract names.

Established staffing agencies, insurers and companies can use net-30 terms on a signed agreement or purchase order, with the first booking paid up front. A W-9 and a certificate of insurance are available on request, since we carry a commercial landlord liability policy. This applies to agencies and employers specifically, not to a family or a leisure group booking one of the same houses.

Extensions run month by month at the same terms. If a 13-week HCA contract looks like it will stretch toward 26 weeks, tell us as early as you can and we will hold the following month where the house allows it.

10What's in the house

Every home comes furnished and ready from the first night: beds and linens made up, a stocked kitchen with cookware and dishes, a washer and dryer, Wi-Fi, and private parking in a driveway, carport or parking pad. Exact inclusions are confirmed in writing when you book.

Exact inclusions vary a little by home and are confirmed in writing when you book.

Of the three homes above, Fruit Tree Home has full-size laundry on site; Amelia’s Arena Retreat and Piedmont each have a washer and dryer as well, just not that same full-size unit. Amelia’s Arena Retreat and Piedmont both have a fenced yard, worth knowing if you are bringing a dog on a long contract, and Fruit Tree Home's yard is fenced too, with fruit trees rather than open lawn.

None of the thirteen homes has a pool, and bed and bath counts are the counts published on each home's own page, with sofas never counted as beds. All three of these homes are among the six on the site that publish a street address; the other six publish a neighborhood and zip code instead, with the exact address shared at booking.

11What guests said

These are real reviews from Fruit Tree Home's own Airbnb listing, quoted exactly as written, with the reviewer's name and month. Every home on the site carries its own set of verified reviews, and the full collection across the portfolio is on our reviews page.