Grants renewed to help homeless

Staff report

COLUMBUS

Federal grants for homeless-assistance programs in Columbiana, Mahoning and Trumbull County totaling about $3.1 million have been renewed for 2010.

Statewide, the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development renewed homeless-assistance-program grants totaling about $66.2 million.

That is good news, said Bill Faith, executive director of the Coalition on Homelessness and Housing in Ohio.

“Across Ohio, the numbers tell a story of increasing hardship for families and individuals who are being pushed outside the bounds of stability,” Faith said.

He noted that in reports from homeless agencies across the state, demand for shelter and services is spiking.

For instance, the YWCA family shelter in Columbus spent $5,000 in overflow costs to house families in 2009; in 2010, it spent $200,000. In the Miami Valley, the primary family shelter saw a 35 percent increase in occupancy in the first two weeks of November 2010, compared with the same period in 2009. And in Cuyahoga County in September alone, 275 men who had no previous experience with homelessness, entered the county’s largest shelter, he said.

“These federal dollars will help meet an immediate and growing need across the state,” Faith said. “The awards were for renewals, an increase of almost $14 million over last year’s renewal awards. New submissions will be awarded later this year.”

Known as Continuum of Care grants, HUD’s funding will serve 263 agencies in Ohio that provide permanent and transitional housing to homeless persons as well as services including job training, case management and child care.

Continuum of Care grants are awarded competitively to local programs to meet the needs of their homeless clients. They fund a variety of programs from street outreach and assessment programs to transitional and permanent housing for homeless persons and families.

COHHIO staff led the grant submission efforts through the Ohio Department of Development among Ohio’s HUD-funded rural agencies, known as the Balance of State Continuum of Care. The eight largest urban centers, including the Youngstown/Mahoning County Continuum of Care Coalition, made their own submissions.

The grants are a fundamental part of the Obama Administration’s Opening Doors strategy, the nation’s first plan to prevent and end homelessness.

“Across federal agencies, we are aligning mainstream programs towards a goal to prevent and end homelessness,” said Barbara Poppe, executive director of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness.