|
Bay |
|
$783,685 |
|
Calhoun |
|
$37,157 |
|
Gulf |
|
$50,594 |
|
Holmes |
|
$61,707 |
|
|
|
$148,255 |
|
|
|
$70,726 |
|
Total
for CoC |
|
$1,152,124 |
+
2.5 % Admin
$
28,803
TOTAL
$ 1,180,927
This
allocation was based on Food Stamp recipients, evictions, and
unemployment. Catholic
Charities will be distribute the funds in our six county area.
Target Population
1) in housing but at risk, need temporary assistance
2)
individual or families currently homeless need temp assistance for
rapid re-housing
Also:
at or below 50% AMI, no appropriate housing option AND no financial
resources or support network. Must
have an intake evaluation.
-
Financial (rent, security and utility deposits, utility payments, moving, motel vouchers)
-
Housing Relocation & Stabilization (outreach, housing search, case mgmt, legal serv)
-
Data Collection & Eval: GCIN mandatory HMIS use
-
Admin Costs
Together to Help Davina
The time was getting close. Davina had been seeing a doctor for her prenatal visits, but there had been no money for prenatal vitamins. For a time she had lived in an old office building with one bathroom and no kitchen. She knew that this was no place for her and her child, but she had no other options at the time. Around her eight month of pregnancy, she found herself homeless and unable to return to the small bedroom she had occupied.
With no other choice, Davina went to the Panama
City Rescue Mission
where she remained for seven days.
While she was there, she heard about Hannah’s
House.
On December 5, 2008, she moved in.
On December 29, baby boy Randall was born at Gulf
Coast Medical Center,
weighing 6 lbs and 11 oz! Healthy
Start
called on her in the hospital, offering counseling and instructional
pamphlets on baby care. They
also gave her information on the Healthy Family program at Life
Management Center.
Mom and baby returned to Hannah’s House.
They provided Davina and Randall with everything they needed:
crib, baby clothes, toys, a car seat, and best of all, a safe
home.
Soon it was time to start thinking about their future!
Davina took advantage of the Gulf Coast Community College Passport
Program
and earned her GED. She
then took the job searcher’s Orientation Class at Workforce
Center
and found herself a job. Hannah’s
House helped with work clothes and transportation.
Early
Education and Care helped
with childcare for Randall. Fall
semester, Davina will take advantage of a Pell grant and start classes
in business management at GCCC. She
and Randall will have another full year to stay in the secure
environment of Hannah’s House while she works on her education and
saves for a place of their own! Thank
you to all our coalition partners that are helping create stories just
like this one!
Ten Things You Need to Know to End Homelessness
by _NONE
(This article was originally published in GoodwillTODAY)
In July 2009, The Nation published a "Ten Things" piece titled
"Ten Things You Need to Know to Live on the Streets." The provocative and
thoughtful piece elicited quite a response. We, however, respectfully
disagree with the premise of the piece. Before submitting to the idea
that there are things you need to know to live on the streets, we
suggest that you consider whether living on the streets is necessary at
all.
We're no strangers to the issue of homelessness--rather, we're quite
well-versed in the subject. Homelessness, as we know, began in the 1980s
and has persisted through the decades. Some see it as an inevitable
byproduct of a diminishing affordable housing supply, a lack of
well-paying jobs, tumult in the economic sector, and both globalization
and urbanization. Many see it as an unavoidable social nuisance. Some
don't see it at all. But here, at the National Alliance to End
Homelessness, we see it as a problem with a solution.
The causes of homelessness are many and complex--but the
solution to homelessness heads toward one straight goal: housing.
Here are ten steps you need to know about--and to take--to end homelessness:
1. Plan. It's simple: our problem is homelessness, and this
complex, multifaceted problem requires a thoughtful, carefully
concerted plan of attack. The most successful plans are built with the
input and support of community leaders, elected officials, lawmakers,
business leaders, service providers and residents.
2. Collect and examine the data. You can't know what you're doing
until you know what you're dealing with. Most communities already have a
way to count the number of homeless people in the area; some
communities also collect information on how people become homeless, how
long they stay homeless, how homeless people interact with agencies of
care (it's called HMIS). Examine
these data and learn the characteristics specific to their homeless
populations--good data will inform which strategies are enacted, how
much those strategies will cost, and how the plans can be implemented
and carried out.
3. Strengthen emergency prevention. As the old adage goes, an
ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Most communities have in
place an emergency homelessness-prevention program--usually including
rent, mortgage, and utility assistance; case management; landlord or
lender intervention; and other programs that pull people back from the
brink of homelessness. By expanding, strengthening and improving access
to these emergency prevention services, communities can curtail
homelessness when people come precariously close to the edge.
4. Systems prevention. Similarly, we also have a set of systems
that help the low- and extremely low-income households. Most people and
families who fall into homelessness were already engaged in programs
that provide low-income people care and assistance (as most families and
people who fall into homelessness are low-income to begin with). Others
who fall into homelessness are "graduates" of various state
institutions: foster care, incarceration, mental health facilities. If
we can strengthen the existing assistance programs and create effective
transition programs for those exiting state institutions, we can ensure
that those most at risk of experiencing homelessness are kept from it.
5. No-strings outreach. A key component of ending homelessness is
reaching out to people who live on the street and encouraging them to
embrace housing. But it's often no easy task. Those who live on the
street often suffer from mental illness and substance abuse. Persuading
this population to accept housing requires an availability of
"low-demand" housing--that is, housing that doesn't mandate
participation in treatment programs. While this "no-strings" approach
may seem controversial, housing minimizes the ill-effects of
street living (including both mental and physical distress), and stable
housing creates a sense of safety and security that encourages
participation in recovery treatments. While this step may seem
distasteful to many, low-demand housing does encourage those needing
help to seek it out.
6. Shorten homelessness. Shelter living is not the answer to
homelessness, but it is an existing tool that can assist people
temporarily. One of our goals is to shorten shelter stays as much as
possible and move people quickly into housing. Strategies to shorten
homelessness include incentivizing quick placement in permanent housing
and holding shelters and similar service providers accountable for their
past and present clients.
7. Rapid re-housing. One of the hardest parts of a
housing-focused strategy is finding affordable housing that low-income
or very low-income families can access. As affordable housing becomes a
rarer and rarer commodity, fewer and fewer landlords see cause to rent
to people with lower incomes, little savings, credit problems or spotty
rental history. But there have been success stories--even in the most
difficult areas (like LA and NY). What success requires is an investment
from community leaders and a talented group of dedicated personnel to
forge relationships with stakeholders, meet with prospective
landholders and lay out the case for housing everyone.
8. Services. Once households are successfully re-housed, families
and individuals should have rapid access to services: therapy, medical
support, family assistance and other, similar services. These services
can help families stabilize, promote individual and family well-being,
and encourage self-sufficiency. Luckily, these services already exist
through mainstream government programs--including TANF, SSI, Medicaid--and many
others. The key is to link housing services with these existing social
services.
9. Permanent Housing. Permanent housing comes in two forms:
affordable housing and supportive housing. Most people--especially
families--need only the former. Some homeless people--especially the
chronically homeless--require supportive services along with permanent
housing. While housing challenges will persist for those with
low and extremely low-income until the supply of affordable housing
increases substantially, local communities and neighborhoods are making
concerted efforts to spur the development of affordable housing and to
encourage state and local participation in securing affordable housing
for the homeless.
10. Income. The last step to achieving self-sufficiency. As with
services, there are government programs that can assist the formerly homeless,
especially those with disabilities. Many formerly homeless people can
benefit from longer-term, career-based employment services as well as
cash-assistance programs. The faster that people can access those kinds
of programs, the shorter their route to permanent stability.
CONCEIVED by WALTER MOSLEY with research by Rae Gomes
Copyright © Homeless and Hunger Coalition of Northwest Florida All rights reserved.