Local agencies get grants to help homeless

$850,000 will be used to find transitional, permanent housing

Local efforts to move people off the streets and into temporary apartments or permanent housing got a boost of nearly $850,000 on Wednesday.

It’s one small piece of $1.4 billion in funding for homeless programs nationwide that was announced Wednesday by the U.S. Deptartment of Housing and Urban Development. Programs in Washington State will get $36.5 million.

All the money is being distributed to so-called “Continuum of Care” programs, which are aimed at getting homeless people into transitional units where they can stabilize their lives and get ready to take the next step, or for permanently supported housing for those who cannot support themselves due to disability, illness or other issues.

In Clark County, much of the money will wind up in the pockets of nonprofit housing agencies, like Second Step Housing, which develops properties and rents to homeless women and their children, and private landlords who are willing to house people with spotty rental histories.

“Much of this is what we call tenant-based rental assistance,” said Craig Lyons, executive director of the Council for the Homeless. “This way, people in need can choose where they want to live, within reason. They pay what they can and we work with the landlord to pay what they can’t afford.”

The Council for the Homeless will continue to operate its Homeless Management Information System, a sophisticated tracking software package.

The grants will also support street outreach to homeless people and ancillary services for them after they’ve been housed — like health care, mental health counseling, job training, substance abuse treatment and child care.

Earlier this year, HUD allocated $1.5 billion for a parallel effort aimed at preventing people from becoming homeless due to crises such as job loss and foreclosure, and quickly re-housing them if they had lost their homes.

According to HUD, approximately 664,000 people are homeless in the U.S. on any given night.