Centre County takes first step toward creating ‘robust’ homeless prevention program
Centre County hopes to start a homeless prevention program, and is applying for a $361,000 grant to do so.
Faith Ryan, director of adult services in Centre County, presented the grant application and idea to the Centre County Commissioners during their meeting on Tuesday. The board approved submitting an application for the Emergency Solutions Grant CARES, through the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development.
If awarded, the $361,650 would support emergency/temporary shelter and homeless prevention services for the period of Oct. 1, 2022 to March 31, 2024.
“What we’d be looking at doing is starting a Centre County Homeless Prevention Program. So, it’s rental assistance, security deposits, possibly even application fees, things like that, but it’s very, very stringent and much different than the ERAP program that we’re working on,” Ryan said.
The idea, she said, is to create as much of a “safety net” for the cliff the department is expecting when the Emergency Rental Assistance Program funds are depleted, which is expected to be by the beginning of 2023.
“We just want to be able to bring as much services for rental assistance back into Centre County as possible,” Ryan said.
Also with the grant, the department would be able to continue funding emergency shelters.
“One of the things with the DCD grant that we’ve seen, and I believe is a result of the pandemic and also the crisis money, is that they’re not limiting the cap to emergency shelter. And we really, really need more of that in our community,” Ryan said.
For homeless prevention, the budget would be around $219,431. It would fund a full-time case worker, and more than $120,000 would be put into rental assistance and $34,000 into financial assistance, which would help with security deposits, moving costs and application fees. The budget for staffing and operation costs of emergency shelters would be $142,219.
“We want to make it the most robust program as possible,” she said.
The grant requires a 100% match, which the department will use the balance of the Rental Assistance Program Block Grant money and match the homeless program specialist position to that, too, Ryan said.
Homelessness continues to be a growing problem in Centre County, fueled by the COVID-19 pandemic. In this year’s Point-in-Time count, an annual count in February of people experiencing homelessness who are in emergency shelter, transitional housing and safe havens on a single night, 279 unsheltered and sheltered homeless individuals were counted. The total is up from 181 individuals in shelters during the 2021 PIT.
Ryan expects the shelter funding will help between 70-90 individuals, and the Homeless Prevention Program will help about 70-80 individuals.
“If we are fortunate enough to be awarded the funds, I see it as something long term and that we can continue to do kind of years beyond now, which is really exciting,” Ryan said.
