This year, the US Department of Housing and Urban Development announced it would drastically change policies for its “Continuum of Care” grants, which provide funds to organizations that assist people experiencing homelessness.
HUD's CoC program is focused on providing services for people who fit HUD's definition of "literally homeless". Those are people living in temporary shelters or areas not meant for human habitation.
Much of the available funding was given to organizations providing permanent supportive housing solutions — which are programs that give long-term housing to people experiencing homelessness, often along with case management.
But in November, HUD announced a new policy that would transfer the bulk of permanent supportive housing funding opportunities to transitional housing programs — which also provide housing to people experiencing homelessness, but on a shorter-term basis and often with work requirements and little to no case management.
"Possibly we will be losing all that funding"
David Anderson is the housing and facilities director for Integrated Services of Kalamazoo. He says ISK currently receives about $1.3 million in HUD Continuum of Care funding.
In an interview not long before a judge granted a verbal preliminary injunction blocking the policy in response to a lawsuit filed against HUD, Anderson said the future of the funding is still unclear as the legal battle progresses.
“That’s the lay of the land is that possibly we will be losing all that funding for the year, and I think the county is trying to determine if there’s a way to extend those grants," Anderson said.
Anderson, who is also the mayor of Kalamazoo, said one ISK grant that provides rental assistance for 47 people has already run out and only has temporary funding secured through March.
"We are concerned because we have other grants through the year. They're up for renewal and we don't know if they'll be renewed — you know, it's looking possibly very unlikely that they'll be renewed," Anderson said.
The impact in Allegan
In Allegan County, local organization OnPoint receives CoC funding for several of its programs that provide housing for people experiencing homelessness. Heidi Denton with OnPoint said they currently have several clients housed using CoC funding — and now, the future of that funding is unclear.
“What we have told the people that are in the program currently is nothing unless they ask. So I we don't want to get people worked up about their housing if there's no answers," Denton said.
Denton said the proposed policy changes away from permanent supportive housing in favor of transitional housing models would heavily impact OnPoint's program delivery methods.
"Most of the housing issues that we've been talking about the last month are the potential for those people to not have the funding for long-term housing. So while we could keep our staff here, the bigger issue really is the clients that we serve that will potentially not have their rent paid for long-term," Denton said.
Being neighborly
Mark Witte, CEO of OnPoint Allegan, said CoC funding for permanent supportive housing is crucial to provide housing options for people experiencing homelessness with higher case management and long-term care needs.
Though the injunction against the new HUD policy has blocked it temporarily, Witte and other advocates say the fight is far from over — and said the best way for the community to take action is to contact elected officials.
"If they can help represent the poor and the homeless as people who are worthy of our support, they're our neighbors, and we need to treat them within the broadest concept of what it means to be neighborly. And that's really all we're doing," Witte said.
At ISK, Anderson said he and other advocates have already began contacting local lawmakers.
"For me, when we reached out to our congressional representative Bill Huizenga and his team, it was really letting him know — look, it's not happening someplace else. It's the individuals right here in the community you serve that desperately need this kind of assistance," Anderson said.
