That is the word from the Family Connection Center, which has operated a transitional housing program for many years. Safe Harbor Crisis/Domestic Violence Shelter, meanwhile, while much of its homeless funding is secure, it did not receive renewed funding for its transitional housing component.
FCC Director of Marketing and Development Daneen Adams believes it was because her agency didn’t apply last year (it received federal stimulus money) it was overlooked this year by state officials.
“Our program is expensive, but we have a huge success rate,” she said. Of those completing it, 91 percent reportedly stay out of homelessness.
Participants are asked to stay in the program for a year, while they receive case management, complete financial management classes, must work out a plan to move to self-sustaining status.
In addition to the state funding, federal HUD funds are available only with a match of about $9,000. “We don’t have the money,” she said, lamenting it may not continue although it is “so successful.”
“It seems that if you have programs that are so successful, you don’t cut them totally,” Adams said. “But times are tough, so we have to be creative.”
A motel voucher program to provide emergency housing to those in need for a few nights will continue, she said. It is funded in other ways.
Safe Harbor is “secure” in its HUD homelessness funds, said director Kay Card. But some homeless prevention money provided by the state was not approved.
“I’m distressed to say not one dollar is coming in for homeless prevention. We took a hit. The biggest issue is that Davis County took a hit because it doesn’t have the historical homeless picture” of people living under a viaduct or on the street, she said.
“Domestic violence becomes a very big role” in homelessness that impacts single women and children, Card said. “If people don’t have a home, are living in a hotel, that’s considered homeless by the federal definition.”
A shift in funds will be necessary but it should be possible to continue that portion of its program, she said.
Its most visible effort is a 10-apartment transitional housing complex where mothers and children can live while completing school, getting jobs, etc. It assists people who are past the initial crisis that took them to the shelter initially.
“We have a big variety in our transitional housing program. We are making huge inroads in what otherwise would’ve been hopelessness,” Card said.
“Our request (to the state) was for $18,000, and it would’ve made all the difference,” she said.
Jonathan Hardy, director of the state’s Community Services Office, said his office had “severely reduced funding, so there wasn’t room to fund new projects. Out of a $3 million grant, we lost about $600,000. Everybody received a funding cut.”
The FCC fell in that category because it didn’t ask for funding the previous year, he said.
“On Safe Harbor, the (funding review) committee concluded that agency provided services that were disproportionately on the high end of costs. We concluded we can provide more services for less dollars” elsewhere, Hardy said.
The Davis Community Housing Authority also works to assist the homeless through a variety of programs (see separate story about FCC in this issue).
tbusselberg@davisclipper.com
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