Weekly Poverty Grades for the Obama Administration: B-
Another slight improvement over last week with regard to the struggle to reduce poverty. The Obama administration released their long awaited plan to end the foreclosure crisis. I would have preferred a national mandatory moratorium (and that may still be coming), but if Mark Siefert at ESOP says that it is a good start then I am on Board. I really liked Jim Rokakis' statement on WCPN that it is too late for Cleveland, but this is a step forward. I think that it is long overdue to allow bankruptcy judges to alter the mortgage terms in bankruptcy. This will help many people. In addition, HUD released the 2008 shelter dollars, which I did not expect for a month or so. This is about the same time that Bush released the 2007 funds last year. Despite the federal budget under a continuing resolution and the new HUD director only approved two weeks ago, they released the housing and shelter dollars from last year. This is helpful to the organizations like CTO who had their grant expire January 31, 2009. They now have to work out a contract with the federal government and should be able to start receiving reimbursements for their Bridging the Gap program in June or July.
There is still a ton of work to do, but hopefully we can finally stem the tide of foreclosures. In the 1990s we only had around 3,000 foreclosures in Cuyahoga County. We now have over 14,000 every year. This is insane and has left a deep scar on the community. The question for us can we recover from this wound largely inflicted by a lack of government oversight and greedy and criminal mortgage brokers or was this a terminal wound?
The Obama administration could have issued more sticks and fewer carrots and I would have given them an "A." As Mark said to the Plain Dealer it more than we thought that we could get. In reflecting on the Stimulus bill from the previous week, I have to hope that with such huge sums of money that my grandkids will be paying for, these funds will be used in the same way as the Marshall Plan, or the creation of the highway system, and the federal dollars in the 1960s to win the space race. I am glad to hear the administration is focusing on the creation of new jobs this week while comparing this to the last major allocation of federal dollars for war in Iraq that had little benefits for American or Iraqii citizens.
Brian
Posts by Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless staff and Board.
Showing posts with label Continuum of Care. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Continuum of Care. Show all posts
Monday, February 23, 2009
Friday, February 20, 2009
Continuum of Care Dollars Released
Behind the Headlines
Homeless people do read the paper. They visit the library and read the national news online as well as perusing the local Plain Dealer regularly. This is the time of year when the federal government releases its annual "Continuum of Care" funding, and I get a lot of questions from homeless people about all this money given to Cleveland for homelessness. Perhaps you saw the headline over the last day, "Obama Administration releases [some many millions or billions] to deal with homelessness." This dates back to the Clinton administration when they combined all the homeless money given to states and localities into one release of dollars to maximize news coverage. Clinton did it right by releasing the money right around a big, tug-on-the-heart-strings-holiday of either Christmas or Thanksgiving. It was difficult for the Bush administration to manage the release of the HUD grant around a good holiday, because the federal budget was not regularly passed by the October 1 deadline. Bush was often relegated to second tier-tug-at-your-heart holidays like MLK Day or President's Day for his homeless press release. Obama released the funds yesterday with a $1.6 billion headline provided to local and state jurisdictions.
We certainly appreciate the help with Cleveland/Cuyahoga County getting all that they asked for in $22 million, but what does that mean? In almost the entire United States, the money just renews existing programs. So, the headline should be "Obama renews shelter/housing grants so no one will be forced to close." It is not a huge new pool of money even though the headline makes it sound like that. In Cleveland, we had room for a few new housing vouchers and one new project, but otherwise all the money went to renew the budgets of the existing shelters/housing vouchers. The shelters do not get a cost of living increase or money to serve new populations (like foreclosure victims). They get the same amount of money that they asked for when they were originally funded. While utility prices, food prices, health benefits, and salaries have all gone up over the years, the shelters must figure out how to make up the shortfall because the federal government does not pay for any cost of living increases.
So, a big thank you has to go out to Ruth Gillett from the County Office of Homeless Services locally who fills out all the paperwork and checks all the boxes to make sure that we get our fair share. It is a huge job that takes months, and was complicated this year because everything had to be submitted electronically. As you may be aware, the federal government takes many years to figure out how to move away from paper, so it was a rough ride this year. She has to gather all this information from every facility and gather information about their clients and put it in one application that printed out is about 3 foot tall stack of paper. She has always secured the money set aside for Cleveland/Cuyahoga County with only a few minor problems. Other cities (Akron, Ohio, Columbus, Canton and Dayton) have all had major problems in the last five years costing their homeless populations millions of dollars.
One unfortunate note for those who embrace the rivalry with our downstate competitors in best city in Ohio starting with the letter "C". Both Columbus and Cincinnati as well as Dayton and the Ohio small cities collaboration received one of the 23 demonstration grants released yesterday by the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development. It is amazing that out of 23 grants nationwide Ohio scored 4 of them. HUD funded groups to set up pilot programs to rapidly re-house people in order to avoid homelessness. I tried to find what the other cities applied for, but I could only find the Columbus plan. They are setting up some intensive case management using the Salvation Army combined with rental assistance money. The question is why didn't the Cleveland project make it? Why couldn't we compete with Dayton or Cincy for the one million dollar "rapid-rehousing" demonstration programs?
Brian
Posts by Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless staff and Board.
Homeless people do read the paper. They visit the library and read the national news online as well as perusing the local Plain Dealer regularly. This is the time of year when the federal government releases its annual "Continuum of Care" funding, and I get a lot of questions from homeless people about all this money given to Cleveland for homelessness. Perhaps you saw the headline over the last day, "Obama Administration releases [some many millions or billions] to deal with homelessness." This dates back to the Clinton administration when they combined all the homeless money given to states and localities into one release of dollars to maximize news coverage. Clinton did it right by releasing the money right around a big, tug-on-the-heart-strings-holiday of either Christmas or Thanksgiving. It was difficult for the Bush administration to manage the release of the HUD grant around a good holiday, because the federal budget was not regularly passed by the October 1 deadline. Bush was often relegated to second tier-tug-at-your-heart holidays like MLK Day or President's Day for his homeless press release. Obama released the funds yesterday with a $1.6 billion headline provided to local and state jurisdictions.
We certainly appreciate the help with Cleveland/Cuyahoga County getting all that they asked for in $22 million, but what does that mean? In almost the entire United States, the money just renews existing programs. So, the headline should be "Obama renews shelter/housing grants so no one will be forced to close." It is not a huge new pool of money even though the headline makes it sound like that. In Cleveland, we had room for a few new housing vouchers and one new project, but otherwise all the money went to renew the budgets of the existing shelters/housing vouchers. The shelters do not get a cost of living increase or money to serve new populations (like foreclosure victims). They get the same amount of money that they asked for when they were originally funded. While utility prices, food prices, health benefits, and salaries have all gone up over the years, the shelters must figure out how to make up the shortfall because the federal government does not pay for any cost of living increases.
So, a big thank you has to go out to Ruth Gillett from the County Office of Homeless Services locally who fills out all the paperwork and checks all the boxes to make sure that we get our fair share. It is a huge job that takes months, and was complicated this year because everything had to be submitted electronically. As you may be aware, the federal government takes many years to figure out how to move away from paper, so it was a rough ride this year. She has to gather all this information from every facility and gather information about their clients and put it in one application that printed out is about 3 foot tall stack of paper. She has always secured the money set aside for Cleveland/Cuyahoga County with only a few minor problems. Other cities (Akron, Ohio, Columbus, Canton and Dayton) have all had major problems in the last five years costing their homeless populations millions of dollars.
One unfortunate note for those who embrace the rivalry with our downstate competitors in best city in Ohio starting with the letter "C". Both Columbus and Cincinnati as well as Dayton and the Ohio small cities collaboration received one of the 23 demonstration grants released yesterday by the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development. It is amazing that out of 23 grants nationwide Ohio scored 4 of them. HUD funded groups to set up pilot programs to rapidly re-house people in order to avoid homelessness. I tried to find what the other cities applied for, but I could only find the Columbus plan. They are setting up some intensive case management using the Salvation Army combined with rental assistance money. The question is why didn't the Cleveland project make it? Why couldn't we compete with Dayton or Cincy for the one million dollar "rapid-rehousing" demonstration programs?
Brian
Posts by Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless staff and Board.
Thursday, December 27, 2007
Federal Funding Announced Friday
HUD Announces Christmas Gift to Cities
On Friday December 21, the Department of Housing and Urban Development announced the release of the majority of federal funding for state and county efforts to address homelessness. The State of Ohio received a total of $70 million to fund all the shelters, homeless vouchers, homeless housing programs, case workers, prevention effort, and outreach program in Ohio. This may seem like a lot until you consider two things. First, it is only $51.39 per person for every person living below the poverty level and thus in danger of becoming homeless in the state of Ohio. Also, over $60 million of these funds are just to renew existing programs. So, 86% of the money is used just to keep the doors open on existing programs. Most of the new programs are housing vouchers for disabled people and currently homeless--called Shelter Plus Care. In the entire State of Ohio there were only 9 new projects funded this year.
Cleveland fared best in the State of Ohio. No mistakes on any applications. We have to thank Ruth at the Office of Homeless Services for putting this mammoth application together. There are very few in our community who could check all those boxes and put all of that information together in a timely fashion to get the money that we deserve. After a rough year for the Office, they must feel good that they were able to bring a total of $23.4 million to the City and County. Basically, the way this works is that HUD tells the cities how much we are entitled to received ($13.7 million for Cleveland) based on some complicated formula no one understands. Then, the City/County can renew their disabled housing vouchers (Shelter Plus Care), and that does not impact your share of the pie. So, Cleveland has always tried to get as many Shelter Plus Care vouchers as possible thus we must renew more vouchers then any other city in Ohio. We received an additional $1.3 million for the emergency shelters and outreach in our community. Cuyahoga County received $9.6 million above our share of the federal share of homeless dollars, because we had to renew our S+C disabled housing voucher program. This works out to $724 for every person homeless in 2006 in Cuyahoga County, which means we spend $100 per person more than any other city in Ohio. Cleveland was only able to fund two new projects and some more new S+C vouchers for a total of 14% of the allocation. Basically, if those in charge of the application put the application together correctly, the City and County receive all that we are entitled to receive from the Feds.
Columbus does poorly in this formula. While Franklin County is only a little over 200,000 smaller in population than Cuyahoga County, they only received $8.1 million this year from the Feds (35% of Cuyahoga County). They only received $365,000 in Emergency Shelter dollars. They only have $3.7 million in S+C housing for disabled vouchers renewed this last year. Columbus/Franklin County only spend $46.28 per person living in poverty or $249.97 per homeless person using Federal government funds. Franklin County only has 5% of their total allocation going to new projects. Since I keep hearing at the national level how great Columbus is doing in addressing homelessness, I guess that they don't need much money to put up a good fight. I know that it is a huge annoyance that they get so much less than Cuyahoga County. The way that Columbus is expanding soon they will have annexed all the land south of Cuyahoga County, and will demand an equal share of the pie.
Cincinnati/Hamilton County with only 822,500 people does better than Columbus. They received $11.1 million in funds from HUD and $3.8 in renewals of the S+C housing vouchers. They spend more than double the federal dollars spent on people living in poverty at $95.10 per person and $621.79 for every homeless person. Cincinnati had enough capacity to spend 13% of their grant on new projects. We will have all the statistics in the next Homeless Grapevine to be published in January. The big question: why does HUD make these announcements on the day that cities are remembering those who died over the last year while homeless? Spin control? They don't care? I have no idea, but it seems callous to me.
Brian
Posts by Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless staff and Board.
On Friday December 21, the Department of Housing and Urban Development announced the release of the majority of federal funding for state and county efforts to address homelessness. The State of Ohio received a total of $70 million to fund all the shelters, homeless vouchers, homeless housing programs, case workers, prevention effort, and outreach program in Ohio. This may seem like a lot until you consider two things. First, it is only $51.39 per person for every person living below the poverty level and thus in danger of becoming homeless in the state of Ohio. Also, over $60 million of these funds are just to renew existing programs. So, 86% of the money is used just to keep the doors open on existing programs. Most of the new programs are housing vouchers for disabled people and currently homeless--called Shelter Plus Care. In the entire State of Ohio there were only 9 new projects funded this year.
Cleveland fared best in the State of Ohio. No mistakes on any applications. We have to thank Ruth at the Office of Homeless Services for putting this mammoth application together. There are very few in our community who could check all those boxes and put all of that information together in a timely fashion to get the money that we deserve. After a rough year for the Office, they must feel good that they were able to bring a total of $23.4 million to the City and County. Basically, the way this works is that HUD tells the cities how much we are entitled to received ($13.7 million for Cleveland) based on some complicated formula no one understands. Then, the City/County can renew their disabled housing vouchers (Shelter Plus Care), and that does not impact your share of the pie. So, Cleveland has always tried to get as many Shelter Plus Care vouchers as possible thus we must renew more vouchers then any other city in Ohio. We received an additional $1.3 million for the emergency shelters and outreach in our community. Cuyahoga County received $9.6 million above our share of the federal share of homeless dollars, because we had to renew our S+C disabled housing voucher program. This works out to $724 for every person homeless in 2006 in Cuyahoga County, which means we spend $100 per person more than any other city in Ohio. Cleveland was only able to fund two new projects and some more new S+C vouchers for a total of 14% of the allocation. Basically, if those in charge of the application put the application together correctly, the City and County receive all that we are entitled to receive from the Feds.
Columbus does poorly in this formula. While Franklin County is only a little over 200,000 smaller in population than Cuyahoga County, they only received $8.1 million this year from the Feds (35% of Cuyahoga County). They only received $365,000 in Emergency Shelter dollars. They only have $3.7 million in S+C housing for disabled vouchers renewed this last year. Columbus/Franklin County only spend $46.28 per person living in poverty or $249.97 per homeless person using Federal government funds. Franklin County only has 5% of their total allocation going to new projects. Since I keep hearing at the national level how great Columbus is doing in addressing homelessness, I guess that they don't need much money to put up a good fight. I know that it is a huge annoyance that they get so much less than Cuyahoga County. The way that Columbus is expanding soon they will have annexed all the land south of Cuyahoga County, and will demand an equal share of the pie.
Cincinnati/Hamilton County with only 822,500 people does better than Columbus. They received $11.1 million in funds from HUD and $3.8 in renewals of the S+C housing vouchers. They spend more than double the federal dollars spent on people living in poverty at $95.10 per person and $621.79 for every homeless person. Cincinnati had enough capacity to spend 13% of their grant on new projects. We will have all the statistics in the next Homeless Grapevine to be published in January. The big question: why does HUD make these announcements on the day that cities are remembering those who died over the last year while homeless? Spin control? They don't care? I have no idea, but it seems callous to me.
Brian
Posts by Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless staff and Board.
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