Quick Notes

Photo by Pleasure Simmons

A Couple of Comments:

The Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless publishes an e-newsletter with updates, save the dates, things you can do to help, statistics, and resources.  If you are paid member of the Coalition, you can receive the e-newsletter called the E-Bridge every 15 days. Contact NEOCH if you are not receiving your newsletter or you would like to get on the list. Here are a few of the updates that may be helpful:

**The CMHA Housing Choice Voucher waiting list for the next five to six years was released yesterday.  You can get the information from the same website that you applied or your client applied.  You will need to have the number that was generated when the individual applied to see if that number was selected.  Only 1 in 6 people had their number drawn (64,000 people applied).  Here is the link: http://www.applycuyahogacounty.tenmast.com/ and click on lottery results. 

**The new rules for the Emergency Solutions Grant were released yesterday.  The federal government gave Cleveland approximately $13 million as part of the American Stimulus funding to prevent homelessness and to get people back into housing quickly.  These stimulus funds run out next year, and the Emergency Solutions Grant is intended to replace these funds in the community.  As with all things government, they are a sad replacement with only $590,000 going to Cleveland to replace the $4.5 million we spent previously on prevention and rapid rehousing activities.  Here is the link to view the new rules.  We do not know how these funds will be used locally, but NEOCH is pushing for a small amount to go to maintain HousingCleveland.org.

**We have to thank both Congressman Kucinich and Congresswoman Fudge for being two of only 46 members of Congress that signed onto the letter asking HUD for additional funding for homelessness.  It looks as though both the Senate and House are going to provide level funding for the third year in a row for homeless assistance.  This is amazing since we have seen huge cuts to the housing programs, the emergency assistance funding cuts, and other mainstream programs will face the budget hatchet.  While there are huge federal cuts demand is increasing with all the shelters bursting at their seams and the 2009 stimulus dollars will run out to prevent homelessness in 2012.  Nearly every American city needs a huge boost in homeless dollars to keep up with demand, but we are getting the same as we received in 2008.  It is going to be a rough summer next year when many unemployed families are displaced and will not be able to afford rent.  The letter that they signed onto can be found here. Please call their local offices to thank them for looking out for homeless people.  (Fudge is 216-522-4900 and Kucinich is 216-228-8850.)

Brian
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Waiting List Info Delayed

CMHA Housing Voucher List Will Not Be Released until November

For those who have been waiting to see if they won the housing choice voucher lottery, you are going to have to wait another few weeks.  There were 65,000 people applied, which is a 20,000 person increase from 2005-2006 lottery.  The company running the lottery and CMHA are cleaning up from the applications, and announced that they will delay the drawing until mid November.  The lottery was supposed to be announced last week.  There will be 10,000 names drawn, and so the applicant has a 1 in 6 chance of winning the lottery.  Then they just have to wait a couple of years for their number to come up, and their homelessness will come to an end.  This huge demand for a voucher shows the need for housing locally, and the self declared housing emergency we are experiencing.  With this huge demand for help, what is happening in Washington DC?  Right now all the talk is cuts to housing, static funding of homelessness, and severe cuts to community development block grant funding.  It is going to be a rough couple of years.

Brian
Posts reflect the opinion of those who sign the entry.

Poverty and Housing Needs

Shelter Stays Up, Poverty Increases, and People are in Need of Housing

The Community Women's Shelter in Cleveland has seen record numbers in August 2011.  They are way over capacity, and are struggling to serve all the families showing up who are in need.  Cleveland is one of the last cities in the United States that does not turn people away who show up for shelter.  The social service providers work to find a place for everyone requesting help.  We are lucky to live in a city that values keeping people inside and safe.  This has caused the agency running the Community Women's shelter to have to juggle staff and thus close during the day.  The women have to go to the Bishop Cosgrove Center or a library or somewhere else.  This has been a hardship for the women, but the agency is working everyday to serve the historic number of women showing up.  The shelter is more than 60% over the capacity.

Today, the US Census bureau released the federal poverty numbers, which shows that poverty has increased to a figure we have not seen since 1993 and increased by 2.6 percentage points in the last three years.  These are the regional and national figures released today.  The state and municipal numbers will be released later this year.  The South had the sharpest rise in poverty in the United States with African Americans seeing a 1.6% increase in the number of people living below the poverty level between 2009 and 2010.  This shows the Great Recession continues to have a huge impact on our local communities.  The other figure released today was that unemployment rose for the third month in a row.  All of this contributing to the rise in homelessness in Cleveland. 

How this plays out on the local level is that evictions within the City of Cleveland are up, and a record number of people applied for a housing voucher in August.  There were 64,700 unduplicated number of individuals who entered their name into the Section 8/Housing Choice Voucher lottery from August from CMHA.  Only 10,000 names will be drawn so an applicant has a 15% chance of getting a voucher.  The person "winning the housing lottery" could wait up to five years for their number to come up.  The last lottery, in 2006, saw 40,000 unique individuals apply shows the level of need in our community. 

Posts reflect the opinion of those who sign the entry.