Organizations across the First State are splitting over a million dollars to continue their work to reduce homelessness.
The funding comes through a new collaboration between the Housing Authority (DSHA) and the Federal Home Loan Bank of Pittsburgh. Ten nonprofits received funding through the bank’s Home4Good program.
“What this program allows these organizations to do is fund things that will not fit neatly into the box of federal requirements [for funding] or state requirements,” said DSHA Director Anas Ben Addi.
Some of these approaches include funding security deposits or utility bills for renters on the verge of homelessness. This is the work that Wilmington-based Lutheran Community Services plans to continue with its Home4Good grant.
Lutheran Community Services Executive Director Rob Gurnee says one payment can make the difference in keeping a family out of homelessness. “These are folks who … have a source of income and are facing an emergency where they need assistance, and so the goal of this funding is to prevent homelessness,” said Gurnee.
Other non-profits received funding for rapid re-housing, homelessness diversion and innovation.
DSHA contributed $.5 million — which Anas says DSHA had distributed to many of the same organizations in previous years through its Housing Development Fund (HDF) Housing Support grants. The Federal Home Loan Bank of Pittsburgh contributed $700,000.
Ben Addi calls the new partnership “win-win.”“We had a proven track record of organizations that offering some of the services that were high on their priority, so they didn’t have to create a new program. And for us we went from a pot of $500,000 to $1.2 million,” he said.
Ben Addi adds some of the new funds were set aside for “innovative” programs that hadn't received DSHA funding in the past, such as eviction defense through the Community Legal Aid Society, Inc. (CLASI).
CLASI received $215,000— the largest Home4Good grant— to provide legal aid to more people facing eviction.
“There have been studies done in Quincy, Mass. There’s a Harvard study that shows that having a legal aid lawyer for tenants facing evictions makes them two times more likely to win— so not get evicted— if they’re represented,” said Laura Graham, deputy director at CLASI.
“So what makes it innovative is that we’re getting at the root cause of the problem other than dealing with it when the family has already lost their housing,” she added.
Graham says that CLASI will have a public health evaluator study the cases funded by the grant to determine the extent to which having a lawyer determines outcomes, and to estimate the financial return to Delaware that investing in eviction prevention produces.
“It costs us about $1,500 to represent someone and prevent an eviction, but it costs us $20,000 to care for a family who is in shelter,” said Graham. “And that includes things like missing work and lost wages, children missing school and their poor outcomes educationally, as well as health risks that are posed by homelessness.”
In a statement, Federal Home Loan Bank of Pittsburgh President and CEO Winthrop Watson said the bank is “privileged” to partner with DSHA to work on ending homelessness in Delaware.
Watson said the Delaware grants are part of a broader initiative where $7 million in Home4Good grants are going out to 80 programs across Delaware, Pennsylvania and West Virginia.
Ben Addi says the Federal Home Loan Bank of Pittsburgh has committed to distributing $5 million annually to Delaware, Pennsylvania and West Virginia through the Home4Good program for the next three years.
