The Obama Administration announced last week that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is renewing grant funding needed to keep 10 Hudson County homeless assistance programs operating. The funding is part of nearly $1.4 billion that will help 6,400 existing programs nationwide to continue offering critically needed housing and services to homeless persons and families.
The grants are being awarded through HUD’s Continuum of Care programs. For the first time ever, HUD is quickly providing renewal grants to local programs to prevent any interruption in federal assistance and will announce funding to new projects in early 2010.
“As we move into the coldest time of the year, it’s critical that no program risk running out of money to keep their doors open,” HUD secretary Shaun Donovan says in a statement. “These grants will make certain that those programs on the front lines of helping the homeless have the resources they need to house and serve persons who might otherwise be forced to turn to the streets.”
The majority of the Hudson County grantees are Jersey City-based organizations like WomenRising, which will receive $644,268 for its Project Home program, which provides 12 months of transitional housing and intensive support services for homeless women and their children.
Other Jersey City organizations receiving funding are:
- St. Joseph’s Home: $558,534 to provide housing for women and children who are homeless.
- Jersey City Episcopal Community Development Corporation: $391,797 for its Hudson CASA project, which helps people who are homeless or in imminent danger of losing housing seek employment and housing.
- The House of Faith, Inc.: $294,352 to its transitional housing program.
- St. Lucy’s Emergency Shelter: $248,664 to operate the shelter on Grove Street.
- St. Jude’s Oasis: $160,000 for this transitional and permanent housing program, which operates out of the St. Lucy’s Shelter. It provides caseworkers to homeless families with children to help them find employment, housing, and mental health or substance abuse counseling.
- Let’s Celebrate, Inc.: $83,794 for its Preventer program.
Other Hudson County programs slated to receive funding are:
- North Hudson Community Action Corporation: $404,148 for transitional housing for working poor families.
- New Jersey Department of Community Affairs: $69,451 for its supportive housing program.
- New Jersey Housing and Mortgage Finance Agency: $69,000 for its Hudson County Homeless Management Information System (HMIS), which collects data on homelessness in order to guide local and state planning efforts to reduce and end homelessness.