Agencies run out of funds to prevent homelessness
By Stephanie Lulay slulay@stmedianetwork.com November 30, 2011 1:54PM
Volunteers from St. Katharine Drexel Catholic Church check in the homeless for dinner service at Hesed House on Tuesday. | Jeff Cagle~For Sun-Times Media
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Updated: December 5, 2011 5:17PM
AURORA — A recent statewide survey of agencies that administer homeless prevention grants in Illinois reports that 55 percent of them will run out of funds by the end of the year.
The grants help families cover mortgage payments so they don’t lose their homes.
The bottom line: More than half of the agencies will have no funds to help families on the verge of homelessness, according to the survey conducted by Housing Action Illinois.
The news comes as federal stimulus dollars, which plugged some gaps in Illinois human services funding during the past few years, are set to run out. Non-profit groups that work with the homeless are urging state leaders to restore homelessness prevention funding to $5 million in next year’s budget.
Aurora’s Hesed House homeless shelter has exhausted federal dollars allocated through the Homelessness Prevention and Rapid Re-housing Program, according to Hesed Executive Director Ryan Dowd.
In partnership with the Quad County Urban League, Hesed House was able to help dozens of families through the program.
“We saw a pretty substantial impact on the number of families kept out of the shelter,” Dowd said. “Right now we’re drowning in families with kids because we can’t block them from coming in with prevention.”
Over the past decade, the state’s homeless prevention grant program has helped 96,231 Illinois households avoid homelessness. The average grant during the 2010 fiscal year was $916, and 88 percent of those helped remained housed four months after getting the one-time grant.
But deep state cutbacks decimated the program, leaving $1.5 million in available funding statewide this year. In 2008, $9.5 million was available.
Federal stimulus funds that offset state funding cutbacks are also running out. According to the survey, 56 percent of agencies have used all their federal funds.
Liz Eakins, executive director of Lazarus House, a St. Charles-based shelter, said her shelter will run out of funds from the federal homelessness prevention program by January.
“Now, with federal dollars drying up, the state has not gone back to their prior level (of funding),” Eakins said. “Now we’re in a position that there’s almost nothing left to give for prevention.”
In the 2011 fiscal year, Lazarus House assisted five households with Illinois Department of Human Services prevention funds. That compares to 2009, when Lazarus House was able to help 32 families in the same service area with state grants.
Over the duration of the federal program, Lazarus House was able to help 79 households stay in their homes.
Homelessness prevention assistance is more cost effective and less disruptive to families, said Bob Palmer, policy director at Housing Action Illinois.
Dowd said that Hesed House typically sees 16 new people land at the shelter each week.
“We work like mad to get the 16 people out. But the idea of prevention is that fewer were coming in, meaning there were fewer we have to get out, and more that we could do the reduce the number of people that are homeless,” he said.
Chicago-based Heartland Alliance for Human Needs and Human Rights served nearly 1,000 Chicago households with federal prevention funds last year. This year, the non-profit projects it will only be able to serve 120 families.
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