FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Matt Maisel
Director of Communications, City of Harrisburg
(717) 255-7295
[email protected]
May 2, 2023
HARRISBURG – The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) presented Harrisburg and Dauphin County officials with a $2.3 million grant on Monday, designed to combat homelessness in the city and region.
HUD also provided five stability housing vouchers to the Harrisburg Housing Authority.
The federal grant was accepted by leaders from the Capital Area Coalition on Homelessness (CACH), as a continuum of care (CoC) alongside the city and county.
“The issue of homelessness is one which we can’t address alone in these offices,” Mayor Wanda R.D. Williams said at the check presentation event Monday at the Martin Luther King Jr. City Government Center. “Thanks to HUD though, this money will help give groups like CACH the tools they need to give our unsheltered men, women, and children the shelter they desperately crave.”
The $2.3 million will split between three local agencies which serve the region’s homeless population: Christian Churches United (CCU), Gaudenzia, and Scholars Inc., which focuses on long-term housing and support. The full breakdown on money allocation is as follows:
- $91,030 to CACH for its Homeless Management Info System (HMIS)
- $549,784 to CCU for unsheltered rapid rehousing
- $341,800 to CCU for coordinated reentry
- $270,450 to CCU for street outreach
- $491,814 to Gaudenzia for unsheltered permanent support housing
- $582,381 to Scholars Inc. for its Joint Transitional Housing program, called Thrive
“The need is often greater than the resource. These funds will help expand the service capacity of the dedicated service providers doing incredible work,” said Dennise Hill, president of the Capital Area Coalition on Homelessness, and Director of Harrisburg’s Department of Building and Housing. “With coordinated efforts and powerful partnerships, we will continue to make homelessness rare, brief, and non-reoccurring here in the region.”
In addition to the grant money, HUD provided the Harrisburg Housing Authority, the city’s public housing overseer, five coveted Stability Vouchers, which will assist households experiencing or at risk of homelessness, those fleeing or attempting to flee domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, stalking, human trafficking, and veterans/families that include a veteran family member that meets one of the proceeding criteria.
“We know that providing stable housing with supportive services is the solution to ending homelessness – and, indeed, that is our goal,” said HUD Regional Administrator Matthew Heckles. “We are focused on improving our service delivery by building better systems and forging partnerships, but this boost in funding for targeted areas to address rural and unsheltered homelessness and stability vouchers is incredibly meaningful to this work.”
