By Alicia Barney
Twenty Utah agencies will be granted more than $5.1 million to help the homeless, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development announced last week.
The money is part of the $1.4 billion granted nationwide, the largest sum ever awarded to the cause, according to a HUD press release.
The West Valley City Housing Authority will receive more than a million dollars of the HUD money; however, it is $60,000 less than last year. The cut was because of the increased number of communities nationwide that received grants this year, said Layne Morrison, director of West Valley City Housing Authority.
?Congress allocates an amount to the program and as communities grow they become eligible for funding, dividing the pie up more ways,? Morrison said.
The West Valley City Housing Authority uses their HUD grant to fund public services, including food banks, abuse counseling centers, free dental services, legal aid and mental health centers.
?It?s one of those congressional tricks,? Morrison said. ?They announce greater funding and then subtract for pet projects and the actual money available for communities is less. It?s like giving you a raise and then taking taxes out and you actually lose money.?
The Salt Lake County Housing Authority received one of the largest grants. The agency has received the same grant for the past several years, roughly $755,400 to be used for Shelter Plus Care vouchers. This program subsidizes rent for low-income people.
The average income of those receiving Shelter Plus Care vouchers is $9,600 a year, about the amount earned by a minimum wage worker, said Janice Kimball, director of Housing and Services at the Housing Authority.
The renewal grant given to the Housing Authority this year will be used to sustain the families currently served by the program, not to add new residents, Kimball said. The agency owns and manages 626 units of low-income housing.
?Our interest is providing safe, affordable housing for folks in Salt Lake County,? Kimball said.
The Road Home, a homeless shelter in Salt Lake City, had a three-year grant renewed this year. The agency uses HUD funds to provide case management to help people in transitional housing find permanent housing.
?We are very pleased with the money we received; it was the amount we requested,? said Michelle Flynn, associate executive director of The Road Home. ?We will be able to continue to provide the same level of case management that we have in the past.?
The Road Home also provides emergency and long-term shelter, self-sufficiency programs and children?s programs.
More than 4,400 projects will receive funding from the grants in all 50 states, according to the HUD press release. $370 million will fund projects aimed at ending chronic homelessness, a goal that HUD wants to reach by 2012.
Of the more than 4,000 homeless people in Utah, 57 percent are single men, nine percent are single women, 14 percent are adults in families and 18 percent are children, according to The Road Home Web site.
