Homelessness funding brings $64K to county
Pennsylvania's new round of homelessness relief funding will provide about $64,000 for Butler County.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development issues money to states to help homeless people. The state of Pennsylvania takes applications from counties every six months, and then hands out the cash to those deemed eligible. The federal department also gives money directly to a list of certain counties and large cities, but Butler isn't on that list.
Absent from the list of directly allocated funds, Butler County's Community Action department applies every six months for the state-funneled money. Butler County nearly always gets some part of the allocation, but the grants — known as emergency solutions grants — alternate between large grant cycles and smaller grant cycles.
This $64,000 cycle began on Dec. 1 and is one of the smaller grants, according to Amanda Feltenberger, director of integrated solutions at Community Action.
The previous cycle was larger and sent about $360,000 to Butler County. Previous to that, the last small cycle brought about $40,000.
The money is routed to a local service provider for some combination of four services: rapid rehousing, homelessness prevention, street outreach and emergency shelter.
In Butler County, rapidly rehousing families into apartments and covering their first few months of rent is the main use of the funding, Feltenberger said.
“This has made a huge impact in our county in quickly moving people out of shelter,” Feltenberger said. “We rely on this money to move people out of shelters, opening up spaces for other people who need it, and connecting people to permanent residences.”
Catholic Charities of Butler County is the service provider for this grant, Feltenberger said.
As of Monday, Community Action documentation shows that there are 107 households either without a home or in imminent danger of losing their home. Such government agencies track households in their data, but the units include both individuals and families.
Of the 107 households, 25 are currently homeless. Most of them live in some sort of homeless shelter, Feltenberger said.
The rest are at-risk of homelessness, which typically means that they're about to be served an eviction notice or already have one.Gov. Tom Wolf issued a news release Monday detailing the state's allocation of the HUD money. It totals about $5.2 million.“Combating homelessness and preventing someone from becoming homeless in the first place is a priority of my administration,” Wolf said. “Our goal is simple: to eliminate homelessness in the commonwealth. These grants are another step in achieving that goal.”Of the 27 counties receiving money through the state, 20 are receiving more than Butler County.
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