The county Human Services department is preparing an application for a $661,167 grant for its programs that assist people who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless.

The tentative 2025 Emergency Solutions Grant application, which county commissioners will be asked to approve at their July 9 meeting, was discussed at a meeting Friday, June 27.

The grant would provide funding for the county’s emergency shelter, rapid rehousing and homelessness prevention programs.

If the application is approved, the county will contract with Catholic Charities’ Butler office to provide services and financial and rental assistance payment for the rapid rehousing and homelessness prevention programs

Glade Run Lutheran Services would get the emergency shelter contract to support the overnight winter warming center at 123 E. Diamond St. in Butler.

The Care Center Inc. would receive money from the rapid rehousing and emergency shelter programs to provide intensive case management services to residents who are homeless or in emergency shelters and face barriers to attain permanent housing.

Participants in the rapid rehousing and homelessness prevention programs are selected based on who has the longest history of homelessness and the severity of need using a HUD assessment tool.

The amount and duration of rental and financial assistance in the rapid rehousing program is based on need and there will be no minimum in the amount necessary to support them in obtaining permanent housing and preventing a return to homelessness.

Rental assistance covers 100% of rent for the first month and is reduced after that. The participants are responsible for 30% of the rent in the second and third months, 60% in the fourth and fifth months and 90% in the sixth month. The goal is to resolve homelessness in six months, but the assistance can be extended in extreme situations.

“It is the hope that individual’s housing situation can be resolved in six months, but it can continue longer if needed,” Amanda Feltenberger, Human Services director, said.

The homelessness prevention program is aimed at helping individuals or families who are at imminent risk of homelessness or who are fleeing domestic violence. Program resources are prioritized for people who otherwise would live on the street or in an emergency shelter. Rent and utility bills overdue up to six months can be paid to stop evictions.

For the emergency shelter program, the application will seek $77,500 to cover about 38% of the warming center operating costs for two years. In 2024 and this year, the center served 88 people representing 1,357 bed nights.

Another $10,000 would pay part of the costs of an intensive case manager to work with people at the warming center who are facing significant barriers to permanent housing.

Feltenberger said $20,750 might be added to the application for the Victim Outreach Intervention Center’s shelter program. She said she is waiting for an official request from Voice.

The homelessness prevention request is for $340,775 to serve 140 households, the rapid rehousing request is for $208,995 to serve about 35 households and $23,897 is for administrative costs.

Since 2013, the county has received just over $4 million to pay for emergency shelter, homelessness prevention and rapid rehousing programs that have provided assistance to 1,713 households and 2,828 people.

The grant application is due by July 14 to the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development, which distributes Emergency Solutions Grant money from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

“Very important to note that we never get as much as we apply for,” Feltenberger said

DCED gets three times the number of applications it receives funding for, Feltenberger said.

The county goes through a “rebudgeting” after receiving the grant in which the county tells the DCED how it will spend the amount received, she added. The grant covers an 18-month period.

Allyson Rose, integrated services director, said the county usually gets about a quarter of the amount it applies for.

Other funding sources are used to pay for what the emergency solutions grant doesn’t cover, Feltenberger said.

Feltenberger said the county just started spending 2024 grant funds this month. Outcomes from the 2023 grant show that 63% of those in the emergency shelter program who completed exit interviews went on to more permanent housing after they left warming centers.

In the rapid rehousing program, 74% were successfully connected to permanent housing and 100% of households did not return to homelessness.