Editor’s Note: This continues our Celebrate Community series, which highlights nonprofit organizations that improve North Okaloosa County residents’ quality of life.
CRESTVIEW — The Homelessness and Housing Alliance makes funding decisions based on local people’s needs — and there’s no shortage of those.
The alliance's executive director, Sara Yelverton said, "We have a really large chronically homeless population. That's not a population many people want to serve, so what we've been doing is we're trying to assess and enroll them in housing programs."
The group offers two such programs: one for people who have lived on the street long term, and one for people who never should have become homeless to begin with, according to Yelverton.
"We're focusing on prevention and diversion, married couples without children, elderly and families. Once you get put out, it's very hard to find people to rent to you again. Although we need to deal with the chronic homeless, we also want to focus on prevention and diversion to keep them in the homes as much as possible. Childcare, food stamps, Medicaid — anything we can do to help them stay housed without ever becoming homeless is important to us," Yelverton said.
The HAA screens people and puts them on a waiting list while they assess housing needs, and determine who is most in need for housing that becomes available.
CONTINUUM OF CARE MEMBERSHIP
The alliance is the lead organization in a group of providers receiving U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Homeless Continuum of Care funding for Okaloosa and Walton counties. However, it faces some challenges.
"We can't really create a comprehensive system for the area if we have a large area under-represented (like Crestview and Destin) … Their homeless problems have increased because we haven't been getting enough services there."
Lack of representation, Yelverton said, leads to using jail as a shelter alternative. "We're spending a lot of community resources just cycling them through the jail and the hospitals, and it's not really having a positive outcome. We don't want to manage homelessness. We want to eliminate it altogether and get them back into (housing)."
As the administrative head of the continuum, the HHA distributes HUD funding to stakeholders with experience providing services to the homeless. Stakeholders include people and groups of all types, including faith-based organizations, hospitals, schools, health departments and other groups.
Membership costs $100 a year for groups and $50 a year for individuals. "We don't even require you to pay that fee," Yelverton said. "We want as many people as possible to apply."
Services eligible for funding include rapid re-housing, providing support services and permanent supportive housing for chronically homeless people, and HHA committees that develop strategic planning to end homelessness.
Any group, agency or individual that would like more information can contact the HHA directly at Sarah@hhalliance.org or 409-3070; or see www.hhalliance.org.
This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: Alliance provides funding, coordination for 'chronic' homeless problem