The Santa Barbara County Housing Authority will soon receive federal grant funding that will allow the agency to help more homeless veterans find housing.
U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein announced on Dec. 17 that $10.5 million in grant funding will be awarded to 27 different housing authorities, cities, and counties across the state. Of this funding, the county housing authority will receive nearly $400,000 when the money is awarded in February.
“I’m pleased to see additional resources committed to California’s homelessness crisis,” Feinstein said in a news release. “I firmly believe we must combine housing with services to make sure the veterans we bring in from the street don’t find themselves back out there.”
This funding is part of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development-U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs (VA) Supportive Housing Program. According to the VA, this is a collaborative program between the two federal agencies that combine housing vouchers with supportive services such as health care, mental health treatment, and substance abuse counseling.
County Housing Authority Director of Operations Sanford Riggs said this money provides the agency with 35 new housing vouchers the agency can administer to veterans, who are referred to the authority by the VA. This is in addition to the 261 vouchers the authority already has in its program.
When using one of these vouchers, a veteran is responsible for putting 30 percent of their adjusted monthly income, after medical expenses and other deductions toward rent, and the voucher covers the rest.
Riggs said veterans living anywhere in the county could use these vouchers. Eight of these new vouchers will be used to help veterans move into a new development the authority is building in Santa Maria called the Residences at Depot Street. Construction on the 80-unit apartment complex should be completed in February.
This apartment complex was partially paid for through $9 million in Homeless Emergency Aid Program funding the state of California awarded to organizations in the county in 2018. Next year, the state will have an additional $651 million in Homeless Housing, Assistance, and Prevention funding, of which the county estimates it’ll receive about $4.4 million.
Local elected officials met to discuss ways to address homelessness and how to prioritize using this new funding on Oct. 30 in Solvang. During the meeting, officials also went over data from the county’s latest point-in-time count.
According to this presentation, there were 1,803 people experiencing homelessness in January 2019. Of those individuals, 887 were in Santa Barbara, 464 were in Santa Maria, and 249 were in Lompoc. There were 118 veterans experiencing homeless throughout the county when the count took place.
This article appears in Jan 2-9, 2020.