Homelessness is a problem every city deals with. There are countless groups and nonprofits around the country that serve a needy population by providing shelter, food, and other amenities to people who literally have nothing.
And there are other groups that fight the problem from the other end, by aiming to prevent homelessness in the first place. That fight found an ally in Santa Maria in the form of a City Council-approved grant to nonprofits.
The funds—which came from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Homelessness Prevention and Rapid Re-Housing Program—are being split among five groups.
The organizations’ end goals are all the same: to keep people in their homes, or to get those who are homeless back into housing as quickly as possible.
While the lion’s share of the funding went to Good Samaritan Services and Catholic Charities of Santa Maria, other nonprofits are also benefiting from the funds, which were set to become available on Oct. 1.
Legal Aid Foundation of Santa Barbara County received $65,685. Legal Aid, said Executive Director Ellen Goodstein, provides legal advice and assistance to people with housing problems, such as discrimination, habitability issues, and retaliatory evictions.
In the past, her group hasn’t typically helped people who are being evicted because of a failure to pay. This money, however, will help change that.
“What this funding does is allow us to represent people who are being evicted for non-payment, allow us to negotiate with landlords for payment plans, then direct the client to Good Samaritans for cash vouchers,” Goodstein explained.
Those vouchers—which pay for items such as past-due utility bills; security deposits; or past due rent—don’t go to the client, she noted, but are issued directly to the third party.
While some people need advice of the legal sort, those looking for input on purchasing a home—or trying to stay in their current home—can turn to the Cabrillo Economic Development Corporation, which provides lending services, education, and “neutral, unbiased information about the home-buying process,” said the group’s Homeownership Program manager, Laura Rocha.
The Cabrillo Economic Development Corporation’s $41,000 will be put toward homelessness prevention through its Santa Maria office.
“We have been focusing on case management, foreclosure prevention, one-on-one helping,” Rocha said. “A big component of our work in the past two years has been foreclosure prevention. Before, it was being caused by loans people were trapped in. More recently, it’s been the economy—the loss of jobs or the loss of hours resulting in people not being able to make ends meet.”
While her group will help people do what they can to stay in their homes, there are times when homeownership does slip out of some locals’ grasp. The corporation, Rocha said, will help such individuals and families get in touch with community resources and will provide budget counseling.
Helping some of the most vulnerable members of the community is Domestic Violence Solutions of Santa Barbara County, which operates both an emergency shelter and long-term transitional housing in Santa Maria for women and children fleeing situations of domestic violence.
Program Director Kim Barnett is “really excited” about the grant.
“Our clients are sometimes lacking so much when they come,” she said. “They leave everything, leave in the middle of the night, sometimes with only the clothes on their backs.”
Barnett said Domestic Violence Solutions will use the $31,058 to get homeless and at-risk Santa Marians back into housing as soon as possible.
“This money will directly benefit our clients,” she explained. “It’s designed to help with things like deposits, back utilities, and credit repair. Sometimes if the utilities are in her name and she moves out, he may not pay the bill. Then it turns out she owes utilities.”
Barnett isn’t the only person the Sun talked to who’s excited about the grant. Funding for nonprofits—dollars that can be difficult enough to obtain during the best of times—is in short supply these economically fragile days. That makes this grant that much more timely, said Legal Aid’s Goodstein.
“It’s been a difficult year—a result of a drop in funding,” Goodstein said. “Some foundations have decided not to provide grants, while others have cut back. That’s caused us to cut back on our working hours.”
In the end, the fight against homelessness is one best carried out as a team effort. Each of the groups receiving a grant works closely with the others. And in the end, everyone involved is aiming for the same thing, said Cabrillo Economic Development Corporation’s Rocha: “That’s our ultimate goal: prevent people from becoming homeless.” m
Contact Staff Writer Nicholas Walter at nwalter@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Sep 24 – Oct 1, 2009.