County receives $4.4M homeless grant

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development will award approximately $382 million in grants to California for the current fiscal year, with more than $20 million going to Sacramento County and San Joaquin County receiving $4.4 million.

The San Joaquin County Development Department applied for the grant in September 2017 through HUD’s Continuum of Care Homeless Assistance Grant Application process, and learned that it will receive the funds on Friday, according to San Joaquin County Supervisor Kathy Miller.

“This is a regular process, it’s not like $4.4 million in new money was funneled into the county. We’ve had Continuum of Care for years, and every year we re-apply. We put together a proposal with the community-based organizations that would receive funding and submitted our application to HUD. It is competitive, it’s not guaranteed money every year. This is very good news,”

The county will use the money to fund programs that help homeless families or individuals find housing. Lutheran Social Services of Northern California, which provides housing and other support to 25 homeless individuals who have just left the foster care system, is one such program, according to the application. The Central Valley Low-Income Housing Corporation is another, and provides housing to over 400 homeless people and families, and provides other support services to even more, Miller said.

“Central Valley Low-Income Housing serves approximately 400 individuals who recently became homeless or have previously been homeless, as well as 600 (low-income) households. If we didn’t get this grant, the bulk of those people would probably be homeless within a year,” Miller said.

Although all of the programs funded by this most recent grant are located in Stockton, Miller said that they serve the entire county, including Lodi. She added that $129,000 of the grant money will fund the newly-created program administrator for homeless initiatives position.

The county also contributed $32,000 from its general fund to provide two years of funding for the new position, Miller added. The program administrator will oversee Continuum of Care programs, foster collaboration between cities such as Lodi within the county and help them apply for future grants.