In The News

Thursday, September 10, 2009
Intelligencer Journal Lancaster New Era

By P.J. Reilly, Staff Writer

Imagine being a solid tenant who faithfully paid the rent every month.

Imagine then losing your job or having your work hours cut back due to the poor economy.

Imagine that, as a result, you're no longer able to pay the rent and you're facing the very real possibility of homelessness for the first time in your life.

Thousands of county residents don't have to imagine such things.

They're living them.

Lancaster County commissioners on Wednesday approved a plan aimed at helping people who find themselves in this situation.

Under the plan, people on the verge of losing their rented homes can get rental assistance for up to six months. And people who recently have become homeless can get financial aid to put them back into a rental property.

"The federal regulations that establish this program are trying to target assistance to a very specific clientele - that being those in the community who may be at risk of losing their apartments because of the downturn in the economy," said Matthew Sternberg, executive director of Lancaster County Housing and Redevelopment Authority.

"This particular program is looking for people who are new to the problem and have landed there because of job difficulties."

Lancaster County received $1.4 million from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in federal Homeless Prevention and Rapid Re-Housing Program funds this year. The city received another $700,000 from the same program.

The two governments recently decided to pool those funds, along with an additional $260,000 the county received from the state, to initiate a unified, three-year effort to provide financial assistance and housing relocation services to prevent homelessness and to get homeless people back into housing quickly.

The county redevelopment authority is overseeing the effort, which will be carried out by a partnership involving United Way of Lancaster County, Tabor Community Services and Community Action Program.

United Way's Lancaster Information Center will serve as the central intake and assessment point to handle requests for services and determine eligibility.

Under federal rules, assistance can be provided to a family of four with a combined annual income of $33,700 or less or to an individual earning $22,600 or less.

Once eligibility is determined, applicants will primarily be referred to CAP or, if their situations are more complicated, to Tabor.

An applicant who recently lost his job, Sternberg said, but who also has substantial credit card debt likely would be referred to Tabor, "because if you don't take care of the credit problems, rental assistance isn't going to help much."

"What the partnership allows is for us to draw on the strengths of each agency," Sternberg said.

CAP or Tabor will determine how much monthly rent an applicant can afford and then payments covering the rest of the bill will be sent on the applicant's behalf directly to the landlord.

If applicants already have lost their apartments, the program will provide money to relocate them.

The local program's guidelines stipulate a person can draw on assistance for up to three months, initially. If they still need help after that time, assistance can be extended for another three months.

"Federal regs say it can go up to 18 months, but based on the experience of our contractors, we think six months may be a workable period," Sternberg said.

"We don't want a program that people just get on and sit on. We really want it to be the transitional help they need to get their situation stabilized so they can move on."

The idea is to allow people to focus on finding new jobs, without having to worry about losing their homes.

"The success of people who have stabilized housing - the success of showing up for appointments or other things … is that much higher because of that stabilized housing," said Commissioner Scott Martin.

Sternberg said he expects the program to be able to begin providing services Oct. 1.

Commissioner Craig Lehman noted this initiative meshes with the 10-year plan to end homelessness in Lancaster County that the commissioners unveiled last fall.

"Timing is everything, and the timing of this really allows us to make some advances with the 10-year plan," he said. "These types of opportunities don't come along very often, so I think it's important that we take the best advantage of it that we can."

E-mail: preilly@lnpnews.com