DAYTON — Montgomery County leaders are facing increased competition for federal dollars to fund homelessness programs, despite reporting a local decrease in people experiencing homelessness.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has shifted its financial commitment, reducing its contribution to the county from 80% to 60%.
A point-in-time contact count conducted in February identified 571 sheltered and unsheltered people experiencing homelessness in Montgomery County.
This figure represents the lowest count in the county in the last four years. The change in HUD’s financial commitment necessitates a new strategic approach for securing federal funding for these programs.
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Jessica Jenkins, director of Human Services Planning and Development for Montgomery County, addressed the situation.
“We are seeing trends in terms of a decrease in people experiencing homelessness in our community, but also know that our largest single funding source for a lot of the work we do is the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development,” Jenkins said.
She added that “with our most recent funding competition, there’s been a shift in kind of policy priority that really has us looking at how we continue to create stability and housing for many people.”
To compete for these federal dollars, Montgomery County leaders must create a proposal over the next few months. This proposal needs to convince federal officials that the county is actively working to address issues that lead to homelessness, such as substance abuse treatment and job training programs.
The goal is to move people from the streets back into functioning society.
Jenkins further explained that the county is “evaluated on our performance as a system, on how we adopt and have governance structures in place and frankly, how we’re performing in terms of working to end homelessness in our community.”
She noted that “all those things turn into points that then are scored across continuums across the country. And so with that shift and having funds being more competitive. Means that we have to be even more strategic about how we’re approaching this competition this year.”
Montgomery County will submit its new funding proposal to HUD later this summer in August.
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