The Ramsey County Board formally accepted a $4 million grant from the state aimed at family homelessness prevention on Tuesday.
The agreement with the Minnesota Housing Finance Agency will go toward the county’s Family Homeless Prevention and Assistance Program and its community partners and last until September 2027. The program provides eligible residents whose income is at or below 200% of federal poverty guidelines and are either homeless or at imminent risk of homelessness with financial assistance and support.
County officials view the funding “as an opportunity to invest in our prevention-related work and make sure that we’re deepening our service-oriented components of the programs that we have in the community,” said Renee Theese, a Ramsey County planning specialist.
Plans include street outreach for youth, rapid rehousing projects for youth and families and a coordinated entry project. The grant will primarily fund the county’s homelessness prevention efforts, which includes eviction prevention. The county’s coordinated entry system works to assess homeless households and match them with supportive housing opportunities, Theese said.
County prevention efforts are supported by community partners American Indian Family Center, Neighborhood House, Solid Ground, Catholic Charities and the ‘HouseCalls’ project, a Minnesota Community Care collaboration with Ramsey County Public Health.
FHPAP officials had asked for a $23 million grant for Ramsey County based on need so the $4 million was less than expected. The program is estimated to need at least $20 million a year just for eviction prevention work, Theese said. That includes funding for work with households that go through the county’s housing court financial clinic, which averages around 180 households every month that owe a collective balance of around $700,000.
“So if we look at just kind of those averages, we estimate that just to address these crisis situations, we would need 20 million a year,” Theese said. “But really our impact is aimed at not just addressing the crisis but really providing the service and care through resource and referral, through connection to other community agencies or programs, that’s our focus with FHPAP.”
From the prior state grant, the county’s office of Housing Stability has received $11.1 million supporting 13 agencies and 17 projects through this October. A second round of funding from the Minnesota Housing Finance Agency provided another $3.5 million to the county.
For more information on county homeless prevention resources, go to ramseycounty.us/residents/assistance-support/assistance/housing-services-support/homeless-prevention-resources
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