National
September 30 -October 6, 2012, is National Homeless and Low-Income Voter Registration Week. Start planning now to hold registration drives, candidate or and voter education forums.
July 31, 2012: Interim CoC Regulations for HEARTH Published in Federal Register. The Homeless Emergency Assistance and Rapid Transition to Housing Act of 2009 (HEARTH), consolidates three of the separate homeless assistance programs administered by HUD under the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act into a single grant program 1) Supportive Housing program, 2) Shelter Plus Care and 3) Moderate Rehabilitation/Single Room Occupancy, and revises the Emergency Shelter Grants program and renames it the Emergency Solutions Grants program.
The HEARTH Act codifies in law the Continuum of Care planning process, a longstanding part of HUD's application process to assist homeless persons by providing greater coordination in responding to their needs. The HEARTH Act also directs HUD to disseminate regulations for these new programs and processes. See the Federal Register for more.
July 25, 2012: Come listen to 4 members of our Speaker's Bureau share their stories at our event Can You Hear Us? at 6pm on 23rd and P.
July 16, 2012: NCH announces a new campaign to encourage meaningful participation in the fight to end homelessness. Find out more about why Membership Matters.
July 16, 2012: HUD to Publish New CoC Interim Regulations Under HEARTH. Read More.
July 6, 2012: Food sharing bans across the country are making it more difficult for people to receive and share food. Check out NCH's response in NPR news.
June 28, 2012: Today, the Supreme Court ruled on the Affordable Care Act. Read NCH's response to the decision.
June 1, 2012: Check out NCH Staff talking about what home means to them on the Speak For We Blog.
May 30-31, 2012: Join Horizons for Homeless Children for their 7th Annual Young Children Without Homes Conference in Boston, MA.
May 9, 2012: Online Event: Health Reform & Homeless Populations: What Does the Law Do for You? Join the Health Care for the Homeless Council's Consumer Advisory Board for this training on how health care reform affects people experiencing homelessness.
April 20-22, 2012: Global Youth Service Day, chaired by First Lady, Michelle Obama, helps engage young people and celebrate youth leadership in all 50 U.S. states and in over 100 countries around the world. Check out the map of events happening around the world, or read more about how you can get involved!
March 12, 2012: March 10-18th is AmeriCorps Week! We send a big Thank You to the hundreds of volunteers that have increased the impact of NCH's mission over the years! Learn more about our current VISTA project.
February 17, 2012: NCH announces a new campaign, Crisis Hidden in Plain View, to encourage outreach and engagement to families and individuals who are homeless or at-risk of becoming un-housed. Learn more or watch the video.
January 25, 2012: ACTION ALERT: Help protect the privacy rights of those using Homeless Management Information Systems (HMIS). Comments due on proposed regulations by February 7, 2012.
January 11, 2012: Three un-housed men have been killed recently in Orange County, CA. With the posibility that these deaths were caused by a serial killer, NCH has released a new report: Hate Crimes Against the Homeless: Violence Hidden in Plain View. This report is the result of annually tracking bias motivated crimes committed against un-housed individuals. It is also a report that, in it entirety, illustrates the deadly consequences of decades of failed housing policies and social reforms.
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Iowa
SOURCE: The Gazette CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa As another Iowa winter nears, nighttime temperatures are dropping, and not everyone in the state has a warm place to call home.
It's been that time of year every year since I was a kid here says D.E. Pat Kane, 62, executive director of CrossRoads Mission in Cedar Rapids. Is it getting worse? Yes, it is getting worse, and the economy and the recession have exacerbated the problem.
So Kane, who also serves as a vicar at Zion Lutheran Church in Hiawatha, is pushing ahead with a plan for a building with 22 to 27 efficiency apartments, which will house homeless families and homeless veterans.
Kane has asked the city to donate five vacant lots next to the mission at 1006 Second St. SW for the $2.1 million construction project. The lots formerly held flood-damaged houses, which were bought out and demolished as part of the city's flood-recovery buyout program.
Caleb Mason, a housing redevelopment analyst in the Housing Services Office, told the City Council's Development Committee last week that Kane's project would qualify for the city-owned lots. That's because his project meets a national objective serving low-income residents. Even so, others could compete for the same contiguous lots that Kane has his sights on at 1016 Second St. SW and 1100, 1104, 1108 and 1116 K St. SW, Mason said.
City Council member Scott Olson, a council Development Committee member, last week said he wanted to make sure Kane talks to neighbors. He said he recalled a saga in Des Moines in which he said a program for the homeless planned to build a new shelter in an older neighborhood, only to meet stiff resistance. It was not a pretty sight, Olson said.
Kane said he made a presentation to the Taylor Area Neighborhood Association, which Kathy Potts, the association's president, confirmed on Friday. But Potts said the association has not yet been asked for its opinion on the project. Kane said he also informed the homeowner closest to the site of the building project.
Kane's proposed building would sit in an area that includes office/service and industrial zoning, Mason said.
Kane also emphasized that his building proposal is not a shelter. Instead, it would be a three-story facility with efficiency apartments that would require tenants to pay rent. The first floor would feature community rooms, where programs for residents would be offered.
As part of the building project, Kane has created a new non-profit organization with its own board of directors called Cedar Rapids Area Subsidized Housing Inc. The acronym for the organization's name, CRASH, was not intended to address lives that were bottoming out and ready for rebuilding, he said.
Kane's CrossRoads Mission is just six years old, but 3,000 families in need, or more than 9,300 individuals, have registered and used its services. Those services include a food pantry that hands out 4.5 tons of food a month to more than 2,300 individuals, he said.
The mission is located in a building that includes two apartments for the homeless, and was once a neighborhood grocery near the Penford Products Co. plant.
An anonymous donation of nearly $80,000 allowed the organization to buy the building, which was damaged during the 2008 flood, renovate it and open it as a mission in early 2009, Kane said.
In addition to its food pantry, CrossRoads Mission accepts used clothing and hands it out as fast as it comes in, Kane said. The mission also has a homeless prevention program, offers spiritual counseling and has a volunteer cadre to help out.
As part of his mission work, Kane sits on the local Continuum of Care Committee, which he said in 2011 identified 300 families in need who were waiting for access to affordable housing. Many double up or triple up with other families, and some sleep under bridges and in tents in the woods, he said.
What we're proposing isn't even coming close to the need in our community, Kane said. It's a step forward that we feel needs to be taken.
He said he and the project's board of directors will seek grant money from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to help fund the construction of the apartment building. A local fundraising drive also will take place.
Housing the homeless, he said, is a good economic development tool in a city focused on bringing in new employers.
Having citizens living on the street can't look good when you're taking a tour of the city, Kane said. It doesn't look good to me.
Kane, the son of former longtime Linn County Recorder Pat Kane, is retired from the U.S. Navy and worked as a Realtor in Cedar Rapids after returning to the city about 15 years ago. His ministry studies and work began in 2006.
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