By Joyce Kryszak
Buffalo, NY – There are 70 agencies that serve more than 2,100 homeless people in the region. But with the help of another round of federal grants, providers say they hope to one day be out of work.
Assistant Secretary for HUD, Roy Bernardi, hand delivered the good news himself Monday at the Veterans' Housing Coalition. It was an atypically warm winter day in Buffalo. Bernardi says that's not something the homeless can ever count on.
"It might be a nice warm day today, but you know this weather here can change at any time," said Bernardi. "And there are people out there they're under bridges, they're in the parks."
Competition is tough for the HUD grants. Communities are judged on how well they come together to fight homelessness. The Erie County Commission on Homelessness coordinates the effort for 70 local agencies. And it's paid offthis year with a check for nearly $6.5 million. In all, the agencies have won nearly $20 million in HUD funding over the last four years.
Bill O'Connell, executive director of the commission, says the money is needed to meet the growing demands. And he says more people are showing up on their doorsteps who are trying desperately to be self sufficient.
"Forty-three percent of folks who are living in emergency shelters are working," O'Connell said. "These are folks who are working either a full- or part-time job. We have people who wake up in the shelter, go and work a 40-hour week and have to come home to their kids in the shelter in the evening," said O'Connell. "Really, that's why. While this money is so great, we really need to be looking at trying to end homelessness. For that, we need things like living wage jobs, access to education and job training."
It's training and support such as this that helped Darryl Woods escape homelessness five years ago. Woods says that he was a veteran who thought homelessness was unthinkable until it happened to him.
"I got discharged, worked various jobs, mostly cooking short order up and down Elmwood. Things just got a little rough and I didn't know which way to turn," said Woods. "It was just fate that I ran into Jim Mahoney and his Coalition."
The Veterans' Housing Coalition is just one of dozens of local not-for-profit agencies that provide emergency shelter and long term services to help end chronic homelessness.