King County, Seattle receive homeless assistance award of $20.15 million

A joint release of King County and the City of Seattle

SEATTLE, December 21, 2007 – The City of Seattle and King County have been awarded $20,158,397 in federal McKinney Homeless Assistance funds for housing programs and support services for homeless people. The award was announced today by King County Executive Ron Sims and Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels, following the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announcement of $1.5 billion awarded nationwide.

“Affordable housing combined with supportive services offers the keys to ending homelessness, particularly for those who are living with disabilities, and this award will help us to provide those vital supports to individuals and families across the county,” said Sims, co-chair of the Committee to End Homelessness Governing Board. “We are grateful for the McKinney funds that are so critical to creating healthier and more stable lives for thousands of people in need.”

“This is a crucial part of our efforts to end homelessness in our region,” said Mayor Nickels, who sits on the Committee to End Homelessness Governing Board. “This grant will help our efforts to break the cycle of homeless by giving people the support they need to find a new home and rebuild their lives.”

Community-based organizations joined with the City of Seattle and King County to submit the annual joint application for the McKinney funding. The $20.15 million award continues existing funding that allows county and local governments and their many partners to provide essential housing and supportive services for homeless people.

The McKinney funding will leverage an additional $45.7 million from other federal, state and local sources, including United Way of King County and private foundations. The funding is critical to the ongoing work of the Committee to End Homelessness in King County and the implementation of the Ten-Year Plan to End Homelessness.

“We are grateful to HUD for their continued support of our grant funded programs that move us forward as a community toward our goal of ending homelessness in King County, ” said Bill Block, director of the Committee to End Homelessness in King County. “We are especially grateful for nearly $1 million in new funding to create much needed additional units of supportive housing for homeless individuals.”

The majority of the award, $18.8 million, sustains the operations of 61 existing housing and supportive service programs that help people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness. This award will fund 752 units of transitional housing, 749 units of permanent housing for homeless people with disabilities, and two Safe Haven facilities that offer supportive housing for severely mentally ill adults who have been homeless.

The award also provides funding for the Safe Harbors Homeless Management Information System. Safe Harbors collects data on the services provided to homeless people in about 170 different programs throughout King County. The aggregated data helps local governments and nonprofit agencies identify trends in homelessness and fund and support the programs most effective in bringing an end to homelessness.

New funding in the amount of $925,000 is earmarked for the Downtown Emergency Service Center Rainier Housing project, which will create 50 new units of permanent supportive housing for chronically homeless persons with disabilities. The attached chart provides detail on the Homeless Assistance Awards.

For more information on the programs and projects to be funded by the McKinney grant funds, please contact either Eileen Denham, City of Seattle McKinney Programs Coordinator, 206-684-0915 or Kate Speltz, King County Homeless Housing Planner, 206-263-9084 .

###

Seattle/King County Continuum of Care

Homeless Assistance Awards for 2007-2008

This information reflects the award for the 2007 Seattle-King County Consolidated application for McKinney funding as announced by HUD on December 21, 2007 .

** Units can be houses, apartments, rooms or beds

HMIS refers to Homeless Management Information System