4.1 Million Awarded to Help People Experiencing Homelessness

HUD CoC Program Awards 13 Grants in Wake County CoC

RALEIGH, N.C., March 15, 2022 — U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced $4,117,066 in FY 2021 Continuum of Care (CoC) Competition Awards to support 13 grants for homeless response services in Wake County CoC. This announcement means a 22% increase of $754,661 in CoC Program funding from previous years. These 13 grants will provide funding to 6 Wake County Agencies to help individuals and families experiencing homelessness move into permanent housing with access to supportive services, with the overarching goal of long-term stability.

“This is the first significant increase in CoC Competition funding for Wake County CoC in over 5 years. The award validates the decisions of our 50 CoC Members to prioritize funding programs that have positive performance measures. We are moving the needle for making homelessness in Wake County rare, brief, and nonrecurring,” states Kim Crawford, Executive Director,  Raleigh Wake Partnership to End Homelessness.

Wake County CoC adheres to HUD’s priorities for ending homelessness. Specifically, HUD sought projects that:

• End homelessness for all persons experiencing homelessness;
• Use a Housing First approach;
• Reduce unsheltered homelessness and reduce the criminalization of homelessness;
• Improve system performance;
• Partner with housing and health agencies, including to leverage and coordinate American Rescue Plan resources;
• Advance racial equity and addressing racial disparities in homelessness; and
• Engage people with lived experience of homelessness in decision-making.

The Funding Review Committee, comprised of volunteer CoC Members that are not affiliated with the CoC programs applying for the funding, reviewed applications for the competition using HUD’s Scoring and Ranking tool. “Our CoC had been stuck at the same amount of funding year after year, but we saw CoCs with similar total population sizes and number of people experiencing homelessness receiving millions of dollars more than us. We learned these were communities that were targeting their efforts to align with HUDs priorities,” states Jenn Von Egidy, Chief Strategy Officer, Raleigh Wake Partnership to End Homelessness. Von Egidy facilitated the process of the Funding Review Committee for the Wake CoC Competition. The committee made final recommendations to the CoC Governance Board for the 13 grants to be submitted to HUD for funding.

2021 Continuum of Care Program Grants

The 2021 awards include new projects to support domestic violence survivors, youth, prisoners re-entering society, and persons with high-risk healthcare needs.