State grants $26.4M to help the homeless

By Natasha Lee
The Stamford Advocate
January 24, 2008

About $15 million was allocated to Fairfield County and other Connecticut nonprofit agencies that serve the homeless and people battling substance abuse and mental illness.

The state Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services was given $9.6 million, and $1.8 million went to emergency shelters in Bridgeport, Hartford, New Britain, New Haven and Waterbury.

The money is needed to reach those in dire need, said Wayne Dailey, the department spokesman.

The Connecticut Coalition to End Homelessness estimates that 20,000 to 25,000 people a year end up in shelters or transitional housing programs in the state.

Dailey said the cost of providing housing for the homeless is nearly equivalent to the expenses incurred by the courts, prisons and hospitals, where homeless people often end up.

Funding for subsidized housing and treatment shifts costs from overburdened criminal justice and health systems and puts them to better use, he said.

"Those costs get reduced to a great extent when people get housing and get treatment," Dailey said. "It's good public policy sense to end homelessness and it improves the quality of community life."

Stamford received $1.2 million and Norwalk about $1.3 million, which was passed to nonprofit agencies.

St. Luke's LifeWorks in Stamford was given $39,000 to manage cases at its two permanent housing sites on Ludlow and Atlantic streets. The buildings house 56 people, and full-time case managers on site help them with job training, mental health treatment and educational services.

"Our goal is to get people to a place where they are self-sufficient, and we support them 100 percent in the journey," said Suzanne Curto, chief learning officer at St. Luke's.

About 10 years ago, the facilities were among the first to open under a state initiative to place homeless people with mental illnesses, HIV and AIDS into permanent housing.

"It's really a blessing because without the case management services, we would not be able to keep people housed permanently," Curto said.

Patricia Marsden-Kish, vice president of social services for Family & Children's Agency, said supportive housing is "extremely successful" in keeping people from falling back into the cycle of drug abuse, court and prisons.

The agency received $146,000 to provide services for 40 residents at its site on Main Street in Norwalk. People living in supportive housing feel like part of society, instead of feeling trapped in a rehabilitation program, and strive to do well, Marsden-Kish said.

"I think it validates their dignity, and I think that's very, very important when we look at the homeless in Norwalk today," she said. "We're not just talking about the sick, alcoholics under the bridge. It's individuals in their 40s and 50s who had a step of misfortune or (mental) illness that was not treated and fell through the cracks."

Other agencies to receive funding include Laurel House Inc. in Stamford, $80,000; United Way of Stamford, $49,000; Norwalk Housing Authority, $157,000; Connecticut AIDS Resource Coalition, $114,000; and Norwalk Emergency Shelter, $47,000.

The grant is part of $1.5 billion in Continuum of Care money awarded to nearly 6,000 homeless programs nationwide - a record number in funding, HUD said. The money will provide transitional and permanent housing to about 168,000 homeless people and their families nationwide.

Since 2001, HUD has given communities about $10 billion to house and serve the homeless.

Despite increased federal funding, many Connecticut agencies and programs have been cut in recent years, said Carol Walter, executive director of the Connecticut Coalition to End Homelessness in Hartford.

Ten years ago, homeless programs were receiving more than double the amount in grants as today, Walter said.

In the late 1990s, agencies in Hartford were receiving up to $750,000 in federal money. Today, they get $200,000, Walter said.

"It is not at the rate that we had earlier on," she said. "We were able to access much more new funding."

Dailey said more needs to be done.

"We've taken thousands of homeless people off the streets, but the job is not completed," he said.