05 May 09 Florida State Legislature To Cut Funding for Homelessness
This just in from Tom Pierce at the Office on Homelessness in Tallahassee:
The Conference Committee on the Budget completed its work and today their
report on the final state budget for FY 2009-2010 was released. The budget
report issued will be ready for adoption by the Legislature on Friday, May
8, 2009.I regret to report that the homeless grant in aid program has NOT been
funded for the coming year. The Legislature made the choice to delete the
$1,138,534 in General Revenue funds for the program for FY09-10. In this
current year, the grant in aid program had been reduced by 4% from the base
budget of $1,185,990.The Challenge Grant is funded for next year at $2,031,354 from General
Revenue. The Homeless Housing Assistance Grant is continued at the
$5,000,000 level. The funding for this grant was changed from a transfer
of doc stamp revenue from the Local Government Housing Trust Fund, to
non-recurring General Revenue for next year.The Office is still working through the rest of the budget details, and
will share our findings just as soon as we have them confirmed.Tom Pierce
Office on Homelessness
Tallahassee
850-922-9850 SC 292-9850
Tags: CoC
This budget cut results in a loss of nearly $90,000 for Homeless Services Network. HSN used this program funding to pay for a variety of services for the Continuum. The loss of this funding will impact the following client services in the coming year:
Project Homeless Connect
IDignity
Homeward Bound
Lynx bus passes
Hotel/motel vouchers for emergency shelter
The loss of funding also impacts HSN’s internal operations, including HMIS licenses, the annual Point in Time Count, office expenses, and staff salaries.
During the current recession as more and more people lose their jobs and have their homes foreclosed, the rate of homelessness will undoubtedly increase.
The State of Florida, as usual, has cut the wrong program at the wrong time.
[...] intends to apply for DCF Challenge Grant funding to offset the loss of DCF’s Grant In Aid funding and we are going to need your help. We are asking all agencies in the CoC to provide us with [...]