Kendra Britto (middle) and Trisha Waters (right) participate in an annual census of the homeless in January. Neslon Kepley / News & Record
Read more about the effort to extend funding to these programs on the N.C. Coalition to End Homelessness Web site, ncceh.org. Read the Jordan Institute for Families’ research on the housing programs at www.partnersendinghomelessness.org/facesfacts.php
GREENSBORO — Three housing programs, including one in Guilford County that has worked with 79 chronically homeless residents, will run out of state funding this year.
Now, advocates are gearing up to petition legislators to extend funding to the “supportive housing” pilot programs, which the state has spent $2.1 million on since 2007.
There are no plans to continue to fund the programs, which advocates say help dozens of chronically homeless individuals get stable lives and have saved social services thousands of dollars.
Starting today, the N.C. Coalition to End Homelessness and local organizers will launch a letter campaign to petition legislators to continue to fund the programs.
“We don’t want to see these pilot programs go away,” said Susanna Birdsong, program director for the coalition. “It’s a model that is working really well to get people who have been living off the streets … into housing.”
In 2007, the state funded the homeless housing programs in Guilford, Buncombe and Durham counties.
The pilot programs place chronically homeless residents — people with mental and physically illnesses, as well as substance abuse problems — directly into housing. The programs help pay for rent or other costs, at least in the beginning.
Counselors also help participants connect with social services, get medical attention and start new lives. Guilford County counselors have worked with 79 people, including 69 who remain housed.
The programs were designed to cut the costs chronically homeless residents have on the community for nights in jail, shelters or emergency rooms.
“This is not a nice and neat subject. But it’s an important program in Guilford County,” said Jehan Benton, director of the Guilford County program Partners Ending Homelessness.
Benton said early research shows the programs are working.
Researchers who tracked 31 program participants found that the overall costs for services they used in Buncombe and Guilford counties decreased by 19 percent — or about $74,000 — in the first year they lived in supportive housing, according to the Jordan Institute for Families at UNC-Chapel Hill.
Costs for the use of shelters, emergency room visits and incarcerations dropped, but costs for medical outpatient services and dentist visits increased.
“Once you get access to medical care, you use it,” said David S. Miller, chairman of the council overseeing the county’s 10-year plan to prevent homelessness.
The research, which will later be followed up by a four-year study, did not consider the costs of operating the program.
Birdsong said the funding for the pilot programs is the only money the state spends on homeless efforts.
It’s a resource advocacy groups would like to see continue.
“With such a successful program, the last thing we want to do is see if disappear, even in the year we have a budget crisis,” Birdsong said.
Contact Amanda Lehmert at 373-7075 or amanda.lehmert@news-record.co