‘Silver lining is an understatement’: Homeless helpers seeing funding spike in pandemic
Quickly identified as a key cog in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic, homeless service providers have received a massive influx of funds.
While the additional money — mostly made available through CARES Act grants — has proven a welcome sight for an oft-underfunded sector of the nonprofit world, concerns exist about what happens once this funding well runs dry.
Eastern Carolina Housing Organization, one of the primary homeless service providers in Horry County, had a budget of $4.2 million entering its 2020 fiscal year, according to executive director Joey Smoak. Since March, it has received grants totaling more than $6.5 million.
“Silver lining is an understatement,” Smoak said of the increased funding amid the horribleness of the pandemic.
The largest portion of those increased funds have come from the Emergency Solutions Grant program, administered by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to prevent homelessness and quickly shelter newly homeless people.
The S.C. Office of Economic Opportunity, though the CARES Act, was able to award these grants totaling more than $27 million, and ECHO received about $5.2 million, according to Smoak, who noted that during previous years, his organization has received about $343,000 from the ESG program.
“The homeless housing system has been severely underfunded for a long time,” Kyle Jenkins, ECHO’s chief operating officer, said. “The tricky thing (with) getting (all this money) all at once is grappling with the capacity.”
This influx has come as medical experts identified the homeless population as uniquely at-risk to the spread of COVID-19 due to preexisting conditions and communal living arrangements, and the economic burdens ensured many more families would face evictions.
The number of people seeking services has nearly quadrupled since March in ECHO’s service area, which includes Horry and 12 surrounding counties, Ann Gowdy, chief programs officer, estimated.
Homeless service providers in the Total Care for the Homeless Coalition continuum of care area, which ECHO leads, provided services to more than 6,800 people between March and December, according to numbers provided by Smoak. By contrast, the coalition served about 5,600 people in all of 2019.
Smoak noted that the pandemic has especially exacerbated the lack of emergency shelter space in Horry County, which has by far the largest percentage of unsheltered homeless people in the state. ECHO spent more than $250,000 during 2020 providing emergency shelter, primarily in hotels, for 207 people, totaling 17,509 nights, according to their in-house data.
In order to assist with administering all these extra funds, ECHO has hired 18 employees since March, added to the 33 that already existed, and opened an office in Sumter.
Additional grant funding is anticipated for as long as the pandemic continues — $25 million is set to be available for South Carolina renters and homeowners struggling to pay their bills — but each emergency grant comes with a deadline to exhaust, and no promises that this level of funding will continue in the future.
Smoak said the length of time that current funds last will depend heavily on the length of the federal eviction moratorium, which President Joe Biden recently extended through March. And he’s hopeful Congress will see the need to continue its emphasis on funding homeless service providers.
“It should’ve already been funded at this level,” he said. “If not, there will be a surge of layoffs in the nonprofit world in a few years.”
This story was originally published February 2, 2021 at 12:00 PM.
