Nov. 1, 2024 - HHHC granted access to more than $1 million to address youth homelessness

Humboldt County's Continuum of Care, the Humboldt Housing & Homelessness Coalition (HHHC), was granted access to more than $1 million-as part of an effort to help end youth homelessness-from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).

Humboldt was one of 14 counties to be granted a portion of the $72 million award through HUD's Youth Homelessness Demonstration Program. The money can be used to support programs including rapid rehousing, permanent supportive housing, transitional housing and host homes, as well as rental assistance and wrap-around services. And funding is renewable annually.

Humboldt County Department of Health & Human Services (DHHS) Housing and Assistance Coordinator Robert Ward said this award is especially appealing because it's "an ongoing funding commitment to homelessness."

David Eichenbaum, who serves on the Humboldt County Transition-Age Youth Collaboration's Youth Advocacy Board, helped write the application to secure the funding and said his lived experience and conversations with peers are what motivated him to participate.

"I wanted to be involved in the process because I was grateful to have gotten all the help I needed to be housed, and I wanted others to be able to get the help they needed, too," he said. "I found myself in a position to use my privilege, advocacy skills and lived experience in homelessness to push for more equity in access to services."

Ward said the next step to securing the funding will be to create a plan and provide it to HUD by April. Once approved, a local competition will be held with DHHS and nonprofits submitting their proposals on how best to spend the money. All of the money needs to go to "projects that have a very direct nexus with reducing the number of youth who are experiencing homelessness at any given time."

Many participants contributed to the efforts needed to apply for the funding including pulling together focus groups and gathering data from different agencies and programs which helped to determine what services are needed and how many young people qualify for them, Eichenbaum said.

DHHS Director Connie Beck said securing access to this funding is great news. "Robert has spent years trying to obtain this grant and without David's contribution, we would not have gotten it. I'm so appreciative of all their hard work."

Eichenbaum added, "Now that we have this funding, we can finally fill in the gaps in services that we've identified. We can do more outreach and expand and build upon our existing services to provide for the most at-risk young people in Humboldt. There's a lot we can improve with this funding."

To learn more about the HHHC, visit humboldtgov.org/hhhc.

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