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The North Carolina Coalition to End Homelessness has created the Housing for Healthcare Fund to make rapid impact grants to agencies. NCCEH will provide grants on a rolling basis to assist in meeting community needs. Flexible funding is essential to enable providers to respond quickly and to fill in gaps that public funding can not address. 

Donations can be made on our Housing for Healthcare campaign page. Organizations or foundations interested in grantmaking should contact us via email. 

The North Carolina homeless service system is essential to support statewide efforts to flatten the curve of COVID-19 to reduce the strain on vital healthcare resources. The homeless service system can achieve this goal by:

1. Safety and Health Supplies for Emergency Shelter and Unsheltered

• Meet CDC guidelines for homeless shelters to keep people healthy
• Support the health of people living in unsheltered settings

2. Medical Shelter

• Provide quarantine and isolation options for people who are symptomatic or who test positive for COVID-19
• Provide recovery or care options for patients experiencing homelessness to receive care for other health issues to preserve hospital beds

3. Housing Stabilization

• Move people out of homelessness and into housing so they can follow social distancing and hygiene guidelines to reduce the spread
• Keep people at-risk of homelessness in safe housing with the ability to stay-at-home

Many people experiencing homelessness are in poor health, have disabling conditions, or are aging, and have no place of their own to care for themselves – this makes them especially susceptible to the coronavirus that causes the COVID-19 disease. Shelters and outreach teams across the state are facing unprecedented pressure to keep people safe and prevent the spread of COVID-19 among this vulnerable population. In addition, many North Carolinians experiencing increased financial instability are now at risk of homelessness.

Currently, North Carolina has just under 9,000 shelter beds and on any given day, an estimated 9,500 people are experiencing homelessness. Congregate settings are acting fast to align with CDC recommendations, but due to limited access to resources and space constraints, shelters are struggling to support recommended social distancing and hygiene standards.

Immediate Needs

To meet immediate needs, three areas of funding are proposed: Housing Stabilization, Quarantining, and Safety & Health Supplies. An estimated $6.5 million in funding would support shelters and outreach teams in each region of the state to expand capacity and services for high-risk individuals and families to reduce the impact of COVID-19 among people experiencing homelessness or at imminent risk of homelessness. This is a quickly changing situation and flexibility is essential. Funding to cover these immediate needs will allow providers to meet the urgent need and plan for the next step.

Safety and Health Supplies for Homeless and Domestic Violence Shelters: 

In surveys from shelters across NC, nearly all mentioned that they did not have adequate supplies and safety resources to serve their population safe. What is needed:

• Thermometers for regular testing of everyone in the shelter
• Dividers and bed tents to create more separation within shelters
• Cleaning Supplies
• Creative solutions to personal protective equipment
• Handwashing stations
• Hygiene kits and thermometers for people still sleeping outside

Quarantining: 

This would provide support to expand staff-time needed to adequately support shelter response. Shelters will need to compensate staff, including overtime, for work typically covered by volunteers or staff who are now self-quarantined.

It can also support the expansion of shelter sites to hotel/motels, trailers, churches, and community centers, and transportation to safe settings to allow for social distancing & separation of symptomatic and asymptomatic people experiencing homelessness.

Diversion - Prevent people from entering shelter: 

This would support 1,000-1,500 households with housing search and navigation, support with utilities and rental assistance, hotel/motel vouchers, short-term case management, conflict mediation, and connection to mainstream services. Diversion can keep shelters from being overcrowded, allowing shelters to best address social distancing needs within their spaces.

Recovery Needs

As communities begin to recover from the initial impact of COVID-19, homelessness will be a lagging indicator of the ongoing impact of COVID-19. To help North Carolina communities recover financial relief will need to focus on helping people obtain and maintain permanent housing. Four areas of funding will be needed to cover landlord expenses related to lost rent, recruit new landlords to provide access to units, prevent homelessness through financial and case management services, and rapidly rehouse households that experience homelessness.  

Financial Relief for Landlords: 

This would provide support to landlords for lost rent due to the economic impact of COVID-19 and court closings. Landlords will need support while they manage their expenses and the projected loss of rent income. This includes tenants and homeowners who may face being put out of their homes because of the inability to meet their financial obligations, along with landlord representatives and lenders. The interests of tenants and landlords are intertwined, and this funding will help landlords to stay in business to keep families housed and safe.

Landlord Engagement and Recruitment: 

This would assist housing programs with recruiting landlords and provide financial support to account for the additional barriers of signing leases and moving people during the economic recovery. This would also support repairs to units so more units in the state can pass inspection and increase overall stock available for rental assistance programs. Housing programs need support in finding and retaining landlords so that they can continue to put households into units to reduce the number of people in congregate shelters and improve community health.

Diversion - Prevent people from entering shelter:

This would support 1,000-1,500 households with housing search and navigation, support with utilities and rental assistance, hotel/motel vouchers, short-term case management, conflict mediation, and connection to mainstream services. Diversion can keep shelters from being overcrowded, allowing shelters to continue social distancing needs within their spaces and communities to reduce the number of households experiencing housing crises in the wake of COVID-19.

Statewide Expansion of Back@Home Disaster Rehousing:

This funding would support the expansion of the Back@Home program to provide housing navigation services, short-term financial assistance, and housing stabilization services to households experiencing homelessness while reducing the risk for community spread of COVID-19 by decreasing shelter populations. Back@Home was initially created to reduce the impact of Hurricane Florence and improve the resiliency of the state for future disasters. North Carolina can build on this successful program to help the state recover from COVID-19.