Loss of grant closes door on housing assistance program

Editor's Note: This story has been edited to reflect that the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development decided not to fund the local housing assistance program.

Leah McCoy doesn’t know where she and her teenage daughter will call home later this year. A housing assistance program, on which she and her daughter rely, is closing by summer’s end, and that could send them packing.

“We are just kind of in shock,” the Cape Girardeau woman said. “They told me we had to be out by July.”

McCoy and her 13-year-old daughter are among 26 households benefiting from a rental assistance program that helps households in which at least one member has a disability and has been or is at risk of being homeless.

Cape Girardeau’s Community Caring Council has operated the federal-grant-funded program for the past 16 years. But the agency, which applies annually for the grant money, did not receive funding for the program for the fiscal year beginning Sept. 1, said Community Caring Council executive director Melissa Stickel.

Community Caring Council had sought $216,000 to fund the supportive housing program for another year.

Stickel said her agency will appeal to the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development to restore funding, but Stickel said she doesn’t expect the appeal to be successful.

The Missouri Housing Development Commission (MHDC) recommended approval, but HUD did not fund the Community Caring Council program, Stickel said.

She said the agency had to compete for funding with programs in 101 largely rural counties in Missouri for a share of $4.9 million in funding.

The federal funding is about $190,000 less than the total amount available the previous year.

In addition, some HUD money was earmarked for two new programs in the latest funding cycle, which reduced the amount of grant money allocated for housing assistance programs like that of the Community Caring Council, Stickel said.

“It is sad we didn’t get renewed,” she said. “Yes, I am extremely concerned. We have 26 households that will be displaced.”

Stickel said the agency is working to find housing options for the affected households. Some people, she said, will be transitioned to other assistance programs.

But there may be no suitable options for some of the households, Stickel said.

McCoy doesn’t know where she will end up.

She worries she may end up with no financial assistance, forcing her to move to a smaller, less desirable place that would cost less to rent.

“I don’t want my child to end up in a bad area,” McCoy said.

The 44-year-old McCoy is disabled.

She suffers from back and neck injuries sustained from domestic violence, which forced her to quit working three years ago. She walks with a walker.

She and her daughter live on McCoy’s disability payments in a rental home in the 600 block of North Middle Street.

They have been helped by the housing assistance program since November 2017.

The program used to pay 100 percent of their rent. But last September, the Community Caring Council started requiring households to pay 10 percent of monthly income as rent.

McCoy pays $105.50 a month toward her rent. The housing subsidy pays the rest.

Stickel said the grant never covered all of the costs. Community Caring Council operates the program at a financial loss. Stickel said the agency implemented the requirement households pay some of the rental cost to reduce the program’s operating deficit.

Without some assistance, McCoy worries she and her daughter will be out on the street.

She said she had assumed the housing program would always be funded.

But Community Caring Council’s Stickel said the program has always relied on annually securing a competitive grant.

mbliss@semissourian.com

(573) 388-3641