Homelessness

How does it feel, Bob Dylan famously asked, to be without a home?

Few of us really know. Most of us grow up with the security of a stable home and as adults work hard to keep a blanket of safety around ourselves and our own children.

How terrifying it must be for children when their parents to say they don't know where the family will spend the night. How terrifying for the parents to have to say it.

In the past few weeks, the Community Caring Council of Cape Girardeau announced it will receive two grants to combat homelessness. One is a three-year federal grant for $542,808 to help homeless or transient disabled residents find affordable housing. The other is a one-year Missouri Housing Trust grant of $40,000 to help people in danger of becoming homeless.

Those with disabilities are in particular danger of becoming homeless because often they are living on limited incomes. They may have mentor or physical disabilities or have psychological problems caused by substance abuse.

Cape Girardeau will receive most of the attention when the federal money becomes available May 1, but funding also will be obtainable in Cape Girardeau, Perry, Scott and Bollinger counties.

The grant is not a handout. It requires the applicant to pay 30 percent of his or her income toward rent, with the grant providing the rest of the rent. The CCC will guarantee that the landlord will be paid rent each month.

Part of the grant will be used to pay a case manager who will help families get training to help them become self-sufficient.

The Missouri Housing Trust grant can help provide emergency assistance -- often a security deposit and first month's rent on an apartment -- to families who suddenly find themselves without housing. The grant will keep people in a crisis situation from becoming homeless or from having to move into transitional housing. This money also will become available in May.

Laura Baugh, a case manager for the CCC, said the organization receives five or six requests for housing assistance every day of the year. These grants will help people who really need it.