By MATT PIKE
St. Joseph Post
A federal grant used to fight homelessness in St. Joseph has been extended.
The St. Joseph City Council has agreed to extend services with the United Way of Greater St. Joseph to help run the Continuum of Care to tackle the homeless problem.
United Way President Kylee Strough says the Continuum of Care is designed through a federal grant to help provide a system of resources for those experiencing homelessness
"To aid in homelessness prevention and to make someone's experience with homelessness as short as possible," Strough tells KFEQ/St. Joseph Post
Strough says the United Way came on board with the city in June of 2022, joining a program called Homebase, to help focus on more local issues
"To help bring parties together, create space for conversations to happen, to recognize gaps in service delivery, to try to address those, ectera, so that's the role United Way is working on," Strough explains.
Homebase helps all across the country in tackling homeless issues, so the United Way helps out in those areas that they cannot.
Strough says the partnership between the city and United Way is really a great marriage
"Because United Way cares about people in our community and already works with a number of agencies, this seems like a really natural way to extend what we were doing and kind of become the home for the CoC operations locally," Strough points out.
Strough says prior to United Way's involvement it was a little more difficult to figure out how to contact someone involved in the Continuum of Care, but now all you have to do is contact United Way.
Strough says through the Continuum of Care the city has adopted a blueprint of services to provide for those experiencing homelessness.
"Kind of the strategic direction of what services we currently have available, where we'd like as a community to improve, and keeping us focused on how to get there," Strough says.
Strough says some services provided through the Continuum of Care include the Community Services cold weather shelters as well as a help line that can be contacted 24-7.