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HUD hosts Rocky Mountain symposium in Salt Lake City

By Connie Baker Wolfe, RCAC regional manager – housing

Rural America is not immune from skyrocketing rates of homelessness. In fact, the National Alliance to End Homelessness estimates that “… approximately 744,000 people are homeless on any given night,” and “Over the course of a year an estimated 2.5 and 3.5 million people will experience homelessness” in the United States.[1]

Homelessness is most often defined “as a person who lacks a fixed, regular and adequate night-time residence.” And, homelessness is not only in urban or high poverty areas. In fact, in many rural resort towns or high-cost communities in Colorado, Wyoming, Montana or Utah, homelessness is often a well-kept community secret. In Park City, Utah; Jackson, Wyoming or Kalispell, Montana a homeless person might sleep on a friend’s couch night after night, or share a small over crowded one-bedroom apartment with 6-10 people. In eastern Colorado, the homeless sleep on the streets, in open doorways and alleys or pressed against a garage door to keep warm. Bridges, steam grates and recessed doorways fill at night with men and women unable to find space in crowded shelters.

Recently, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) provided funding and local support to host a two-day homeless symposium in Salt Lake City. HUD’s focus was on building its continuum of care (CoC) services in Region VIII, which includes Colorado, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah and Wyoming. The CoC grants supply funds to thousands of local homeless programs that provide transitional and permanent housing to the homeless and important services such as health care, substance abuse treatment and child care.

The symposium offered a forum for rural homeless providers to share their success stories, review case studies and tour successful programs. Rural Community Assistance Corporation and Abt Associates co-sponsored the event. Pauline Zvonkovic, HUD’s Utah operations specialist, worked with local homeless providers and the state to arrange speakers and site visits to successful CoC funded transitional projects in Salt Lake City.

Karen Clark, HUD’s Region VIII community and planning department program manager, opened the symposium with a discussion on the direction of homeless policy and the CoC competition process. Clark is the homeless contact in the Denver regional office.

The symposium was a success, attracting more than 100 guests from eight western states. Utah providers discussed how they built a successful statewide continuum, including how they engaged policy makers, funders, business community members and profit and nonprofit partners. Sessions focused on development and implementation of long-range action plans to create transitional units and provide adequate services to the homeless.

“The individuals who attended the symposium represent organizations, staff and volunteers dedicated to eliminating homelessness in their respective communities,” said Greg Hancock, Wyoming Housing Network, Inc. chief executive officer/president and symposium facilitator. “Many of these providers asked for specific sessions and case studies when we sponsored last year’s symposium in Casper, Wyoming. The response has been overwhelming. The next step is to take what they learned back to their communities, and use the knowledge and resources to develop additional units, useful programs and services to end homelessness.”

A special thank you goes to Bank of the West for sponsoring meals, breaks and providing special giveaways.

RCAC continues to work on homeless issues throughout its 13 state region. For more information on RCAC homeless services contact:

Joe Waters, Regional Manager Housing (AZ/S.CA/NM)

Connie Baker Wolfe, Regional Manager Housing (CO/UT/MT)

Bruce Newman, Regional Manager Housing (AK/WA/OR/ID)

For more information on HUD CoC programs, go to http://www.hud.gov/offices/cpd/homeless/programs/index.cfm

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