Chattanooga: HUD grants fund housing via 4 agencies

A federal housing grant is providing rental houses for several Chattanooga families who otherwise may not have had a place to live.

The HomeAgain grant by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has provided more than $528,000 to four local nonprofit agencies.

The grant will provide housing and support services to help homeless people build stable lives, said Sandra Gober, manager of the city of Chattanooga’s Community Development office, which administers the grant.

Hope for the Inner City, Chattanooga Room in the Inn, Rosewood Supportive Services and Everhart Affordable Development received the grant money, Ms. Gober said. The agencies had to provide funds of their own as well, she said.

“We’re thrilled to be able to provide a continuum of services to our ladies, now that they have graduated from our program, and they can go to permanent housing,” said Erin Creel, executive director of Room in the Inn.

Like Room in the Inn, Hope for the Inner City will use the federal grant to provide rental housing for formerly homeless people, said Keisha Marshall, the agency’s housing coordinator. The organization is renovating a duplex in Glenwood to provide housing for two families.

group buys 2 houses

Room in the Inn used its grant to buy two homes in the Glenwood neighborhood and last month moved clients into the units, Ms. Creel said. A woman with three children took one house, while two single women split the upper and lower floors on the second house.

The nonprofit organization provides a home for three to nine months for homeless women and children, Ms. Creel said. Services are free and include meals, life skills training and other services to help the women become self-sufficient. Once the clients graduate from the program, the organization helps them find permanent housing.

The Glenwood homes are being rented to clients who recently graduated the program, Ms. Creel said. The organization is using project-based vouchers from the Chattanooga Housing Authority to pay the tenants’ rent, Ms. Creel said.

moral support

The HomeAgain grant provided 75 percent of the houses’ purchase price, Ms. Creel said. The organization funded the remainder of the price, about $50,000, through a mortgage. The tenants’ rent will pay off the mortgage and allow Chattanooga Room in the Inn to find more houses for homeless women and children, she said.

Room in the Inn will continue to provide the renters with support services, Ms. Creel said. Hope for the Inner City also will provide ongoing support services to its renters, Ms. Marshall said, such as literacy and finance classes.

The Community Development office plans to apply for more HomeAgain funds in the future, but it’s too soon to say when that might be, Ms. Gober said.