By: Diane Benjamin

Organizations that relied on funding through PATH administration of grants were crushed when PATH failed them. Recycling Furniture for Families isn’t the only one, they are just the only one that reached out to me for help.

PATH is no longer responsible for grant applications. The McLean County Center for Human Resources is now handling them. That office administers Central Illinois Continuum of Care grants for numerous counties, including McLean.  U.S. Department of Urban Development hands them money. If all this  bureaucracy isn’t clear, WGLT has details in this story: https://shorturl.at/2gRav

Recycling Furniture for Families is $ 73,255 in the hole because of PATH. There won’t be a fast resolution to recovering from lost funding for over a year. If you have the ability to help them, their Executive Director sent me this link: https://www.paypal.com/us/fundraiser/charity/4194532

Below is an email sent by the McLean County Center for Human Resources CEO with requirements for new grant funding. It makes my head hurt just reading it. Note all the acronyms. Grants require matching funds, they never have before. With this massive amount of red tape one would think the federal government doesn’t waste billions of dollars every year on fraud. Sorry, they do. Washington DC paper pushers don’t need to exist. All they do is make less money available to actually help people after taxes are washed through politicians and government employees. States should be making funding decisions, not DC.

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Good afternoon.  I hope this email finds you well.  We have been working with our contract manager at HUD to get clarity on this matter so I apologize for the delay.  

In the past your program was funded through a category of funding that has expired and is no longer available.  If you feel your program can meet the requirements in one of the categories below please complete the new project process outlined in the notice.  I have copied it below for your convenience.  Your project will need to fall into one of the categories below to be considered for funding:

·         Rapid Rehousing (RRH) (Can include rental assistance for victims of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault or stalking.)

·         Permanent Supportive Housing (PSH)

·         Joint Transitional Housing/Rapid Rehousing (TH/RRH) (Can include rental assistance for victims of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault or stalking.)

·         Supportive Services Only-Coordinated Entry (Can include assistance for victims of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault or stalking.)

The LOI must include:

·         Applicant Organization Name and Contact Information of Person Submitting the LOI.

·         Brief Description of the Project, including:

o   Type of Project (see above)

o   How housing will be provided –  for example in a building owned by the applicant, in master leased units, through tenant-based rental assistance, etc.  Note that RRH must be provided in the form of time-limited tenant-based rental assistance.

o   Population to be served.

o   Services to be provided.

o   Project timeline. 

o   Organizational capacity to manage federal funding, including any prior experience with State or federal grants.  Please mention whether your organization has audited financial statements for the past two years.

Please submit your LOI as a single PDF document of no more than 3 pages.  LOIs should be emailed to CICoC@mcchs.org with the subject line:  2024 CICoC New Project LOI.  Submit no later than 6 p.m. on September 13, 2024.

Please note that funding to support new projects may be contingent upon the CICoC application scoring high enough to be awarded Bonus Projects. HUD requires a 25% match for all awards.  The match can be in the form of cash, in-kind or revenue.

Once received the project will be submitted to the “Rank and Review” committee who will meet on September 17 to review and recommend projects for funding to the CICoC Board.  

As we no longer have the CORE and FID funding project applicants will be responsible for submitting their own applications into e-SNAPS and provide the HUD required reports.  

I hope this information has been helpful and please let me know if you have further questions.

Joan Hartman, M.Ed.

Chief Executive Officer

McLean County Center for Human Services