With local emergency housing aid running out, the county will provide $50,000 more to help prevent evictions this spring and later will reopen the county's Section 8 rental waiting list, which has been closed since 2003.
In an address to human services workers, Howard County Executive Ken Ulman said that although his budget for next fiscal year is not complete, he wants to preserve the 45 percent increase in county funding to nonprofits provided this budget year.
"My goal is to maintain that increased level of funding. These are tough times for governments, for nonprofits and for families in need," he said, noting that 3 percent of Howard County families have incomes below the federal poverty level of $20,650 for a family of four.
Ulman addressed about 75 people at a breakfast sponsored by the Association of Community Services in Oakland Mills on Thursday. The association is a human services umbrella group of more than 100 nonprofits in the county.
Ulman covered a range of topics, including housing, transportation, poverty and health insurance. The executive said he soon will offer the County Council legislation to create a Self Sufficiency Board that would help plan and coordinate poverty-fighting efforts in the county. He said that Howard is getting federal money for a planner to work on the effects of the federal base realignment and closing program on human services in the county.
"We're already at capacity," Susan Rosenbaum, the county Citizens Services director, said about the nonprofits. Additional residents coming with the BRAC influx will only stress services more.
"A lot of them will be high-income, but they are going to bring problems with them," she said.
Rosenbaum said most of the extra $50,000 in emergency funding will go to the Community Action Agency, the county's private poverty-fighting agency. It is money Rosenbaum set aside from within her agency's budget for the current fiscal year to meet a need, Ulman said.
The executive also mentioned his Healthy Howard plan for people without health insurance, but in a way that relates the planned services to poverty prevention. A key portion of the health plan, he said, are health coaches who will work with people to achieve healthier lifestyles in hopes of avoiding costly visits to the emergency room. That same approach could be used in reducing poverty, with financial planning services and other efforts aimed at helping people live stable lives.
"Prevention services are less expensive than crisis care," Ulman said.
James Smith, director of the Community Action Council, said his agency's allocation of $100,000 for emergencies for the year ending June 30 will be gone in a month, and he projects a deficit of $70,000 at the current spending rate.
"This week, a man came in and needed $2,200" to avoid eviction, Smith said. The agency provided $1,500 and the man had some money of his own, while the rest came from other agencies. Smith said Community Action only helps people with money who show they can remain stable financially over the long term.
Stacy L. Spann, the county housing director, said his staff is culling the Section 8 federal rent subsidy waiting list, which was up to 2,800 people when it was closed to new applicants in October 2003. Since then, federal funding for housing vouchers has tightened, and rents have risen to the point that the county has more subsidized tenants than it can afford. But Spann said opening the list is worthwhile.
"You never know what will happen," Spann said about the future of federal funding for housing subsidies. The county's list has not been reviewed for a long time. Culling through the names and paring down the list so it can be re-opened will prepare the county for a time "when opportunities do show themselves."
larry.carson@baltsun.com