Housing Resources, Inc. of Kalamazoo County

HRI's goals include 1)Providing, maintaining and increasing the number of safe, stable, affordable and permanent housing units in Kalamazoo County, 2) Providing emergency shelter for families with children experiencing homelessness and rapidly re-housing them within a 30 day period, 3) Preventing homelessness and providing housing assistance and supports to individuals and families experiencing homelessness through community wide strategies that leverage resources and have demonstrated success.

HRI's strategies include:
1 - Eviction Diversion is a community partnership with the District Courts, Department of Human Services, Legal Aid, United Way and HRI to work with tenants and landlords to prevent the tenant from becoming homeless while satisfying the needs of the landlord. In most cases, the landlord agrees to keep the tenant in their unit and the back rent is paid while the tenant engages in services. The tenant avoids homelessness, a negative credit and eviction history and the landlord avoids a vacant unit and loss of revenue.
2 - Financial Stability for Educational Success is a partnership with United Way and Goodwill Industries and funded in part by the Siemer Institute for Family Stability, the strategy targets supports for families with school aged children to improve the financial and housing stability of the household in order to improve the academic and educational success for the children.
3 - Family Self-Sufficiency provides case management services to individuals who have a housing voucher for the purpose of improving income and employment for the eventual goal of moving them off of the subsidized voucher housing program allowing for movement and improvement.
4 - Rapid Re-housing is a specific strategy applied to those experiencing homelessness with moderate needs. The goal is to exit homelessness within 30 days using short term rental subsidy and supportive services to stabilize moderate barriers.
5 - Permanent Supportive Housing efforts are for households where the head of household is living with a disability. It provides for long-term supports and subsidies while working towards the goals of improved income and stability in all areas.
6 - Eleanor House Family Shelter/Rapid Re-housing Center is our family shelter with the focus on rapid re-housing efforts.

HRI serves in an expanded role in the housing sector throughout Kalamazoo County. We are a provider of direct services as:

• the single Housing Assessment and Resource Agency (HARA) for the Continuum of Care; and,
• the primary provider of emergency assistance-housing for the Emergency Financial Assistance Network (EFAN) of the United Way of the Battle Creek and Kalamazoo Region; and,
• the administrator of the City of Kalamazoo Tenant Based Rental Assistance Program since 1992.

Our Housing Stabilization Program provides a “One-stop-shop" experience for households seeking emergency assistance and housing information. Services include coordinated intake and assessment, homeless prevention, rapid re-housing, and permanent supportive housing. HRI has fifty-five units of Permanent Supportive Housing (PHS) for families where the head of household has a disabling condition. Seventeen of the fifty-five PSH households serve families with a history of chronic homelessness and have a chronically disabling condition. HRI has developed four Low Income Housing Tax Credit apartment communities: Pinehurst Townhomes, the Rickman House, Rosewood Planned Unit Development, and Summit Park with over 276 units of permanent affordable housing, 94 of which include supportive services for those with special needs.

Long term stability is achieved in our expanded roles as the primary provider of emergency financial assistance for housing for the United Way of the Battle Creek and Kalamazoo Region Emergency Financial Assistance Network (EFAN), and as the single Housing Assessment and Resource Agency (HARA) for the local Continuum of Care Emergency Solutions Funding. In each of these roles, private and governmental, we provide the critical community infrastructure that responds to low-income households experiencing a housing cost burden.

HRI has accomplished progress in all areas. For the last several years, HRI has annually invested over $1M into the community to house those who are at risk of experiencing homelessness or who are homeless. The cost of housing a family permanently is significantly lower than the cost of emergency shelter. HRI's goal of housing people permanently and practicing shelter diversion and rapid re-housing strategies is a goal that we are proud to accomplish on a regular basis and one that saves our community thousands of dollars on an annual basis.

We have not yet accomplished a high level of systems coordination that would change the condition of the households we serve in a way that moves the needle for our community. Our annual progress is clear. HRI houses many people that otherwise would remain or become homeless and they remain housed. However, the progressive improvement in wages that would allow the household to maintain an improved level of stability without needing to continue to access community supports remains a goal. While we accomplish this in some ways, it is not on the scale we expect to achieve and are adapting our service model to respond to this need.