Santa Cruz County receives multi-million dollar grant to help homeless during pandemic

SANTA CRUZ COUNTY, Calif. (KION) Santa Cruz County is receiving a $9.95 million emergency solutions grant to help homeless residents during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The County's priorities with the funding include housing programs to help people transition to permanent housing and continued operations of shelter in place programs while clients transition to permanent housing.

County officials said $4.12 million of the funding will go towards getting people housed. This includes investment in rapid housing, rental assistance with wraparound services, case management, housing problem solving, family reunification, incentives and other projects.

About $5 million will go towards continuing operations of COVID-19 sheltering response systems until June 2021 or as long as funds last beyond that.

About $350,000 will be put towards street outreach to bring services to unsheltered residents in encampments or other non-shelter situations.

The county hopes to reduce homelessness by 30% over the next three years and reduce the number of people without shelter by 50% in that time.