The ADOH, Special Needs team has been hard at work this past quarter. Here are some of our accomplishments:

• We submitted an application on behalf of the Arizona Balance of State, Continuum of Care (AZBOSCOC) to compete for funding in answer to HUD’s Continuum of Care NOFA in the last week of September.  Two bonus projects were included; Mohave County Community Services and CBI, Inc. which, if awarded, would grow the Continuum by over $200 thousand, bringing our COC grant to $4.2 million.  This submission was the result of a team effort over the past few months and we are looking forward to the early months of 2018, when HUD plans to announce the awards. 

• The Special Needs Division is seeking proposals through a Request for Proposals issued on December 5, 2017, for a Statewide Housing Locator Service.   The goal of the program is to increase the availability of safe, affordable housing for individuals and families experiencing homelessness, and reintegrating households who are participating in permanent housing and rapid rehousing programs.  Due to low vacancy rates, rising rents, and the barriers of renting to formerly homeless and incarcerated individuals, it has become difficult to find sufficient housing units to meet this demand.  We hope that through this effort we will be able to:

• Identify safe and affordable rental units throughout Arizona

• Recruit private sector landlords, owners and property managers of these units to participate in efforts to end homelessness by leasing to tenants referred through homeless housing and rapid re-housing programs

• Educate landlords and property managers by promoting, reintegration housing programs and providing information about homelessness

• Coordinate between landlords, owners and service providers to ensure availability of housing resources in the community.

• ​ADOH currently manages ten contracts providing Rapid Rehousing services to assist 295 formerly homeless households with rent, security, utility deposits and case management services, with a goal to assist 816 by the end of June 2018. As of November 2017, we were ahead of our expected goals for the first half of the year.

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For more information, visit Special Needs Programs administered by the Arizona Department of Housing.