Lynchburg Reporter

Lynchburg Regional Business Alliance issued the following announcement on Jan. 19

Before the end of 2021, Miriam’s House started a “Home for the Holidays” campaign where donations were fully designated to assist with rent, utility and housing costs in order to keep formerly homeless families housed and to move newly homeless families into housing.

Sarah Quarantotto, executive director, said the nonprofit rehoused 22 homeless households between Oct. 1 to Dec. 31, exceeding its goal of 20 households.

“We're housing people every day of the year, but I think people get really excited around people being in homes for the holidays so we used that to get more people in housing,” she said.

In addition, it runs a street outreach program, Homeless Outreach & Mobile Engagement (H.O.M.E.), working with unsheltered neighbors who are sleeping outside, in parks, cars or under bridges. HOME is the only street outreach program in the region and has a 68% success rate of moving individuals off the streets and into housing, which is significantly higher than the national average of 30%, Quarantotto said.

“It’s really good to meet the chronically homeless in the community, so we’re literally sending staff members out to find people instead of sitting to wait,” Quarantotto said. “People have their own reservations and ideas about that so we go and find those solutions and find them on the streets.”

In the past year, the community has seen a 50% reduction in the number of people experiencing homelessness, she said.

“And obviously, it's mostly because we didn't have evictions for most of the year thanks to the Virginia Rent Relief Program,” she said, referring to a program designed to support and ensure housing stability across the commonwealth during the coronavirus pandemic. “So it's always nice to have reductions in homelessness.”

Evictions started back up in August 2021, but the state’s rent relief program will have enough money to fund that program for all of 2022, Quarantotto said.

“We want landlords to take advantage of that, so they're not evicting their tenants and they get all their money,” she said.

The biggest cause of eviction is nonpayment of rent.

“We're still seeing people experience homelessness,” she said. “Maybe their landlord didn't go to the court and just sent them a text they had to be out and people don’t necessarily know that that's illegal. Or maybe they weren't in a rental agreement, so maybe they were staying with family or seeing a friend's rental house and they never had a lease, so we’re still seeing those experiencing homelessness, but we’ve never seen a year-over-year reduction like that.”

She said that’s mostly attributable to safety nets such as benefits and increases in unemployment last year and tax credits.

Miriam’s House has had a homeless hotline in the community that it started as a partnership with the City of Lynchburg in 2013. It brought that in house to the nonprofit this summer. It allows staff to triage, much like a hospital emergency department, to figure out the right intervention for clients.

Miriam’s House offers various housing programs to work with people experiencing homelessness. One is focused on families, another works with the chronically homeless and provides rental assistance and supportive services.

“So when a family is homeless, like at Salvation Army or Hand-Up Lodge, our caseworkers meet with them and figure out a housing plan,” Quarantotto said.

Lynchburg Community Action Group works with Miriam’s House through the CHIA Program and Homeless Prevention Services in serving persons experiencing homelessness.

Original source can be found here.