From the Newport News Times:

The complicated nature of finding money for certain homeless services was illustrated well last week when Pegge McGuire, executive director of Community Services Consortium (CSC), pitched the concept of forming a tri-county Continuum of Care (CoC) to better compete for funds through Housing and Urban Development (HUD). McGuire showed how the current system is hinders the county’s ability to receive funding in the competitive process.

McGuire explained that Lincoln County is part of a 26-county CoC and counties are required to be part of a CoC to apply for HUD funds for homeless issues.

“The governor has validated that her intent is to put a lot of money out through the CoC system in the future,” McGuire said. “So, I feel like we need to be positioned to be ready to have a more direct allocation of that and to be more actively engaged in that process and the legislative advocacy around that.”

“We had a stakeholder meeting July 20 and voted to pull out of the ROCC,” she said, of Linn, Benton and Lincoln counties. She said the next step was to go to local legislators and ask for support in separating from the ROCC in order to form a tri-county CoC.

McGuire said she has been speaking to councils in the tri-county area and will return with a resolution when it’s convenient for the board to approve.

“Hopefully, this will march us forward and by this time next year, we will be competing on our own, outside of the ROCC, in the HUD (Notice of Funding Availability),” she said.

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