BP PLC has not increased Baldwin homeless as much as some relief officials had expected, but representatives of local housing assistance to worry about how many households still face financial collapse.
A worrying trend noted by Mike Brokowsky family Promise is the increase in requests for help from mother of two families of housing. Family Promise provides temporary shelter for up to four homeless families with children through a network of local churches.
"The greatest majority of our calls were always of parents with many children, but one of the families in our program now is a parent of a child and can receive more calls of husbands and wives, father of two families," said Brokowsky. "They wouldn't necessarily come in program because a parent would be against him and the other not, but I have seen a larger number of two-parent families call-this year".
Brokowsky said that one spouse losing a job in a two-income can push many families up to the point of losing their homes.
Another source of help for some of these families is federal homeless prevention and Re-Housing program, which can provide rapid assistance in paying rent, utilities, or legal services to avoid expulsion, Dan Williams, Director of the first housing, said. Housing first oversees the program HPRH Mobile and Baldwin counties.
Williams said they were still being compiled year-end reports and totals for the number of people receiving assistance weren't available Monday.
In Mobile County, some funding is provided by the Commission of the County and city of Mobile, he said. The money will be available until the end of 2011 and the following year.
In Baldwin County, however, all funds for the program comes through the Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs. Financing ADECA will run in September, so that local agencies are trying to find families needing assistance while the money is available, said Williams.
"I expect we'll be very busy during the first half of 2011 with this project and we want to be," said Williams. "If we can increase the requests by other third party, which is probably what we need to do, because I know that families are out there. Many people aren't seeking such assistance when they are eligible to get it.
"It's really for families who have never been in this situation before. They always paid their rent utilities. They always worked and so these are families that are very reluctant to ask for help, then we can get them at the point where they're really desperate.
The period between the first request for funding may take two to four weeks, said Williams.
Williams said families whose income falls below 50% of the average median income to an area and who lost their homes or at risk of becoming homeless could be eligible for support, said Williams. For a family of four in Baldwin County, this level of 50 per cent would be $ 30.150.
Many owners have tried to help tenants, not remove them when the residents have fallen months behind on payments and now feel the need to take action.
"What is surprising is the number of private landlords who are leaving people just stay in their dwelling waiting at some point that they will get another job and catch up," said Williams. "We're running into families more that are much further behind on your bills than predicted, two or three months, but it is not uncommon, unfortunately, these families to be five and six months back".
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