The Pennsylvania Housing Affordability and Rehabilitation Enhancement (PHARE) fund has awarded a $75,000 grant to Friends Association for Care & Protection of Children to expand the Homeless Prevention Program (HPP).

The grant will be used to hire a case manager based in Coatesville to work with 25 additional families to maintain permanent housing through a balance of financial assistance and strength-based case management.

“HPP is our largest and most comprehensive program,” said Jennifer Lopez, Friends Association’s Executive Director. “To reach the goal of ending homelessness, we address an important piece of the housing puzzle: preventing people from becoming homeless in the first place. HPP, as with all Friends programs, offers equal access and a safe, welcoming, inclusive environment to all families of varying identities and abilities in Chester County.”

“If you look at how the PHARE funding is spent, the uses are varied across rental housing and homeownership,” said Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency (PHFA) Executive Director and CEO Brian A. Hudson Sr. “Communities know best what their local housing needs are, and we rely entirely on their requests when determining how best to allocate this funding. There is no single program that alone can end homelessness in the state.”

Funding for the PHARE program comes from three main sources. Since 2012, the program has received a portion of the impact fees collected from natural gas companies operating in the state with the goal of addressing the housing shortage caused by the impact of drilling. That is supplemented with two major new funding sources that include a portion of the realty transfer tax and money from the National Housing Trust Fund.
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