August 30, 2010 Contact: Kevin Finn, 513-263-2788

YWCA of Greater Cincinnati Selected to Develop and Operate New Emergency Shelter for Homeless Single Women

Currently, most emergency shelter beds that are available to serve single women are located at the Drop Inn Center, which also serves a large number of homeless men in the same facility. The Homeless to Homes Plan, which was submitted to the City of Cincinnati by the Cincinnati/Hamilton County Continuum of Care for the Homeless, Inc (CoC, Inc.) recommends a new separate emergency shelter facility for homeless single women, as many women are uncomfortable in the same facility with men.

Since the release of the Homeless to Homes Plan, questions have arisen regarding what agency would be most appropriate to operate the new Emergency Shelter for Homeless Single Women. Two agencies expressed strong interest in this project: the Drop Inn Center, which currently has 42 beds for single women and the YWCA of Greater Cincinnati which has 60 beds in its Domestic Violence Shelter serving both single women and women with children.

To resolve the question of what agency should operate the new Emergency Shelter for Homeless Single Women, on June 3, 2010, representatives from the YWCA, the CoC, Inc., the City of Cincinnati, 3CDC, and the Board of Directors of the Drop Inn Center agreed to the following: the CoC, Inc. would issue a Request for Proposal (RFP) to identify the most appropriate operator for a new Emergency Shelter for Homeless Single Women. It was specified in the RFP that the provider should have significant experience providing services to women, have experience with the specific needs of homeless women, and have the capacity to provide emergency shelter and services for single women in a women-only facility within the Cincinnati/Hamilton County community. It was also specified that the proposals would be reviewed by a panel of national experts on homelessness among women, and the panelist recommendations followed.

Proposals were submitted to the CoC, Inc. at the end of July, and then reviewed by this panel of experts. After a month of consideration and question and answer, the review panel unanimously selected the YWCA of Greater Cincinnati as the most appropriate operator of the new Emergency Shelter for Homeless Single Women.

As the Homeless to Homes Plan has been accepted by Cincinnati City Council, and incorporated into the Consolidated Plan submitted to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, all City funding and City-allocated HUD funding for providing emergency shelter to single-women is anticipated to be allocated to the YWCA as the agency designated through this process.

Results of Large Group Scoring 2010

Results of Large Group Scoing 2010 are now available. Thank you to all who participated.

Please feel free to contact me with any questions at kfinn@cincinnaticoc.org.

Great News!

While our full CoC scores have not yet been released, on July 7th HUD announced that our Continuum scored highly enough to be fully funded! All of the new projects our CoC applied for in our 2009 application have been funded! My congratulations to Bethany House, Over-the-Rhine Community Housing, Talbert House, the Freestore Foodbank, Goodwill Industries and the Salvation Army on receiving funding for the following new programs:

C	Applicant		Project Name		Program		Awarded Amount
Bethany House Services, Inc.		Family Transitional Program		SHP		$658,761
City of Cincinnati		2009 OTRCH Paths to Recovery Non PH		S+C		$336,000
City of Cincinnati		2009 OTRCH Paths To Recovery PH Bonus		S+C		$829,560
City of Cincinnati		2009 Talbert SPC Expansion		S+C		$235,200
Freestore/Foodbank, Inc.		FreeStore Transitional Housing		SHP		$441,409
Ohio Valley Goodwill Industries Rehabilitation Center, Inc.		Goodwill Housing and Rehabilitation Program		SHP		$706,923
The Salvation Army		Permanent Housing of Cincinnati		SHP		$525,000

Keep up the great work and thank you for all that you do to end homelessness in our community.

-Kevin Finn, Executive Director