HPRP-General

The Cities of Yonkers, Mount Vernon, and New Rochelle were each recently awarded federal stimulus money from HUD to create new local Homelessness Prevention and Rapid Rehousing Programs, often called simply HPRP. HUD used a complex formula to decide how much each city would receive. Yonkers received $1,533,003, Mount Vernon $745,701, and New Rochelle $686,935. HUD requires that most of the money must be spent within 2 years and all must be spent within three years. The HPRP funds can be used for two main purposes: 1. to prevent people in rental housing from becoming homeless and 2. to help people who are already homeless to move more quickly into permanent housing. HUD gave cities little time to plan and implement their programs, so Yonkers, Mount Vernon and New Rochelle decided to coordinate their efforts. Each city is administering its own grant, selecting its own strategies and partners, and setting its own local priorities. The result is that the HPRP programs in the 3 cities are similar but have important differences. All three cities are focusing on eviction prevention. Yonkers is the only one of the three that is also doing a Rapid Rehousing component for the already homeless. Each city is only serving its own residents. That means that if someone is facing eviction in Yonkers, the only HPRP program they can apply to is Yonkers’. Similarly, residents of Mount Vernon and New Rochelle can only be served by the HPRP programs in their own cities. All three cities’ HPRP programs have similar eligibility criteria. All HPRP programs must use federal HPRP eligibility criteria, which include that participants’ gross household income cannot exceed 50% of the Area Median Income (AMI). The maximum income allowed is shown below: Household Size 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Gross Income $ 36,850 42,100 47,400 52,650 56,850 61,050 65,300 69,500 The federal rules prohibit the use of HPRP funds to help pay mortgages. They also require that eviction prevention funds can only be used for households that would lose their housing if not for the assistance provided by HPRP. The 3 cities are also using similar local eligibility criteria for their eviction prevention programs. 1. Each will only serve households who have lived in its city within the last 12 months. 2. Each will only give eviction prevention services to households with recent housing stability, defined as at least 12 consecutive months of independent living at the same address within the last 36 months. 3. The cities have decided that participants in their eviction prevention program must have at least 2 of the 18 risk factors for homelessness identified by HUD for the HPRP program. These are listed below in the eligibility criteria for each city. 4. Each city is giving priority to serving people who have lost a job or had their employment income reduced by at least 10% over the last 12 months. 5. The eviction prevention assistance available is, by law, time-limited and the amount of funds available cannot meet the needs of every potentially eligible household. As a result, each city will try to achieve the greatest possible impact by selecting households for this program who represent the best balance of urgent current need coupled with strongest potential for rapidly achieving self-sufficiency without further HPRP assistance.