We are all at risk of becoming homeless
We will all benefit from a homeless trust fund
These are the materials from the September 15, 2009, Homeless Trust Fund Implementation Forum.
PowerPoint Presentation in Adobe PDF Format
You and I, understand that homelessness is a risk that we all share – people of all means, of all backgrounds, of all abilities, in all of New Jersey’s counties.
You and I, must be willing to speak in one voice, throughout our communities, for the need for supportive housing and systems-based solutions to make housing for all an accessible reality.
Thus, the Advocacy Network asks you to click here to find out how to join with us to end homelessness in NJ.
One of the campaigns we are working on is to have counties establish county homeless trust funds.
The County Homeless Trust Fund Act needs your support!
This Act allows counties to create and fund their own programs to end homelessness. The trust funds will provide some of the additional funds necessary to move homeless or formerly homeless individuals toward the goal of permanent affordable housing and self-sufficiency.
A county is allowed to collect the small sum of $3 for each document that must be filed by law with the county and they have to have developed their own plan to end homelessness that the money will support.
Your voice is needed. The legislation permits counties to establish the funds. It does not require them to establish one. Thus, county freeholders must vote to implement this program, or nothing will happen.
As of today, two counties have scheduled votes on establishing their trust funds on the Monday and Tuesday of Thanksgiving week.
We are not at this point in time encouraging our members to write letters to their freeholders. This will be done as the campaign progresses and based on the status in a local county, our members determine it is advisable to write letters.
However, many people have already done so.
They have provided us with their talking points.
If you have talking points that you have used or ones that you believe could be helpful in this campaign please feel free to share them with the Advocacy Network.
Talking Points
-
As an organization and or individual knowledgeable of the homeless crisis in the county, I have seen the stress and unhappiness that parents and children experience when they no longer have a home to live in.
-
The Trust Fund will support a County’s own plan to reduce homelessness in ways that are measurable and successful.
-
The Trust Fund allows counties to create a fund through a $3 fee on the thousands of documents that must be filed with the county each year. $3 is a very small amount so it will not present a hardship to anyone paying it, but it will add up.
-
The Trust Fund allows a county to have funds that they raise and control and can be focused on reducing homelessness.
-
The Trust Fund will help to leverage the new federal funding from the reformed McKinney-Vento program that will begin to be fully implemented in 2011.
-
This Trust Fund will create a source of funding that will be independent of the political controversies that surround the bigger state plans like COAH’s.
-
The Trust Fund received bipartisan support in Trenton.
