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Catholic Charities of Diocese of Palm Beach Inc., Samaritan Center, Children's Services Advisory Committee Grant Be PROGRAM NEED STATEMENT (Entire Section B not to exceed one page) 1 . a) What is the unacceptable condition requiring change? b) Who has the need ? c) Where do they live? d) Provide local, state or national trend data, with reference source, that corroborates that this is an area of need. a) The unacceptable condition requiring change is that of homelessness, a lack of higher education, vocational skills training and parenting skills. In addition, there are typically problems of substance abuse, physical and emotional abuse, financial problems, legal issues, transportation difficulties, mental health issues, and a general lack of adaptive life problem solving skills. b) The need is realized by families that are homeless or living in unacceptable living conditions . Families must consist of at least one adult age 18+ with at least one child age 0- 17 or a pregnant female 18 years or older. c) They must be residents of Indian River County. Most are in the process of being evicted. Some have already been evicted and are living in cars, tents or on someone ' s porch for a limited time . In some cases the court mandates that a parent come into our program in order to be reunified with their child/children. d) Data : A recent article provided by the Florida Coalition for the Homeless titled "Why do Floridians Become (and remain) Homeless?" Stated that in 2000, more than 67,000 men, women and children were homeless in Florida' s streets and shelters on any given night. 3 to 4 times as many Floridians were homeless at some point during the course of that year. This does not include hundreds of thousands of others living on the brink of homelessness. Many Floridians are homeless because they cannot afford housing . . . * A worker in Florida needs to earn a wage of $ 13 . 35 per hour in 2001 to afford rent on a 2 bedroom apartment . . . * For every 100 extremely low-income renters in Florida, there are only 64 units of housing that are affordable to them, the 5th most sever shortage in the Nation. . . *A comprehensive nationwide survey of homeless persons found the most frequently reported reason for their homelessness was the inability to pay rent. Many Floridians are homeless because incomes are insufficient to meet basic needs . . . More than 1 million ( 16 . 3 %) of Florida' s 6 . 3 million households enumerated in the 2000 Census had incomes of less than $ 15 ,000 per year . . . * 176,000 Florida workers earned an hourly wage of $ 5 . 15 per hour or less in 2000 . Of Florida' s 3 . 8 million hourly wage workers, 28% of them earned less than $ 7. 15 per hour . . . * One in five Florida children live in poverty, and 30% of children live in families where no parent has full-time, year round employment. 2. a) Identify similar programs that are currently serving the needs of your targeted population; b) Explain how these existing programs are under-serving the targeted population of your program. The program closest to ours is the "Homeless Assistance Center". They have only been serving homeless families on an emergency basis but have recently added a new transitional wing for families . They plan to begin serving families in this new wing within the next few weeks. During the last CSAC fiscal year, our program had requests for residency from 175 families consisting of 216 adults, 311 children and 16 pregnancies . For the first 7 months of this CSAC fiscal year we have had requests from 96 families consisting of 114 adults, 152 children and 12 pregnancies . Even when the Homeless Assistance Center opens their new wing, the two facilities will still not be able to house every family that needs and requests housing assistance through our program. 5